The Institute for Applied Economic Research, located in Tübingen, Germany, is an independent research institute at the University of Tübingen. The IAW’s objective is
to apply economic and social research to issues relating to the private and public economy. Its scientific work contributes to the empirical basis for economic policymaking.
In the following, you will receive an overview of the individual subjects. For more information please click on the topic of interest.
In this field of research, IAW mainly focuses on impact analyses and process-accompanying evaluations of various labor market policies. Another research topic are the effects of legal regulations on the labor market.
Demographic change, the shortage of skilled workers and the increasing inequality of market incomes are central challenges for the social security system. Our research focuses on poverty and wealth, social mobility, rehabilitation and retirement, and working conditions in care.
Research on education issues is an important field of research at the IAW. The focus is on the transition between school and work, on the development of training and further education, on digitization processes in the education sector and on the returns to education.
The IAW feels closely connected to the state of Baden-Württemberg and its economic and social development. In many research projects, we examine current challenges, opportunities and risks of companies and employees in different industries and regions of Baden-Württemberg.
We investigate the significance of international trade and migration for incomes and employment in the state of Baden-Württemberg and the German economy. The focus of our research lies in trade agreements as well as European Integration on goods and factor markets.
Due to demographic change, the topics of migration and integration will gain in importance in the future. Quantitative questions becoming increasingly important for the national economy, e.g. forms of managing immigration and the attractiveness for potential migrants, while qualitative questions may treat about criteria for successful integration.
In the first quarter of 2023, the economy in Baden-Württemberg is expected to contract by 0.2 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2022, adjusted for seasonal and working-day effects. Already in the previous quarter, according to preliminary calculations, economic output already declined by 0.3 percent in the previous quarter. According to the commonly used definition, Baden-Württemberg is then in a recession phase.
On Feb. 15, the Expert Commission on Research and Innovation (EFI) presented its 2023 annual report to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (see video). Among other things, the report deals with innovations in an aging society. In the run-up to the report, the IAW prepared a study on innovations for and by older people on behalf of the EFI. The study (in German) highlights the challenges, but also the opportunities, that arise in an aging society with regard to innovation.
For Germany and the year 2023, the shadow economy is expected to increase sharply by €60 billion (or from 9.4% to 10.2% of gross domestic product) compared with the previous year. This is mainly due to the forecast unfavorable economic development. In Germany, however, the shadow economy is growing less strongly than in most other major industrialized countries.
These are the key findings of a new forecast of the shadow economy in Germany published jointly by Professor Friedrich Schneider (University of Linz) and the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IAW). The size of the shadow economy is forecast to be 443 billion euros in 2023. This represents a nominal increase of 60 billion euros compared with 2022. The ratio of the forecast shadow economy and gross domestic product increases to 10.2%. This ratio is therefore slightly higher than in the first year of the Corona pandemic in 2020.
The shortage of skilled workers is an increasing problem for companies in Baden-Württemberg. The long-term trend clearly points in this direction. Against this backdrop, a recent IAW study commissioned by the Baden-Württemberg Regional Directorate of the German Federal Employment Agency addresses the question of the extent to which company strategies can counteract the shortage of skilled workers. The results show, on the one hand, that companies in sectors with a shortage of skilled workers systematically apply certain strategies more frequently than other companies: For example, further training is more likely to be offered by companies that are more affected by the shortage of skilled workers. On the other hand, reorganizations are geared to the availability of skilled workers. For example, they do not increase in-house production if no skilled workers are available. And companies with a higher proportion of vacancies invest more frequently in digitization.
IAW-Kurzbericht 4/2022 (report in German)