Staatliche Banken in Deutschland verfolgen einen lokalen Entwicklungsauftrag in ihrer jeweiligen Gemeinde. Da sie dem Staat gehören, sind sie jedoch politischem Einfluss ausgesetzt. Dies birgt das Risiko, dass eine politisierte Mittelvergabe den Entwicklungsauftrag beeinträchtigt. Dennoch ist erstaunlich wenig darüber bekannt, ob die Kreditvergabe durch Banken in staatlichem Besitz in erster Linie dem Ziel der Entwicklung der Region oder einem politischen Ziel dient. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, wie sich ein Wechsel der Regierungspartei auf Landesebene auf die Kreditvergabe durch Sparkassen an die Landesregierung in Deutschland zwischen 1992 und 2018 ausgewirkt hat. Die Schätzergebnisse bestätigen: Lokale Sparkassen erhöhen nach einem wahlbedingten Wechsel der Regierungspartei die Kreditvergabe an die Landesregierung – auf Kosten der Kreditvergabe an lokale Haushalte. Ein Regierungswechsel kann also die Indienstnahme der Sparkassen für landespolitische Ziele aktivieren und möglicherweise ihren öffentlichen Auftrag zur lokalen Entwicklung beeinträchtigen.

In Reaktion auf die Erfahrungen aus der letzten Finanzmarktkrise veröffentlichte die Europäische Kommission im Mai 2014 die Richtlinie zur Sanierung und Abwicklung von Kreditinstituten (Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, BRRD). Die Richtlinie legt Regeln zur Abwicklung und Restrukturierung von Banken einschließlich eines Bail-in-Mechanismus fest, der das Verlustrisiko beim Scheitern einer Bank vorrangig deren Anteilseignern und Gläubigern aufbürdet.

Soil is central to the complex interplay among biodiversity, climate, and society. This paper examines the interconnectedness of soil biodiversity, climate change, and societal impacts, emphasizing the urgent need for integrated solutions. Human-induced biodiversity loss and climate change intensify environmental degradation, threatening human well-being. Soils, rich in biodiversity and vital for ecosystem function regulation, are highly vulnerable to these pressures, affecting nutrient cycling, soil fertility, and resilience. Soil also crucially regulates climate, influencing energy, water cycles, and carbon storage. Yet, climate change poses significant challenges to soil health and carbon dynamics, amplifying global warming. Integrated approaches are essential, including sustainable land management, policy interventions, technological innovations, and societal engagement. Practices like agroforestry and organic farming improve soil health and mitigate climate impacts. Effective policies and governance are crucial for promoting sustainable practices and soil conservation. Recent technologies aid in monitoring soil biodiversity and implementing sustainable land management. Societal engagement, through education and collective action, is vital for environmental stewardship. By prioritizing interdisciplinary research and addressing key frontiers, scientists can advance understanding of the soil biodiversity–climate change–society nexus, informing strategies for environmental sustainability and social equity.

The Roy-Borjas model predicts that international migrants are less educated than nonmigrants because the returns to education are generally higher in developing (migrant-sending) than in developed (migrant-receiving) countries. However, empirical evidence often shows the opposite. Using the case of Mexico-U.S. migration, we show that this inconsistency between predictions and empirical evidence can be resolved when the human capital of migrants is assessed using a two-dimensional measure of occupational skills rather than by educational attainment. Thus, focusing on a single skill dimension when investigating migrant selection can lead to misleading conclusions about the underlying economic incentives and behavioral models of migration.

We investigate public preferences for equity-enhancing policies in access to early child care, using a survey experiment with a representative sample of the German population (n ≈ 4, 800). We observe strong misperceptions about migrant-native inequalities in early child care that vary by respondents’ age and right-wing voting preferences. Randomly providing information about the actual extent of inequalities has a nuanced impact on the support for equity-enhancing policy reforms: it increases support for respondents who initially underestimated these inequalities, and tends to decrease support for those who initially overestimated them. This asymmetric effect leads to a more consensual policy view, substantially decreasing the polarization in policy support between under- and overestimators. Our results suggest that correcting misperceptions can align public policy preferences, potentially leading to less polarized debates about how to address inequalities and discrimination.

In a multi-sector and multi-region framework, this paper employs a dynamic general equilibrium model to analyze climate-resilient economic development (DGE-CRED) in Vietnam. We calibrate sector and region-specific damage functions and quantify climate variable impacts on productivity and capital formation for various shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs 119, 245, and 585). Our results based on simulations and cost-benefit analyses reveal a projected 5 percent reduction in annual GDP by 2050 in the SSP 245 scenario. Adaptation measures for the dyke system are crucial to mitigate the consumption gap, but they alone cannot sufficiently address it. Climate-induced damages to agriculture and labor productivity are the primary drivers of consumption reductions, underscoring the need for focused adaptation measures in the agricultural sector and strategies to reduce labor intensity as vital policy considerations for Vietnam’s response to climate change.

The German economy has stagnated for over two years, with a slow recovery anticipated in the coming quarters. However, growth is unlikely to reach pre-COVID-19 levels anytime soon. Decarbonisation, digitisation, demographic changes, and heightened competition from China are dampening growth prospects. GDP is projected to decline by 0.1 % in 2024, with increases of 0.8 % and 1.3 % in the subsequent years. Rising private consumption and improving foreign trade are expected to contribute positively to the economic upturn in Germany. Economic policy should prioritise reducing productivity barriers, facilitating structural changes, and lowering political uncertainty to support recovery.

This paper examines the effect of CoCo bonds that qualify as additional tier 1 capital on bank stability and reporting. The results reveal a significant reduction in the distance to insolvency following the hybrid bond issuance due to increased earnings volatility. Banks report less stable net income due to more volatile loss provisions, which increases earnings opacity rather than reflects changes in asset quality. The findings are consistent with the premise that persistent uncertainty and misconceptions among investors about bail-in likelihoods limit their monitoring engagement, which results in banks becoming less transparent.

We study how deposit competition affects a bank’s decision to securitize mortgages. Exploiting the state-specific removal of deposit market caps across the US as a source of competition, we find a 7.1 percentage point increase in the probability that banks securitize mortgage loans. This result is driven by an 11 basis point increase in deposit costs and corresponding reductions in banks’ deposit holdings. Our results are strongest among banks that rely more on deposit funding. These findings highlight a hitherto undocumented and unintended regulatory cause that motivates banks to adopt the originate-to-distribute model.

We conduct a discrete choice experiment to investigate how the location of a firm in a rural or urban region affects the perceived job attractiveness for university students and graduates and, therewith, contributes to the rural–urban divide. We characterize the attractiveness of a location based on several dimensions (social life, public infrastructure and connectivity) and vary job design and contractual characteristics of the job. We find that job offers from companies in rural areas are generally considered less attractive, regardless of the attractiveness of the region. The negative perception is particularly pronounced among persons of urban origin and singles. In contrast, for individuals with partners and kids this preference is less pronounced. High-skilled individuals who originate from rural areas have no specific regional preference at all.