Stefanie Kleimeier

New Publication

Banking market integration is essential for a stable European Monetary Union but was severely disrupted during the Eurozone crisis.

In our paper " Twenty Years with the Euro: Eurozone Banking Market Integration Revisited " in Economic Modelling, Harald Sander (Cologne University of Applied Sciences) and I present our latest research on the retail banking market integration in the Eurozone.

With heterogeneous national banking markets, interpreting the recent post-crisis convergence of national interest rates as restored integration has been challenged in the literature. We therefore scrutinize integration under the condition of market heterogeneity for 12 Eurozone countries before, during and after the Eurozone crisis from 2003 to 2019, employing a novel combination of state-of-the-art network analyses and estimates of bilateral interest rate linkages. We measure integration as bi-directional (Granger) causality relations between lending rates or margins in order to identify crisis-resilient arbitrage mechanisms. Their extent, disruption and restoration inform our subsequent network analysis, which unveils that the Eurozone crisis has fundamentally and persistently disrupted this network beyond the crisis period even when interest rates and margins are converging. Our approach complements and extends existing integration analyses by revealing policy-relevant but otherwise undetected disintegration.

New Publication

Despite awareness of the detrimental impact of CO 2 pollution on the world climate, countries vary widely in how they design and enforce environmental laws.

In our paper " Exporting Pollution: Where Do Multinational Firms Emit CO 2 ? " in Economic Policy, Itzhak Ben-David (Ohio State University & NBER), Yeejin Jang (University of New South Wales), Michael Viehs (Federated Hermes International) and I explore how firms respond to environmental regulation.

Using novel microdata about multinational firms' CO 2 emissions across countries, we document that firms headquartered in countries with strict environmental policies perform their polluting activities abroad in countries with relatively weaker policies. These effects are largely driven by tightened environmental policies in home countries that incentivize firms to pollute abroad rather than lenient foreign policies that attract those firms. Although firms headquartered in countries with strict domestic environmental policies are more likely to export pollution to foreign countries, they nevertheless emit somewhat less overall CO 2 globally.

New Publication

COVID-19 has a substantial and unexpected impact on individuals’ daily life around the world. Unprecedented public health restrictions such as lockdowns have the potential to affect multiple dimensions of individuals’ well-being, while the severity of such restrictions varies across countries. However, a holistic perspective comparing differences in and drivers of the different dimensions of well-being across countries differentially affected by COVID-19 is missing to date.

In our paper "Differences in and Drivers of Mental, Social, Functional, and Financial Well-Being During COVID-19" in PLoS-ONE, Arvid Hoffmann (University of Adelaide), Daria Plotkina (University of Strasbourg), Marie-Hélène Broihanne (University of Strasbourg), Anja Göritz (University of Freiburg) and I address this gap in the literature. We examine the mental, social, functional, and financial well-being of 2,100 individuals across Australia, France, Germany, and South Africa by means of a survey administered during May of 2021.

Supporting our holistic approach, we find that the different dimensions of well-being are correlated, with survey respondents from France reporting the lowest and those from Australia reporting the highest overall level of well-being. Respondents’ subjective and objective evaluations of their living conditions during lockdowns as well as positive health and financial behaviors are positively associated with their well-being during the pandemic.