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DIW Discussion Papers 716 / 2007
In this paper we test the hypothesis that the economic transition toward a market economy increases the efficiency of firms. We study 32 Polish electricity distribution companies between 1997-2002, by applying common benchmarking methods to the panel: the nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA), the free disposal hull (FDH), and, as a parametric approach, the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). ...
2007| Astrid Cullmann, Christian von Hirschhausen
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DIW Discussion Papers 715 / 2007
This paper explores the use of informal credit as a strategy for managing risks by market women in northern Ghana. A broad concept of the costs of risk management strategies is introduced and encompasses both a time and monetary dimension. Based on qualitative data, the analysis reveals that market women invest a considerable amount of time in maintaining complex networks of informal credit providers ...
2007| Kati Schindler
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DIW Discussion Papers 714 / 2007
The objective of this paper is to develop a model to determine the price formation of wholesale electricity markets. For that purpose, we model wholesale electricity prices depending on the prices of fuels (coal and natural gas) and of CO2 emission allowances using a Markov Switching Regression. We apply the model to wholesale electricity prices in the UK and in Germany. While British electricity prices ...
2007| Georg Zachmann
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DIW Discussion Papers 713 / 2007
This paper presents a new approach to obtain unbiased estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL) with labor market data. Investigating job changes, we combine the advantages of recent panel studies, which allow to control for unobserved heterogeneity of workers, and conventional cross-sectional estimations, which primarily exploit the variation of wage and risk between different jobs. We find ...
2007| Hannes Spengler, Sandra Schaffner
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DIW Discussion Papers 712 / 2007
Effects of renewable support legislation on electricity prices have been analyzed with a plethora of models. However, these models neglect at least one of the following aspects which we take into account in our analysis: oligopolistic market behavior of dominant firms, emission trading, restricted electricity trade and production capacities, and effects on producer prices and firm profits. In this ...
2007| Thure Traber, Claudia Kemfert
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DIW Discussion Papers 711 / 2007
This study examines the wage gender gap of young adults in the 1970s, 1980s, and 2000 in the US. Using quantile regression we estimate the gender gap across the entire wage distribution. We also study the importance of high school characteristics in predicting future labor market performance. We conduct analyses for three major racial/ethnic groups in the US: Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, employing ...
2007| Spyros Konstantopoulos, Amelie Constant
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DIW Discussion Papers 710 / 2007
This paper provides empirical evidence how the timing of employment breaks affects pension benefits in Germany. Analysing the biographical data set from the German Pension Insurance (SUF VVL 2004) the employment histories of individuals aged 21 to 60 can be mirrored in detail. We relate differences in pension benefits to employment breaks due to unemployment and parental leave in the individual life ...
2007| Niklas Potrafke
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DIW Discussion Papers 709 / 2007
The aim of this paper is to estimate income advantages arising from publicly provided educa-tion and to analyse their impact on the income distribution in Germany. Using representative micro-data from the SOEP and considering regional and education-specific variation, from a cross-sectional perspective the overall result is the expected levelling effect. When estimating the effects of accumulated educational ...
2007| Joachim R. Frick, Markus M. Grabka, Olaf Groh-Samberg
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DIW Discussion Papers 708 / 2007
This paper applies the literature on asymmetric price transmission to the emerging commodity market for EU emissions allowances (EUA). We utilize an error correction model and an autoregressive distributed lag model to measure the relationship between CO2 price changes and the development of wholesale electricity prices. Using data from the German market for electricity and EUAs, we find that the rising ...
2007| Georg Zachmann, Christian von Hirschhausen
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DIW Discussion Papers 707 / 2007
The role patents play for innovation is not clear, but patenting activity has increased in the last decades. This article reviews the empirical evidence on traditional and novel roles of patents to assess their impacts on innovation in developing countries. It shows that patents are not likely to support innovation in developing countries, even though their non-traditional functions fulfill important ...
