We examine effects of government-imposed employment targets on firm behavior. Theoretically, such policies create “polarization,“ causing low-productivity firms to exit the market while others temporarily distort their employment upward. Dynamically, firms are incentivized to improve productivity to meet targets. Using novel data from East German firms post-privatization, we find that firms with binding employment targets experienced 25% higher annual employment growth, a 1.1% higher annual exit probability, and 10% higher annual productivity growth over the target period. Structural estimates reveal substantial misallocation of labor across firms and that subsidizing productivity growth would yield twice the long term increases in employment.

Syndicated loan data provided by DealScan is an essential input in banking research. This data is rich enough to answer urging questions on bank lending, e.g., in the presence of financial shocks or climate change. However, many data options raise the question of how to choose the estimation sample. We employ a standard regression framework analyzing bank lending during the financial crisis of 2007/08 to study how conventional but varying usages of DealScan affect the estimates. The key finding is that the direction of coefficients remains relatively robust. However, statistical significance depends on the data and sampling choice and we provide guidelines for applied research.

Das zuletzt moderate Tempo der Weltkonjunktur wird sich zunächst fortsetzen. In Europa dürfte sich die Konjunktur ab dem Winterhalbjahr 2024/2025 leicht beleben. In Deutschland sorgt vor allem das schleppende Exportgeschäft für mangelnde wirtschaftliche Impulse. Doch der private Konsum wird im Winterhalbjahr zu einer leichten Erholung der Konjunktur beitragen. Das Bruttoinlandsprodukt dürfte im Jahr 2024 stagnieren und im Jahr 2025 um 1,0% zulegen.