Holy Days, Lost Days?

Do public holidays meaningfully affect economic output? In Germany, strict Sunday laws create a unique natural experiment: when public holidays fall on Sundays, they typically do not additionally disrupt business activity. Exploiting this variation across states and years, I estimate the economic cost of a “lost” workday. Using monthly manufacturing data and a stacked event-study approach, I find that weekday holidays lead to modest but measurable reductions in output. Scaling the estimates implies annual GDP losses between 0.06% and 0.28%, depending on whether the effect is assumed to apply only to manufacturing or to the whole economy.

Brüll, Eduard (2025), Holy Days, Lost Days?, ZEW Discussion Paper Nr. 25-056, Mannheim.