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DIW Discussion Papers 817 / 2008
In several OECD countries, public pay-as-you-go financed pension systems have undergone major reforms in which future retirement benefit promises have been scaled down. A consequence of these reforms is that especially in countries with a tight tax-benefit linkage, the retirement benefit claims of low-income workers might not even exceed the minimum income guarantee which the government provides the ...
2008| Friedrich Breyer, Stefan Hupfeld
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DIW Discussion Papers 816 / 2008
This study explores the prevalence and nature of the regional divide for the Mexican manufacturing production across sub-national regions. We utilize a unique panel of municipality-level data from the manufacturing sector. An important contribution is the use of different panel methods to account for latent regional characteristics and the computation of performance indicators for each municipality ...
2008| Frauke G. Braun, Astrid Cullmann
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DIW Discussion Papers 815 / 2008
In this paper I assert that the entrepreneurial spirit can also exist in salaried jobs. I study the determinants of wages and the labor market success of two kinds of entrepreneurial women in Germany - self-employed and salaried businesswomen - and investigate whether ethnicity is important in these challenging jobs. Employing data from the German Socioeconomic Panel I estimate selection adjusted ...
2008| Amelie Constant
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DIW Discussion Papers 814 / 2008
This paper analyzes the response of the European stock markets to the monetary policy shocks by the European Central Bank using the heteroskedasticity based approach of Rigobon (2003). We find that monetary policy tightening has a heterogeneous impact on the Euro Area sectors on the day the monetary policy is publicly announced. Furthermore, we provide statistical evidence against the use of the popular ...
2008| Konstantin A. Kholodilin, Alberto Montagnoli, Oreste Napolitano, Boriss Siliverstovs
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DIW Discussion Papers 813 / 2008
Monetary growth in the euro area has exceeded its target since several years. At the same time, the money demand function seems to be increasingly unstable if more recent data are used. If the link between money balances and the macroeconomy is fragile, the rationale of monetary aggregates in the ECB strategy has to be doubted. In fact, a rise in the income elasticity after 2001 can be observed, and ...
2008| Christian Dreger, Jürgen Wolters
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DIW Discussion Papers 812 / 2008
The paper studies opinions and attitudes towards immigrants and minorities and their interactions with other barriers to minorities' economic integration. Specifically, we consider the minority experts' own perceptions about these issues, the veracities and repercussions of unfavorable attitudes of natives. Employing newly available data from the IZA Expert Opinion Survey 2007 we depict main trends ...
2008| Amelie Constant, Martin Kahanec, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 811 / 2008
This paper introduces a statistical technique, Support Vector Machines (SVM), which is considered by the Deutsche Bundesbank as an alternative for company rating. A special attention is paid to the features of the SVM which provide a higher accuracy of company classification into solvent and insolvent. The advantages and disadvantages of the method are discussed. The comparison of the SVM with more ...
2008| Laura Auria, Rouslan A. Moro
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DIW Discussion Papers 809 / 2008
Our paper deals with modeling the effects of introducing a market-based tool for improving end-users' efficiency in an energy market which is already regulated through a cap-and-trade system for green house gas emissions and a quota system meant to improve competitiveness of energy produced using renewable resources. Our results show that the regulation of energy demand achieves its underlying objects ...
2008| Georg Meran, Nadine Wittmann
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DIW Discussion Papers 808 / 2008
The aim of this paper is to investigate the hypothesis that after leaving the educational system, labour market integration has a causal effect on first-birth decisions. The analysis focuses on two major research questions: First, how is the timing of first parenthood associated with previous labour market performance? Second, can differences in first birth-risks be related to labour market performance? ...
2008| Christian Schmitt
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DIW Discussion Papers 807 / 2008
This paper explores the relationship between risk attitude and asset diversification in household portfolios. We first examine the impact of manifested risk aversion on the total number of distinct assets held in a portfolio (naive diversification). The second part of the paper focuses on a more sophisticated strategy of diversification and asks whether financial theory is compatible with observed ...
