We estimate potential regional industrial effects in case of a threatening gas deficit. For Germany, the reduction leads to a potential decrease in industrial value added by 1.6 %. The heterogeneity across German states is remarkable, ranging from 2.2 % for Rhineland-Palatinate to 0.7 % for Hamburg. We emphasize the need for regional input-output tables to conduct economic analysis on a sub-national level, particularly when regional industrial structures are heterogeneous. The approximation with national figures can lead to results that differ both in magnitude and relative regional exposure. Our findings highlight that more accurate policy guidance can be achieved by improving the regional database.

Gegenstand dieses Evaluationsberichts ist die Replikation und Erweiterung der Ergebnisse des vorhergehenden Gutachtens zur Evaluation der Gemeinschaftsaufgabe ‚Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur‘ (GRW) 

Der vorliegende Evaluationsbericht verfolgt zwei Ziele. Erstens aktualisiert er die Ergebnisse aus dem vorherigen Gutachten. Zweitens betrachtet er einige Aspekte zu den Wirkungen der GRW-Förderung vertiefend. Dazu gehört insbesondere die Frage, ob die GRW für die geförderten Betriebe tatsächlich einen Anreizeffekt im Sinne einer Ausweitung der Investitionstätigkeit hatte und wie sich die Effekte der Förderung unter Verwendung fortgeschrittener Produktivitätsmaße darstellt. Des Weiteren widmet sich der Evaluationsbericht einer vertiefenden Untersuchung heterogener Effekte auf sektoral disaggregierter Ebene sowie nach Betriebsgrößenklassen. Wo es möglich ist, analysiert der Bericht zudem längere Zeiträume nach dem Beginn des Förderprojekts. Schließlich widmet sich der Evaluationsbericht Fragen zur Wirtschaftlichkeit des GRW-Programms auf einzelbetrieblicher Ebene, indem er die Effekte in Beziehung setzt zur Höhe der aufgewendeten Fördermittel. 

The recent advances in automation technology, robotics in particular, have sparked a heated debate over the future of labor and human society at large. The ongoing process of robotization may engender profound impacts on various segments of the labor market. Given the far-reaching implications of robots, it is thus very important to understand the scale and scope of robot use and characteristics of robot users. However, the main challenge is the limited availability of robot data at the microeconomic level (Raj and Seamans, 2018). Due to the data constraint, the bulk of the existing literature relies on cross-country industry-level data from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). The lack of micro-level robot data makes it difficult to paint a comprehensive picture of robotization in industrial settings, and perhaps more importantly, to assess how within-industry firm level heterogeneity manifests itself in robot use and adoption.

Using the near-universe of Danish owner-occupied residential houses, we show that an exogenous increase in wealth significantly increases the likelihood to switch to green heating. We estimate an elasticity of one at the median of the wealth distribution, i.e., a 10% increase in wealth increase raises green heating adoption by 10%. Effects are heterogeneous along the wealth distribution: all else equal, a redistribution of wealth from rich households to poor households can significantly increase green heating adoption. We further explore potential channels of our findings (pro-social preferences, financial constraints, and luxury goods interpretation). Our results emphasize the role of economic growth for the green transition.

This paper develops a novel dataset of weekly economic conditions indices for the 50 U.S. states going back to 1987 based on mixed-frequency dynamic factor models with weekly, monthly, and quarterly variables that cover multiple dimensions of state economies. We find considerable cross-state heterogeneity in the length, depth, and timing of business cycles. We illustrate the usefulness of these state-level indices for quantifying the main contributors to the economic collapse caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and for evaluating the effectiveness of the Paycheck Protection Program. We also propose an aggregate indicator that gauges the overall weakness of the U.S. economy.

Climate change and inequality are critical and interrelated defining issues for this century. Despite growing empirical evidence on the economic incidence of climate policies and impacts, mainstream model-based assessments are often silent on the interplay between climate change and economic inequality. For example, all the major model comparisons reviewed in IPCC neglect within-country inequalities. Here we fill this gap by presenting a model ensemble of eight large-scale Integrated Assessment Models belonging to different model paradigms and featuring economic heterogeneity. We study the distributional implications of Paris-aligned climate target of 1.5 degree and include different carbon revenue redistribution schemes. Moreover, we account for the economic inequalities resulting from residual and avoided climate impacts. We find that price-based climate policies without compensatory measures increase economic inequality in most countries and across models. However, revenue redistribution through equal per-capita transfers can offset this effect, leading to on average decrease in the Gini index by almost two points. When climate benefits are included, inequality is further reduced, but only in the long term. Around mid-century, the combination of dried-up carbon revenues and yet limited climate benefits leads to higher inequality under the Paris target than in the Reference scenario, indicating the need for further policy measures in the medium term.

This paper uses a new empirical design to explore how labor market polarization affects individuals’ incentive to pursue education funded on the margin by student debt. We argue that the labor market polarization–where automation replaces mid-skill and mid-education-level job–changes the marginal benefits of education and training and sharpens incentives to incur student debt. We advance a new measure of labor market polarizations that allows to capture the heterogeneity of this phenomena across geographies and time. Using this measure, we find that U.S. CBSAs that experience deeper labor market polarization see an increase in student debt balances and in the number of people pursuing student debt. On average, the decline in middle-skill jobs and wages has little effect on individuals’ ability to pay down existing student debt. The effects are most pronounced in ZIP codes with lower average credit scores, lower incomes, and higher share of the minority population.