Search Results

All
Data Type
Topic
Year
Refresh

People

People Doctoral Students PhD Representatives Alumni Supervisors Lecturers Coordinators Doctoral Students Afroza Alam (Supervisor: Reint Gropp ) Julian Andres Diaz Acosta…

See page

East Germany

The Nasty Gap 30 years after unification: Why East Germany is still 20% poorer than the West Dossier In a nutshell The East German economic convergence process is hardly…

See page

Department Profiles

Research Profiles of the IWH Departments All doctoral students are allocated to one of the four research departments (Financial Markets – Laws, Regulations and Factor Markets –…

See page

Research Clusters

Three Research Clusters Research Cluster "Economic Dynamics and Stability" Research Questions This cluster focuses on empirical analyses of macroeconomic dynamics and stability.…

See page

Brown Bag Seminar

Brown Bag Seminar Financial Markets Department The seminar series "Brown Bag Seminar" was offered on a regular basis by members of the Financial Markets department and their…

See page

Department Profiles

Research Profiles of the IWH Departments All doctoral students are allocated to one of the four research departments (Financial Markets – Laws, Regulations and Factor Markets –…

See page

Minimum Wages, Productivity, and Reallocation

Mirja Hälbig, Matthias Mertens, Steffen Müller
IZA Discussion Paper, No. 16160, 2023
Abstract
We study the productivity effect of the German national minimum wage by applying administrative firm data. At the firm level, we confirm positive effects on wages and negative employment effects and document higher productivity even net of output price increases. We find higher wages but no employment effects at the level of aggregate industry × region cells. The minimum wage increased aggregate productivity in manufacturing. We do not find that employment reallocation across firms contributed to these aggregate productivity gains, nor do we find improvements in allocative efficiency. Instead, the productivity gains from the minimum wage result from within-firm productivity improvements only.
Read article

Sources of Large Firms’ Market Power and Why It Matters

Filippo di Mauro, Matthias Mertens, Bernardo Mottironi
VOXEU COLUMN, January 2023
Abstract
Excessive market power has detrimental effects on the functioning of the economy, raising consumer prices, distorting the allocation of resources, and creating welfare losses. The existing literature has largely focussed on competition in product markets. This column argues that it is important to differentiate between various sources of firm market power on output and input (most notably labour) markets. European firm-level data reveals that large firms charge lower markups in product markets but exert their market power significantly in labour markets. Competition authorities can and must distinguish between the sources of market power when attempting to regulate it.
Read article

EFN Report Spring 2015: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2015 and 2016

EFN Reports, No. 2, 2015
Abstract
Recent movements on world markets for commodities, currencies and capital stimulate the world economy, but they entail also considerable risks: income losses of energy exporting countries might trigger financial crises with worldwide repercussions; crises might also emerge from financial distress of emerging market debtors with liabilities denominated in US dollars. Extremely low interest rates might not only trigger stock and bond price booms, but also more volatility if investors become fearful of financial bubbles. Quite a few conditions are highly beneficial for a recovery of the euro area economy: governments and large corporations benefit from ultra-low bond yields, banks’ composite costs of debt financing have been converging during the past two years to very low levels, and borrowing costs for non-financial corporations have come down markedly. Prices for stocks, bonds and (on average) houses have gone up. Real disposable incomes of private households have risen due to oil prices. The real effective exchange rate is about 10% lower in March 2015 than it was a year ago, strengthening the price competitiveness of firms in the euro area. According to our forecasts, the euro area GDP will grow by 1.6% in 2015 and by 2.1% in 2016. Structural impediments, however, still limit the ability of the euro area economy to grow strongly: firms and, in particular, private households are only slowly reducing their heavy debt burdens, and confidence will not fully come back in France and Italy, as long as reform processes are inconclusive in both countries and as long as unemployment is not coming down markedly. Our inflation forecast for 2015 is 0.1%, with the possibility of a mild deflation not excluded. In 2016 inflation will increase up to 1.3%, still clearly below the 2% ECB’s target. This calls for continued monetary expansion, though its effects could be limited in the absence of a complementary fiscal stimulus, in particular in those countries where the implementation of structural reforms brings long term gains but short term losses.
Read article

Explosive Preisentwicklung und spekulative Blasen auf Rohstoffmärkten

Oliver Holtemöller
ORDO, No. 64, 2013
Abstract
In dieser Studie wird untersucht, ob die Preisentwicklung auf Rohstoffmärkten statistische Anhaltspunkte für spekulative Preisblasen liefert. Diese Frage ist von zentraler Bedeutung in der wirtschaftspolitischen Debatte um die Regulierung des Handels von Rohstoffen. Es kann statistisch gezeigt werden, dass sich Rohstoffpreise gelegentlich explosiv verhalten. Die stärkste Evidenz für explosives Verhalten gibt es bei den Industrierohstoffen. Auch bei Nahrungsmittelpreisen können Phasen explosiven Verhaltens statistisch nachgewiesen werden. Eine wichtige Schlussfolgerung ist, dass die Ursachen explosiven Verhaltens auf Rohstoffmärkten und die Effekte von Preisblasen auf die Entscheidungen von Konsumenten und Investoren sowie Verteilungseffekte systematisch untersucht werden müssen.
Read article
Mitglied der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft LogoTotal-Equality-LogoSupported by the BMWK