Are individuals more sensitive to losses than gains in terms of economic growth? Using subjective well-being data, we observe an asymmetry in the way positive and negative economic growth are experienced. We find that measures of life satisfaction and affect are more than twice as sensitive to...

In 2011, German police accidentally stumbled upon a previously unknown right-wing extremist group called the National Socialist Underground (NSU). Further investigations implicated the group in previously unexplained murders of mostly ethnically Turkish individuals and in other crimes targeting...

In 2011, German police accidentally stumbled upon a previously unknown right-wing extremist group called the National Socialist Underground (NSU). Further investigations implicated the group in previously unexplained murders of mostly ethnically Turkish individuals and in other crimes targeting...

Using the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) data, this paper offers the first evidence that the 2011 news revelations about crimes committed by National Socialist Underground (NSU) network in early the 2000s resulted in an increase in worries about xenophobic hostility among NSU’s targeted...

Bioenergy is a major source of energy in developing countries. However, increasing demand for agricultural commodities can lead to a stronger competition for natural resources with the bioenergy production. The nexus among energy, food production and natural resource use may result in trade-offs...

Katharina Wedel prepared this study while she was working at the Center for the Economics of Education at the ifo Institute. The study was completed in September 2023 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at LMU Munich. It consists of four distinct empirical essays that...

Bioenergy is a major source of energy in developing countries. However, increasing demand for agricultural commodities can lead to a stronger competition for natural resources with the bioenergy production. The nexus among energy, food production and natural resource use may result in trade-offs...

Welfare-oriented analyses of economic outcome measures such as income and wealth generally rest on the assumption of pooled and equally shared resources among all household members. Yet the lack of individual-level data hampers the distribution of income and wealth within the household context....

Do discretionary spending cuts and tax increases hurt social well-being? To answer this question, we combine subjective well-being data covering over half a million of individuals across 13 European countries, with macroeconomic data on fiscal consolidations. We find that fiscal consolidations...

Welfare-oriented analyses of economic outcome measures such as income and wealth generally rest on the assumption of pooled and equally shared resources among all household members. Yet the lack of individual-level data hampers the distribution of income and wealth within the household context....