Das Klimaschutzgesetz (KSG) sieht eine Reduktion der deutschen Treibhausgasemissionen bis zum Jahr 2030 um 65% gegenüber den Emissionen im Jahr 1990 vor. Der Ausstieg aus der thermischen Verwertung der Kohle (vor allem der Braunkohle) leistet einen substanziellen Beitrag zum Erreichen dieser Ziele. Der Kohleausstieg stellt die Braunkohlereviere (und die Standorte der Steinkohlekraftwerke) jedoch vor strukturpolitische Herausforderungen. Um den Strukturwandel in diesen Regionen aktiv zu gestalten, hat der Bundestag im August 2020 mit Zustimmung des Bundesrats das Strukturstärkungsgesetz Kohleregionen (StStG) beschlossen. Über dieses Gesetz stellt der Bund bis zum Jahr 2038 Finanzhilfen in Höhe von 41,09 Mrd. Euro zur Verfügung. Im Fokus der Politikmaßnahmen stehen verschiedene Ziele, vor allem gesamtwirtschaftliche (Wertschöpfung, Wachstum, Steueraufkommen), wettbewerbliche (Produktivität), arbeitsmarktpolitische (Beschäftigung, Beschäftigungsstrukturen), verteilungspolitische (regionale Disparitäten) sowie klimapolitische (Treibhausgasreduzierung, Nachhaltigkeit). 

Die im StStG vorgesehenen strukturpolitischen Interventionen umfassen ein breites Maßnahmenbündel. Das Gesetz fordert eine begleitende wissenschaftliche Evaluierung des Gesetzes. Bei dem vorliegenden Bericht handelt es sich um das dritte Dokument in diesem Evaluierungszyklus. Der erste Bericht (Brachert u.a., 2023) präsentierte ein erstes Lagebild nach dem Start der im Rahmen des Investitionsgesetzes Kohleregionen (InvKG) und des STARK-Bundesprogramms geplanten Maßnahmen. Der zweite Bericht (Brachert u.a., 2025) enthielt eine Aktualisierung und erweiterte Aussagen zu den möglichen Effekten der Maßnahmen aus dem InvKG. An diesem Punkt setzt der vorliegende Zwischenbericht 2025 an. Es gehen immer mehr Maßnahmen in die Umsetzung, wodurch der Strukturwandel an Fahrt aufnimmt. Jedoch bleibt auch für diesen Bericht zu berücksichtigen, dass viele der geplanten Maßnahmen noch nicht oder gerade erst begonnen haben, was bei einer fast zwanzigjährigen Laufzeit des Programms naheliegend ist. Die in diesem Bericht vorgelegten empirischen Analysen basieren auf dem Datenstand vom 31.12.2024, also rund viereinhalb Jahre nachdem das InvKG in Kraft getreten ist.

We provide evidence for a psychological component of inflation concerns. Higher inflation concerns relate in a positive and significant way to respondents’ reported levels of concerns about their financial situation. Results hold when controlling for income and financial constraints.

Is there a multicultural neighborhood price premium? We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in British colonization patterns in Northern Ireland during the early 1600s which created neighborhoods of varying religious composition that persists until today. These religious groups are culturally distinct, but are observationally equivalent ethnically and socioeconomically. A standard deviation increase neighborhood-level multiculturalism raises house prices by 9.6%. Multiculturalism raises property prices by increasing asset liquidity and housing demand as a wider spectrum of society demand houses in these areas. The findings and mechanism contrast sharply with prior evidence showing negative relationships due to homophily, social networks, and identification challenges.

Mutual fund families increasingly hold bonds and stocks from the same firm. We present evidence that dual ownership allows firms to increase valuable investments and refinance by issuing bonds with lower yields and fewer restrictive covenants, especially when firms face financial distress. Dual holders also prevent overinvestment by firms with entrenched managers. Overall, our results suggest that mutual fund families internalize the agency conflicts of their portfolio companies, highlighting the positive governance externalities of intra-family cooperation.

We study real estate lending responses to tighter macroprudential policy (MPP) in the form of lower required loan-to-value (LTV) ratios. Contract details of 2.4 million mortgage loans originated between 2008 and 2020 reveal significantly fewer new loan issuances in response to contractionary MPP, commensurate with an average reduction in aggregate lending of 21 percent. Loan-level analyses reveal, however, that banks comply with lower LTVs by systematically more benevolent valuations of residential real estate pledged as collateral instead of reducing loan size. Exploiting earthquakes as plausible exogenous shocks to property values corroborates these risk-shifting patterns by banks in the form of inflated property valuations after LTV shocks.

Lowering carbon intensity in manufacturing is necessary to transform current production technologies. We test if local agents’ preferences, revealed by vote shares for the Green party during local elections in Germany, relate to the carbon intensity of investments in production technologies. Our sample comprises all investment choices made by manufacturing establishments from 2005-2017. Our results suggest that ecological preferences correlate with significantly fewer carbon-intensive investment projects while investments stimulating growth and reducing carbon emissions increase by 14 percentage points. Both results are more distinct in federal states where the Green Party enjoys political power and local ecological preferences are high.

This paper investigates how state ownership affects financial reporting practices in China. Using several measures of state (government) ownership, we show that a one-standard-deviation increase in state ownership decreases financial statement comparability by 36.61%, and the impact is more pronounced when the central authority has majority control of the company. Moreover, lower earnings quality and lower levels of accounting conservatism among state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may explain the lower accounting comparability between SOEs and non-SOEs (NSOEs). Additionally, similar (different) managerial objectives converge (diverge) financial statement comparability between SOEs and NSOEs. Last, the geographical locations of firms also contribute to financial statement comparability. We employ a difference-in-differences design, changes regression and entropy balancing to mitigate potential endogeneity bias.

How do firms invest when financial constraints are relaxed? We document that firms affected by a large positive credit supply shock predominantly increase borrowing for transaction-based purposes. These treated firms have larger asset and employment growth rates; however, growth entirely stems from the increased takeover activity. Announcement returns indicate a low quality of the credit-supply-induced takeover activity. These results offer the possibility that credit-driven growth can simply reflect redistribution, rather than net gains in assets or employment.