While German law stipulates a standard retirement age for all members of the public pension scheme, empirical studies have shown that life expectancy is unevenly distributed within the population, varying according to income level, professional status, occupational health risks, and gender.

Florian Blank / Johannes Geyer, Peter Haan, Maximilian Schaller / Jochen Pimpertz / Reinhold Thiede / Martin Werding IW

Deglobalisation, digitalisation, decarbonisation, and demographic change have already left their mark on the global economy. In the future the multiple transformations that the international patterns of specialisation undergo are likely to accelerate as the four megatrends mature and unfold their true disruptive potential.

Michael Hüther / Matthias Diermeier in Ernest Gnan / Christoph Schneider / Claudia Stowasser (Hg.) Schwerpunkt Außenwirtschaft 2021/2022 IW

European companies need to have the ability to store, process, use, and share data securely and autonomously, for example by using cloud services based on agreed quality standards, values, and legislation.

Jan Büchel / Barbara Engels in European Liberal Forum IW

From 2020 to 2021 the producer prices of manufactured goods in Germany increased by 6 per cent. However, price hikes accelerated during 2021, a development which has continued into 2022.

Manuel Fritsch / Christoph Schröder IW

In recent years family businesses have become an object of research in their own right. Indeed, it has been shown that, far from developing less dynamically than other firms, as once assumed, family businesses actually outperform their peers.

Björn Kauder IW

The shortage of skilled workers is increasingly confronting companies in Germany with major challenges. In view of the demographic and transformational tasks, there is a considerable danger that this situation will exacerbate.

Jasmina Kirchhoff / Lydia Malin / Simon Schumacher IW

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of international supply chains and the dependency of the economy of the European Union (EU) on goods from non-EU countries. The scarcity of microchips that has persisted since the COVID lockdowns has laid bare the dependency of the EU on overseas producers of this essential high-tech product.

Hubertus Bardt / Klaus-Heiner Röhl / Christian Rusche in The Economists' Voice IW

We study the consequences of a large-scale austerity program targeting financially-constrained municipalities in Germany. For identification, we exploit the quasi-random assignment of treatment among equally-distressed municipalities using a difference-in-differences design.

Melinda Fremerey / Andreas Lichter / Max Löffler in CESifo Working Papers IW