2008| Nataliya Barasinska, Dorothea Schäfer, Andreas Stephan
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DIW Discussion Papers 806 / 2008
Welfare-oriented analyses of economic outcome measures such as income and wealth generally rest on the assumption of pooled and equally shared resources among all household members. Yet the lack of individual-level data hampers the distribution of income and wealth within the household context. Based on unique individual-level wealth data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this paper challenges ...
2008| Eva M. Sierminska, Joachim R. Frick, Markus M. Grabka
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DIW Discussion Papers 805 / 2008
We estimate the elasticity of enrollment into higher education with respect to the amount of means tested student aid (BAfoeG) provided by the federal government using the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP). Potential student aid is derived on the basis of a detailed taxbenefit microsimulation model. Since potential student aid is a highly non-linear and discontinuous function of parental income, the ...
2008| Viktor Steiner, Katharina Wrohlich
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DIW Discussion Papers 804 / 2008
This paper has two goals. First, it analyzes the extent to which the innovativeness of spin-offs, either born from a research facility or from another company, is influenced by locational conditions. Second, it provides evidence on how important local cooperation links are in comparison to nonlocal ones. Using a sample of approximately 1,500 East German firms from knowledge-intensive sectors, we estimate ...
2008| Anna Lejpras, Andreas Stephan
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DIW Discussion Papers 803 / 2008
Using life satisfaction as a direct measure of individual utility has become popular in the empirical economic literature. In this context, it is crucial to know what circumstances or changes the measure is sensitive to. Is life satisfaction a volatile concept that is affected by minor changes in life circumstances? Or is it a reliable measure of personal happiness? This paper will analyze the impact ...
2008| Eva M. Berger
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DIW Discussion Papers 802 / 2008
Economic losses caused by tropical cyclones have increased dramatically. It can be assumed that most losses are due to increased prosperity and a greater tendency for people to settle in exposed areas, but also that the growing incidence of severe cyclones is due to climate change. This paper aims to isolate the socio-economic effects and ascertain the potential impact of climate change on this trend. ...
2008| Silvio Schmidt, Claudia Kemfert, Peter Höppe
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DIW Discussion Papers 801 / 2008
Trade theory and economic geography suggest that the removal of trade barriers is likely to bring about more economic specialisation and potentially more diverse development paths between countries and regions. Thus, the deepening and extending European integration should be accompanied by an increasing regional specialisation. In contrast, our results for the period from 1995 to 2004 show considerably ...
2008| Kurt Geppert, Martin Gornig, Anna Lejpras
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DIW Discussion Papers 800 / 2008
Gender-specific determinants of remittances are the subject of this study based on German SOEP data (2001-2006). In 2007, about 7.3 million foreigners were living in Germany. While the total number of foreigners has decreased over the last decade, female migration to Germany has increased. Today, women constitute 48.6% of migratory flows to Germany, although the proportion varies significantly by country ...
2008| Elke Holst, Andrea Schäfer, Mechthild Schrooten
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DIW Discussion Papers 799 / 2008
There is considerable debate regarding the use of intellectual property rights (IPR) to spur innovation in the software industry. In this paper we focus on the choice of intellectual property right regimes and industry growth. We begin by developing a growth optimal mixture of open source and closed source software. This optimal scenario is then used as a basis to examine the co-existence of open and ...
2008| Sebastian von Engelhardt, Sushmita Swaminathan
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DIW Discussion Papers 798 / 2008
Risk attitudes have an impact on not only the decision to become an entrepreneur but also the survival and failure rates of entrepreneurs. Whereas recent research underpins the theoretical proposition of a positive correlation between risk attitudes and the decision to become an entrepreneur, the effects on survival are not as straightforward. Psychological research posits an inverse U-shaped relationship ...
2008| Marco Caliendo, Frank M. Fossen, Alexander S. Kritikos
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DIW Discussion Papers 797 / 2008
Using a research design that traces siblings' preferences for postmaterialistic values in Germany over two decades, this paper provides new evidence on the origins of value preferences. Focusing on Inglehart's thesis of value change, we test the combined socialization and scarcity hypothesis against the social learning hypothesis, a prominent rival account of preadult value preference formation. ...
2008| Martin Kroh