ZEW Discussion Papers

Researchers at the ZEW participate in scientific debates by publishing their papers. The papers are predominantly in English (marked). For the German papers an English abstract is available. The contributions are intended for a final publication in special interest titles. The discussion papers can be downloaded as PDF or PostScript files starting from 1.1.1998. They aimed at national and international target groups.

  1. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-036 // 2025

    Disclosure Risk for Firms in Combined Firm-Datasets

    Past studies have successfully shown that the level of anonymisation of scientific use files (SUF) is sufficiently high to protect against disclosure attacks that use data from traditional firm databases.…

  2. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-035 // 2025

    Cohabitation, Child Development, and College Costs

    Why do US college-educated couples with children marry at higher rates than those without a college degree? We argue that investing in children is more valuable for college-educated couples, who are more likely…

  3. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-034 // 2025

    Market Entry of Digital Health Providers after the Introduction of a New Reimbursement Pathway

    Digital therapeutics are increasingly used to complement traditional health care. In a pioneering move, Germany became the first country to introduce a structured regulatory framework — known as the DiGA scheme…

  4. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-033 // 2025

    Child Penalty Estimation and Mothers’ Age at First Birth

    We show that the widespread approach to estimate the career costs of motherhood – so called “child penalties” – is prone to produce biased results, as it pools first-time mothers of all ages without accounting…

  5. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-021 // 2025

    The Welfare Effects of Explicit and Implicit Subsidies on Fossil Fuels

    We examine the welfare effects of removing explicit and implicit fossil fuel subsidies, the latter entailing Pigouvian pricing of local externalities from fossil energy consumption. We map a multi-region,…

  6. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-030 // 2025

    Trusted Research and Innovation: How Knowledge Leakage Affects the Research & Innovation Ecosystem

    A robust Research & Innovation (R&I) ecosystem is essential for progress, economic resilience, and addressing complex challenges. At the heart of this ecosystem, knowledge fuels innovation and further discovery.…

  7. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-018 // 2025

    How Cost-Effective Were Subsidies for Solar Energy in Germany?

    We study Germany’s photovoltaic (PV) subsidy program, estimating a dynamic model of new technology adoption which accounts for heterogeneity in residential ownership structures. We find that homeowner and…

  8. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-032 // 2025

    The Heat Is On: An Exploratory Investigation of How Climate Change-Related Challenges Affect SMEs’ R&D Activities

    Climate change can cause major challenges for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Responding and adapting to such challenges is crucial, as SMEs are vital for driving economic growth and employment in…

  9. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 25-031 // 2025

    A KISS for Central Bank Communication in Times of High Inflation

    During the post-pandemic inflation surge, many central banks actively used communication about the inflation outlook as a policy tool to limit spillovers from realized to expected inflation. We present novel…

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