Wie viel Europa braucht die Energiewende?

It is often argued that Germany’s energy transition (the so-called “Energiewende”) needs to be “Europeanized”, so as to make the transition process more efficient. In particular, the German system of feed-in tariffs for renewables is criticized for being an obstacle to efficient European energy supply. However, we point out that Germany’s approach is no outlier but rather well embedded in the European context of heterogeneous energy policies. Also, full centralization and harmonization of political decisions on the EU-level may not be desirable in many fields of energy policy beyond climate protection if the full economic costs of energy supply are taken into account. In addition, legal and politico-economic constraints need to be considered. Against this background, we identify priorities for fostering the European dimension of the Member States’ energy policies, such as the coordination of grid extensions and capacity markets.     

Die Förderung der erneuerbaren Energien nach der EEG-Reform 2014

After fierce public and political debates, an amendment to Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act took effect on 1 August. This article provides an assessment of the revisions made: What is the impact of the amendment on the future progress of the German energy transition? Does it provide for a significant reduction and fairer distribution of the costs associated with support for renewables? Does it appropriately address the fundamental challenges associated with the market and system integration of renewable energy sources?     

Macroeconomic volatility and anti-refugee violence in developing countries: Evidence from commodity price shocks

I investigate the effect of macroeconomic (output) volatility on anti-refugee violence in developing countries. Opportunity cost, rapacity, and state capacity theories predict ambiguous effects. For causal inference I leverage output volatility caused by plausibly exogenous commodity price shocks. I find that adverse commodity price shocks increase both violence of natives against refugees and violence between refugees. My results suggest that anti-refugee violence increases during recessions and decreases during economic booms.     

Auctions versus bookbuilding: The effects of IPO regulation in Japan

We analyze a regulatory change in the Japanese IPO market that created an abrupt shift from hybrid price-discriminatory auctions to bookbuilding. We find that bookbuilding leads to higher underpricing than hybrid price-discriminatory auctions. Furthermore, we find evidence that price accuracy tends to be higher for auctions than for bookbuilding. The results hold under a variety of OLS specifications and with regression discontinuity designs exploiting the abrupt change of the regulation.     

How preferences shape the welfare and employment effects of trade

Review of World Economics - We set up a trade model with two countries, two sectors, and one production factor, which features a home-market effect due to the existence of trade costs. We consider...