2007| Andréanne Léger
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DIW Discussion Papers 706 / 2007
This paper studies gender discrimination against entrepreneurs by financial institutions. Based on the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) that covers firms in several countries of Western Europe as well as in the transition countries of Eastern Europe, our analysis suggests that female-managed firms are less likely to obtain a bank loan compared with male-managed counterparts. ...
2007| Alexander Muravyev, Dorothea Schäfer, Oleksandr Talavera
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DIW Discussion Papers 705 / 2007
Which role do individual income prospects play in the decision to be an entrepreneur rather than an employee? In a model of occupational choice, higher expected after-tax earnings attract people to self-employment, while more risky net earnings deter risk-averse individuals. In this paper I analyse the expected value and variance of income in self-employment and dependent employment empirically, accounting ...
2007| Frank M. Fossen
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DIW Discussion Papers 704 / 2007
The paper focuses on the effects of three different internal bank ratings - Risk-, Property- and Creditworthiness-Rating - on the loan maturity. We use a sample of about 5,000 loans given to sole proprietors and corporate borrowers by two German banks from January 2003 till July 2005. The estimation results for corporate borrowers are consistent with Diamond's (1991) predictions of non-monotonic relationship ...
2007| Nataliya Fedorenko, Dorothea Schäfer, Oleksandr Talavera
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DIW Discussion Papers 703 / 2007
This study develops a parsimonious stable coefficient money demand model for Latvia for the period from 1996 till 2005. A single cointegrating vector between the real money balances, the gross domestic product, the long-term interest rate, and the rate of inflation is found. Our study contributes to better understanding of the factors shaping the demand for money in the new Member States of the ...
2007| Boriss Siliverstovs
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DIW Discussion Papers 702 / 2007
This study examines the relation between corporate governance practices measured by Transparency Disclosure Index (TDI) and dividend policy in Poland. Our empirical approach, constructs measures of the quality of the corporate governance for 110 non-financial companies listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange between 1998 and 2004. We find evidence that an increase in the TDI or its subindices leads to an increase ...
2007| Oskar Kowalewski, Ivan Stetsyuk, Oleksandr Talavera
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DIW Discussion Papers 701 / 2007
The paper investigates young firms' choice of capital source. Our theoretical model hypothesizes a positive (negative) relation between riskiness of the project (price of venture capital) and receiving informed equity. We test our predictions by employing a unique data set collected by KfW group. The theoretical framework is largely confirmed for the sample of bank financing and independent VC financing. ...
2007| Dorothea Schäfer, Oleksandr Talavera, Volker Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 700 / 2007
Over the last four decades, academic and wider public interest in inequality and poverty has grown substantially. In this paper we address the question: what have been the major new directions in the analysis of inequality and poverty over the last thirty to forty years? We draw attention to developments under seven headings: changes in the extent of inequality and poverty, changes in the policy environment, ...
2007| Stephen P. Jenkins, John Micklewright
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DIW Discussion Papers 699 / 2007
The March Current Population Survey (CPS) is the primary data source for estimation of levels and trends in labor earnings and income inequality in the USA. Time-inconsistency problems related to top coding in theses data have led many researchers to use the ratio of the 90th and 10th percentiles of these distributions (P90/P10) rather than a more traditional summary measure of inequality. With access ...
2007| Richard V. Burkhauser, Shuaizhang Feng, Stephen P. Jenkins
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DIW Discussion Papers 698 / 2007
Privacy has been recognized as an important topic in the Internet for a long time, and technological developments in the area of privacy tools are ongoing. However, their focus was mainly on the individual. With the proliferation of social network sites, it has become more evident that the problem of privacy is not bounded by the perimeters of individuals but also by the privacy needs of their social ...
2007| Sören Preibusch, Bettina Hoser, Seda Gürses, Bettina Berendt
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DIW Discussion Papers 697 / 2007
We test empirically whether people's life satisfaction depends on their relative income position in the neighbourhood, drawing on a unique dataset, the German Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP) matched with micro-marketing indicators of population characteristics. Relative deprivation theory suggests that individuals are happier the better their relative income position in the neighbourhood is. To test ...
2007| Gundi Knies, Simon Burgess, Carol Propper