Many countries and regions remain below the level of economic activity of the world’s most advanced economies. Some countries form growth clubs, some are stuck in the middle-income trap, and some stay on a very low level of economic activity. Although this situation is well documented on the country level, there is less evidence at the sub-national level within countries. We estimate county-level capital stocks and price indices and provide a comprehensive county-level data set for Germany. We find no evidence of convergence across all counties even if we condition on important drivers of long-term growth such as physical and human capital accumulation. Instead, we identify five convergence clubs, using endogenous clustering. We analyze differences in growth paths and describe the identified clusters based on variations in contributions of capital, labor, and total factor productivity to economic growth. Additionally, we examine the role of migration for regional development and find that net migration has in particular contributed to growth in richer regions.

When monetary policy is constrained, how large a scal transfer substitutes for a given interest rate cut? Using full-population Danish administrative data, we estimate household consumption responses to adjustable-rate mortgage resets and to unanticipated cash inheritances. A 1 percentage point rate cut maps to uniform transfers of approximately $1,000 per person over 5 years, totaling 1.3% of GDP. These macro-equivalent policies operate through distinct balance-sheet channels with dierent distributional incidence: rate cuts disproportionately stimulate high-income mortgage holders, while transfers are progressive. Marginal propensities to consume vary only modestly across income and liquid-wealth distributions, limiting eciency gains from targeting.

Syndicated loan data provided by DealScan is an essential input in banking research to answer urging questions on bank lending, e.g., in the presence of financial or geopolitical shocks or climate change. However, many data options raise the question of how to choose the estimation sample. We employ a standard regression framework analyzing bank lending during the financial crisis of 2007/08 to study how conventional but varying usages of DealScan affect the estimates. The key finding is that the direction of coefficients remains relatively robust. However, statistical significance depends on the data and sampling choice, and we provide guidelines for applied research.

This study provides new evidence on the impact of the EU Cohesion Policy on income growth in less developed regions. Our panel includes data from all European regions for the years 1989-2020. Using a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design, we model treatment dynamics by applying a random effects estimator. Based on digitized historical data, we precisely replicate the policy rule and correctly classify the regions’ eligibility status. Results show that the policy has a moderate positive effect on GDP per capita growth in the targeted regions.

I estimate management opposition to unions in terms of hiring discrimination in the German labor market. By sending 13,000 fictitious job applications, revealing union membership in the CV and pro-union sentiment via social media accounts, I provide evidence for hiring discrimination against union supporters. Callback rates are on average 15% lower for union members. Discrimination is strongest in the presence of a high sectoral share of union members and large firm size. I further explore variation in regional and sectoral strike intensity over time and find suggestive evidence that discrimination increases if a sector is exposed to an intense strike. Discrimination is positively associated with the sectoral share of firms that voluntarily orientate wages to collective agreements. These results indicate that hiring discrimination can be explained by union threat effects.