We use novel transaction-level card expenditure data to estimate the effect of the temporary value-added tax (VAT) cut in Germany 2020. We find that the annualized growth rate of expenditures for durables increased by 6 percentage points (pp) during the tax cut, with a particularly strong...

We educate investors about the benefits of dividend reinvestment and costs of misperceiving dividends as free income. The intervention increases planned dividend reinvestment in survey responses. Using trading records, we observe a causal increase in dividend reinvestment in the field of roughly...

The economic rise of China has changed the global economy. The authors explore China's transformation from a low-cost manufacturing hub to an increasingly innovation- and service-driven economy. Major growth drivers for the period 2010-2025 are analysed, including the paradigms of "Made in...

Some observers warn that a high level of economic dependence on China could negatively affect the economic resilience of Western economies and therefore recommend reducing such dependence by gradually decoupling from China. On the other hand, industry leaders emphasise the economic importance of...

We provide empirical evidence that the pricing of green bonds tends to be highly sophisticated and based on a two-tiered approach. When buying a green bond, investors do not look only at the green label of the bond but also consider additional characteristics that involve the soundness of the...

We educate investors about the benefits of dividend reinvestment and costs of misperceiving dividends as free income. The intervention increases planned dividend reinvestment in survey responses. Using trading records, we observe a causal increase in dividend reinvestment in the field of roughly...

The introduction of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in general, and of a digital euro in particular, has attracted growing interest from academic research, central banks and political decision-makers. Most of the existing literature is focused on the impact of a digital euro on monetary...

We provide empirical evidence that the pricing of green bonds tends to be highly sophisticated and based on a two-tiered approach. When buying a green bond, investors do not look only at the green label of the bond but also consider additional characteristics that involve the soundness of the...

This paper investigates retirees' optimal purchases of fixed and variable longevity income annuities using their defined contribution (DC) plan assets and given their expected Social Security benefits. As an alternative, we also evaluate using plan assets to boost Social Security benefits...

We propose a new instrument for estimating the price elasticity of gasoline demand that exploits systematic differences across U.S. states in the pass-through of oil price shocks to retail gasoline prices. These differences, which are primarily driven by variation in the cost of producing and...