1. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 22-070 // 2022

    Households’ Financial Fragility During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany

    I examine the financial fragility of German households during the second wave of COVID-19 infections in the winter of 2020/21 by analyzing the households’ ability to come up with EUR 2,000 within one month.…

  2. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 22-069 // 2022

    The Labor Demand Effects of Refugee Immigration: Evidence From a Natural Experiment

    We study the labor demand effect of immigration on local labor markets by exploiting the fact that refugees in Germany are banned from working in the first few months after arrival. This natural experiment…

  3. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 22-068 // 2022

    COVID-19 and the Formation of Energy Conservation Routines: Disentangling the Relative Importance of Attention and Income Shocks

    We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the formation of energy conservation routines. To do so, we use data from two nationwide surveys of German households, conducted before and during the pandemic.…

  4. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 22-067 // 2022

    Global Payment Disruptions and Firm-Level Exports

    We exploit proprietary information on severed correspondent banking relationships — due to the stricter enforcement of financial crime regulation — to assess how payment disruptions impede cross-border trade.…

  5. German Real Estate Finance Index (DIFI Report) // 2022

    Fourth Quarter 2022

    • Financing Situation and Outlook Again Assessed More Pessimistically
    • New Lows for Retail, Logistics and Residential
    • Situation and Outlook in the Refinancing Markets Turn Pessimistic
    • Loan-to-Value Ratios and…
  6. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 22-066 // 2022

    Bank Manager Sentiment, Loan Growth and Bank Risk

    We build a textual score measuring the tone of bank earnings press release documents. We use this measure to define bank manager sentiment as the variation in the textual tone score which is orthogonal to…

  7. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 22-065 // 2022

    Measuring the Digitalisation of Firms – A Novel Text Mining Approach

    Due to the omnipresence of digital technologies in the economy, measuring firm digitalisation is of high importance. However, current indicators show several shortcomings, e.g., they lack timeliness and regional…

  8. Non-Refereed Journal // 2022

    Bedarf für die Paketzustellung durch Drohnen – eine Alternative für die Versorgung schwer erreichbarer Gebiete?

    Die Versorgung der nordfriesischen Inseln und Halligen ist stark durch ihre Tiden‑, Witterungs- und Saisonabhängigkeit geprägt. Die vorliegende Untersuchung prüft, ob eine Belieferung dieser schwierig zu…

  9. M&A Report // 2022

    December 2022

    • ZEW M&A Index at All-Time Low
    • Crisis in M&A Deals: Unclear Picture
    • Which German Target Companies Do Chinese Firms Buy?
    • High-Tech Sector to Tighten Its Belt
  10. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 22-064 // 2022

    First Best Implementation With Costly Information Acquisition

    We study mechanism design with flexible but costly information acquisition. There is a principal and four or more agents, sharing a common prior over the set of payoff-relevant states. The principal proposes a…