News Archive

The current energy crisis in Europe is bringing about profound changes that can accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system. Yet, it is a supply shock of unprecedented scale and complexity, most noticeable in the markets for natural gas, coal, and electricity. Winter promises to be tough - especially for low-income households that use gas for heating and for small and medium-sized industrial companies.

In the new Policy Brief the authors present the results of two waves of quantitative online surveys of Ukrainian refugees in Germany. They were asked whether they plan to stay in Germany and whether they are already employed or plan to search for employment, as well as the factors that determine these. The second wave of the survey clarified the socio-demographic characteristics of refugees from Ukraine, the circumstances of their arrival and adaptation in Germany, and demonstrates the dynamics of changes in their plans and intentions.

Older employees can catch up on digital skills through appropriate training. Two-thirds of the international differences can be explained by differences in the extent to which countries invest in equipping this group with digital skills. “Older workers with digital skills have much better employment opportunities, earn higher wages, and cannot be replaced so easily by technology,” says Oliver Falck, Director of the ifo Center for Industrial Organization and New Technologies.

Higher-education institutions positively influence the development of individual regions in various ways: they have a positive effect on the share of graduates in the region, on the region’s employment in high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries, and on long-term wages. However, the positive effects do not emerge automatically and everywhere to the same degree.

In the past decade, housing costs have risen tremendously. While real estate prices in Germany have increased by around 50percent, major cities have experienced an even stronger surge. Likewise, rents have substantially increased, particularly in major cities. The Big Date article in the new EconPol Forum 5/2022 provides an overview of four projects that assess the effects of regulation and taxation as well as the pandemic’s impact on the German real estate market, using large-scale property price as well as survey data. Do subsidies make housing purchases more affordable?