ZEW Discussion Papers

This paper examines how local governments adjust their spending, savings and taxes in response to a temporary revenue windfall generated by a housing boom and how they cope with the inevitable shortfall that…

Missing values are a major problem in all econometric applications based on survey data. A standard approach assumes data are missing-at-random and uses imputation methods, or even listwise deletion. This…

We study the effect of a subtle change in the choice architecture on offsetting behavior. In a large-scale field experiment, we examine repeated voluntary contributions to a carbon offsetting program during the…

This paper provides the first empirical evidence of the distributional effects of subsidies for the purchase of alternative vehicles based on an extended version of Hausman's exact consumer surplus. Consistently…

We investigate the effect of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on the economic performance of manufacturing firms in Germany. Our difference-in-differences framework relies on several…

We analyze the potential influence of a number of factors on the distribution of equivalized net incomes in Germany over the period 2005/2006 to 2010/11. While income inequality considerably increased in the…

This article reports a complete two stage hedonic analysis for road noise. For the estimation of the hedonic price function I develop a spatial research design which simultaneously reduces the risk of omitted…

Millions of refugees made their way to Europe between 2014 and 2015, with over one million arriving in Germany alone. Yet, little is known about the impact of this inflow on labor markets, crime, and voting…

In developing countries, a large share of employees work informally and are not covered by employment protection legislation. I study here how gender wage inequality differs across formal and informal jobs in…