We decompose the persistent satisfaction gap between East and West Germany into effects of objective circumstances and subjective mentality, the latter presumed to be a legacy of communist socialization. Using the methodology proposed by Senik (2014) in a cross-national context, we capture...

We combine particular features of the German civil service with the unique event of German reunification to test the theory of precautionary savings and to quantify the importance of self-selection into occupations due to differences in risk aversion. In the presence of self-selection, failing...

This volume was prepared by Marc Piopiunik while he has been working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in June 2011 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes four self-contained empirical studies. All studies aim at...

Die Dynamik des Wohnimmobilienmarktes wird insbesondere durch die Veränderung der Einkommen junger Haushalte bestimmt. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine neue Studie des ifo Instituts über "Fluktuationen des Wohnimmobilienmarktes", in der ein für die USA und Großbritannien entwickelter...