Over 90 percent of Germany’s raw materials supply is imported and many of these imports come from only a small handful of producer countries. Often, these producer countries tend to be less democratic. In this respect, supply risks are extremely high in some cases, including for mineral raw...

May 2022 marked the 90th anniversary of the end of Heinrich Brüning’s term as Reich Chancellor. To this day, the economic effects of Brüning’s extreme austerity measures remain unclear. However, new data and calculations have made an initial quantification of the economic consequences of...

Policymakers have been attempting to combat discrimination at all levels for a long time. However, the measures they take can only be successful if there is general awareness of the discrimination experienced by certain groups or people: Discrimination can only be addressed when people also...

The Omicron wave of the coronavirus has impacted economies worldwide, resulting in a bleak winter. Although restrictions on economic and public life have been less severe than at the beginning of 2021 in many places-mainly due to the progress of vaccination campaigns-and there are prospects of...

European societies have been experiencing growing income and wealth inequalities over the past few decades, and, accordingly, they are a topic of intense discussion. Although the population’s evaluation of inequalities as just or unjust is important for designing social policies, there has...

Sales in the construction industry will continue to increase strongly in 2022 and 2023. Overall, DIW Berlin estimates a nominal increase in construction volume of almost 13 percent in 2022 and six percent in 2023 to 585 billion euros. In 2021, construction volume increased by ten percent to 488...

According to Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data, inequality in gross monthly earnings in Germany increased significantly between 1993 and 2003 and has been stagnating at a high level since 2008. As this Weekly Report shows, the increase is not being driven by higher hourly wage inequality, but...

The German Federal Government passed the "Easter Package" in July 2022, which envisages a number of measures for the expansion of renewable energy sources. The package retains sliding market premiums as a remuneration mechanism, which protect electricity producers unilaterally, while contracts...

The consumer debt of households in Germany totals in the triple-digit billions and is characterized by a wide range of interest rates. Despite the high volume of debt, many people do not know the terms of their consumer credit contracts. This report analyzes new survey data on general knowledge...