The comparative economic performance between the former socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) remains inconclusive due to valuation problems. We address these problems by applying wedge-growth accounting to a newly compiled dataset. More...

German reunification in 1990 marked the first sudden integration of a socialist and capitalist economy. Despite East Germany’s (EG) economic catch-up with West Ger- many (WG), the integration remains unfinished, as indicated by per capita output in EG still being about one-third lower. To...

We provide experimental evidence that enabling access to universal early child care increases maternal labor supply and promotes gender equality among families with lower socioeconomic status (SES). Our intervention offers information and customized help with child care applications, leading to...

We study the effects of different financing rules for untargeted energy price brakes and subsidies on intergenerational welfare in a large-scale overlapping generations model. The results indicate that, in comparison to a laissez-faire solution without any government interventions, debt-financed...

We present experimental evidence that enabling access to universal early child care for families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) increases maternal labor supply. Our intervention provides families with customized help for child care applications, resulting in a large increase in enrollment...

We propose a modified version of the augmented Kalman filter (AKF) to evaluate the likelihood of linear and time-invariant state-space models (SSMs). Unlike the regular AKF, this augmented steady-state Kalman filter (ASKF), as we call it, is based on a steady-state Kalman filter (SKF). We show...

This paper studies the age-group-specific evolution of inequality of total income among highly and less educated females and males at ages 26-80 from 2005 to 2018. On the one hand, it presents time series of Gini coefficients and associated decompositions by different income components. On the...

To which extent do equity and housing hedge against inflation? Despite an extensive literature, there is only little consensus. This paper presents new evidence from the Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database, which covers return rates on housing and equity as well as consumer price...

The risk premium puzzle is even worse than previously reported if housing is also taken into consideration next to equity. While housing premia are only moderately smaller than equity premia, they are significantly less volatile and the Sharpe ratio of housing is significantly larger. Hence,...

We take the neoclassical perspective and apply the business cycle accounting method as proposed by Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2007, Econometrica) for the Great Recession and the associated stimulus program in Germany 2008-2009. We include wedges to the variables government consumption,...