The Long-Term Care System in Germany

This document provides an overview of the long-term care system, the number and develop-ment of beneficiaries and the long-term care policy in Germany. The report is part of the first stage of the European project ANCIEN (Assessing Needs of Care in European Nations), commissioned by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The first part of the project aims to facilitate structured comparison of the long-term care systems and policies in European Nations. Thus, this report is one of comparable reports provided for most European countries

Two Steps Forward - One Step Back? Evaluating Contradicting Child Care Policies in Germany

We apply a structural model of mothers' labor supply and child care choices to evaluate the effects of two childcare reforms in Germany that were introduced simultaneously in August 2013. First, a legal claim to subsidized child care became effective for all children aged one year or older. Second, a new benefit called 'Betreuungsgeld' came into effect that is granted to families who do not use public or publicly subsidized child care. Both reforms target children of the same age group and are unconditional on the parents' income or employment status, yet affect mothers' incentives for labor supply and child care choices in opposite directions. Our model facilitates estimating the joint reform impact as well as disentangling the individual effects of both policies. A comprehensive data set with information on labor supply, the use of and potential access restrictions to various child care arrangements provides the basis for the empirical analysis. We find the overall effect of both reforms to be small but positive as far as mother's labor supply and the use of formal care is concerned. The legal claim's positive impact on mothers' labor supply and the use of formal child care is largely offset by the negative effect on both outcomes resulting from the introduction of the 'Betreuungsgeld'

Capacity Mechanisms on Central European Electricity Markets: Effects on Consumers, Producers and Technologies Until 2033

The reduced attractiveness of investments in reliable power plants under conditions of liberalized markets and the transition towards renewable energies has brought a discussion on capacity policies to Europe. We use a partial equilibrium model to compare important effects of three basic policies. A strategic reserve policy and a capacity market policy with administratively set capacity targets, and the obligation of generators to hold certificates of reliable capacities in relation to their supply. We find important differences of policies for consumers and producers that are depending on existing power plant structure and the elasticity of demand particularly in the medium term perspective until the year 2023. In the longer term until 2033 the results differ less pronounced. However, for the German case we demonstrate the potential to effectively reduce the burden on the economy to achieve a prescribed target through the implementation of a capacity certificate system

Banking Union as a Shock Absorber

This study investigates the shock-absorbing properties of a banking union by providing a detailed comparison between the way regional financial shocks have been absorbed at the federal level in the US, but have led to severe regional (national) financial dislocation and tensions in the euro area. The extent to which the institutions of the banking union, which is now emerging in the euro area, should increase its capacity to deal with future regional boom and bust cycles is also discussed. Cross-border capital flows in the form of equity appear to be much more stable than those taking the form of credit, especially inter-bank credit. Moreover, credit booms and bust leave a debt overhang and losses can materialise only via insolvencies, whereas equity flows absorb automatically losses in case of a bust and provide the cross border owner with incentives to continue to provide financing. It follows that cross-border banks can absorb regional shocks. But large banks pose the 'too big to fail' problem and they would also propagate regional shocks, especially if they originate in large countries, to the entire area

Wind Providing Balancing Reserves: An Application to the German Electricity System of 2025

This paper analyzes the influence of wind turbines as new participants on prices and allocation within balancing markets. We introduce the cost-minimizing electricity sector model ELMOD-MIP, that includes detailed unit-commitment constraints, complex combined heat and power constraints, and minimum bid sizes for balancing capacity reservation. The model also features a novel approach of modeling balancing reservation by considering possible activation costs already during the reservation phase, mimicking the activation anticipation of market participants. The model includes the spot and balancing market of Germany and is applied to scenarios for 2013 and 2025. The results for 2025 show, in comparison to 2013, a price increase for positive and negative reserves, in case no new participants enter the market. With the participation of wind turbines the cost for balancing provision is reduced by 40%, but above 2013 values. The relative cost savings from wind participation are higher for negative reserve provision than positive reserve provision, as wind turbines can use their full capacity if not activated and do not have to be curtailed ex ante. The participation of wind turbines especially reduces the occurrence of peak prices for positive and negative reserves in 2025. This reduction effect occurs even with a relatively low share where wind turbines participate with only five percent of their capacity. Therefore, further fostering the process of allowing wind turbines to participate in the German reserve market seems favorable

Targeting CD22 Reprograms B-Cells and Reverses Autoimmune Diabetes

OBJECTIVES—To investigate a B-cell–depleting strategy to reverse diabetes in naïve NOD mice

Beyond Market Failures: The Market Creating and Shaping Roles of State Investment Banks

Recent decades witnessed a trend whereby private markets retreated from financing the real economy, while, simultaneously, the real economy itself became increasingly financialized. This trend resulted in public finance becoming more important for investments in capital development, technical change, and innovation. Within this context, this paper focuses on the roles played by a particular source of public finance: state investment banks (SIBs). It develops a conceptual typology of the different roles that SIBs play in the economy, which together show the market creation/shaping process of SIBs rather than their mere "market fixing" roles. This paper discusses four types of investments, both theoretically and empirically: countercyclical, developmental, venture capitalist, and challenge led. To develop the typology, we first discuss how standard market failure theory justifies the roles of SIBs, the diagnostics and evaluation toolbox associated with it, and resulting criticisms centered on notions of "government failures." We then show the limitations of this approach based on insights from Keynes, Schumpeter, Minsky, and Polanyi, as well as other authors from the evolutionary economics tradition, which help us move toward a framework for public investments that is more about market creating/shaping than market fixing. As frameworks lead to evaluation tools, we use this new lens to discuss the increasingly targeted investments that SIBs are making, and to shed new light on the usual criticisms that are made about such directed activity (e.g., crowding out and picking winners). The paper ends with a proposal of directions for future research

A Search for Photons with Energies Above 2X10(17) eV Using Hybrid Data from the Low-Energy Extensions of the Pierre Auger Observatory

Ultra-high-energy photons with energies exceeding 10(17) eV offer a wealth of connections to different aspects of cosmic-ray astrophysics as well as to gamma-ray and neutrino astronomy. The recent observations of photons with energies in the 10(15) eV range further motivate searches for even higher-energy photons. In this paper, we present a search for photons with energies exceeding 2 x 10(17) eV using about 5.5 yr of hybrid data from the low-energy extensions of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The upper limits on the integral photon flux derived here are the most stringent ones to date in the energy region between 10(17) and 10(18) eV

How Have Employment Transitions for Older Workers in Germany and the UK Changed?

Extending working life is an objective for many nations. However, the UK government has recently reported only modest improvement "compared to many nations". A comparison of European, Labour Force Surveys show that Germany has reversed early retirement much faster than the UK since 2003. This was not forecast by previous researchers. In particular, Ebbinghaus' influential cross-national analysis of early retirement, published in 2006, had predicted that liberal welfare states regimes like the UK would react faster than conservative ones like Germany. A review of changes to pensions and employment policies suggests the UK puts more emphasis on recruitment of older workers, flexible working and gradual retirement while Germany puts more emphasis on retention of older workers through age-management and employment protection. The paper compares the employment transitions of older workers using data covering 1993 to 2013 from the longitudinal surveys British Household Panel Survey, Understanding Society and the German Socio-Economic Panel. It finds little evidence for the recruitment of older workers or gradual retirement in either the UK or Germany and concludes it was the greater employment protection for older workers in Germany that enabled the employment rate for older workers to increase even during the recent recession