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DIW Discussion Papers 495 / 2005
The article argues that IT continues to have strategic relevance for companies because it en-ables innovation. A conceptual link between the adoption of IT and innovation is established. This conceptual link allows a market-based, economic explanation for variations in IT payoffs among firms: The successful adoption of new IT leads to innovation. Depending on the be-havior of customers and competitors, ...
2005| Philipp Köllinger
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DIW Discussion Papers 494 / 2005
In this paper a dynamic bi-factor model with Markov switching is proposed to measure and predict turning points of the German business cycle. It estimates simultaneously the composite leading indicator (CLI) and composite coincident indicator (CCI) together with corresponding probabilities of being in recession. According to the bi-factor model, on average, CLI leads CCI by 3 months at both peaks and ...
2005| Konstantin A. Kholodilin
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DIW Discussion Papers 493 / 2005
The paper analyzes the network structure of international trade. Adapting a network approach developed in the physical sciences, we propose that international trade functions like a scale-free network. For each commodity group we calculate a characteristic parameter which reflects the structure of its trading network. We then insert this variable into an expanded gravity model to explore the effect ...
2005| Thushyanthan Baskaran, Tilman Brück
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DIW Discussion Papers 492 / 2005
Structural and behavioural factors drive the growth and change of spatial mobility in the industrialised countries: on the macro level we have observed tremendous increases in travel demand as measured by person miles travelled. This paper studies this development of mobility of tripmaking adult persons on working days by analysing micro data as it is provided by the four National Travel Surveys (NTS) ...
2005| Oliver Lipps, Uwe Kunert
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DIW Discussion Papers 491 / 2005
Although left-right items are a standard tool of public opinion research, there remains some difference of opinion on the optimal response format. Two disputes can be identified in the literature: (a) whether to provide respondents with a small or large number of answer categories and (b) whether or not to administer the response scale including a midpoint. This study evaluates the performance of the ...
2005| Martin Kroh
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DIW Discussion Papers 490 / 2005
We analyse consent patterns and consent bias in the context of a large general household survey, the 'Improving survey measurement of income and employment' (ISMIE) survey, also addressing issues that arise when there are multiple consent questions. Using a multivariate probit regression model for four binary outcomes with two incidental truncations, we show that there are biases in consent to data ...
2005| Stephen P. Jenkins, Lorenzo Cappellari, Peter Lynn, Annette Jäckle, Emanuela Sala
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DIW Discussion Papers 489 / 2005
Linkages of household survey responses with administrative data may be based on unique individual identifiers or on survey respondent characteristics. The benefits gained from using unique identifiers need to be assessed in the light of potential problems such as non-response and measurement error. We report on a study that linked survey responses to UK government agency records on benefits and tax ...
2005| Stephen P. Jenkins, Peter Lynn, Annette Jäckle, Emanuela Sala
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DIW Discussion Papers 488 / 2005
This report derives from the project "Improving survey measurement of income and employment (ISMIE)" which investigates measurement error in survey data on income and employment, using a UK sub-sample of the European Household Community Panel (ECHP). In this paper we describe the process of collecting validation data and the outcomes of the process. Validation data were obtained from two sources: employers' ...
2005| Annette Jäckle, Emanuela Sala, Stephen P. Jenkins, Peter Lynn
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DIW Discussion Papers 487 / 2005
Using an experimental design, we compare two alternative approaches to dependent interviewing (proactive and reactive) with traditional independent interviewing on a module of questions about sources of income. We believe this to be the first large-scale quantitative comparison of proactive and reactive dependent interviewing. The three approaches to questioning are compared in terms of their impact ...
2005| Peter Lynn, Annette Jäckle, Stephen P. Jenkins, Emanuela Sala
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DIW Discussion Papers 486 / 2005
The promise of empirical evidence to inform policy makers about their population's health, wealth, employment and economic well being has propelled governments to invest in the harmonization of country specific micro data over the last 25 years. We review the major data harmonization projects launched over this period. These projects include the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), the Cross-National Equivalent ...
2005| Richard V. Burkhauser, Dean R. Lillard
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DIW Discussion Papers 485 / 2005
Propensity Score Matching (PSM) has become a popular approach to estimate causal treatment effects. It is widely applied when evaluating labour market policies, but empirical examples can be found in very diverse fields of study. Once the researcher has decided to use PSM, he is confronted with a lot of questions regarding its implementation. To begin with, a first decision has to be made concerning ...
2005| Marco Caliendo, Sabine Kopeinig
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DIW Discussion Papers 484 / 2005
This paper deals with two hypotheses about factors influencing attitudes toward immigration in Germany. The first looks at how individuals' perceptions of their financial and job situation affect public opinion on immigration. The second hypothesis tests how these attitudes are affected by the beneficial/detrimental effect of immigration on the individual and constitutes the paper's central contribution ...
2005| Ingrid Tucci
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DIW Discussion Papers 483 / 2005
This paper investigates Turkey's sectoral trade flows to the EU based on panel data from the period 1988 to 2002. Turkey's sixteen most important export sectors are analysed. Emphasis is placed on the role of price competition, EU protection, and transport costs in the export trade between Turkey and the EU. The empirical model used is an extended version of the gravity model. This study is also a ...
2005| Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann Danzinger, Dierk Herzer, Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, Sebastian Vollmer
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DIW Discussion Papers 482 / 2005
Previous poverty assessments for Burkina Faso were due to the neglect of some important methodological issues misleading and led to the so-called 'Burkinabè Growth-Poverty-Paradox', i.e. relatively sustained macro-economic growth, but almost constant poverty. We estimate that poverty significantly decreased between 1994 and 2003 at least on the national level, i.e. growth was in contrast to what previous ...
2005| Michael Grimm, Isabel Günther
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DIW Discussion Papers 481 / 2005
European migration policies are characterised by a fundamental paradox: While the barriers for the free mobility of labour have been largely removed within the EU, the regulation of immigration from third countries remains in the domain of national policies of the individual Member States. During the last ten years, these policies have become more and more restrictive, although the public opinion has ...
2005| Tito Boeri, Herbert Brücker
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DIW Discussion Papers 480 / 2005
In this paper we investigate the link between entrepreneurship and financial constraints. We develop a dynamic partial equilibrium model of an individual utility maximization that predicts that the person is more likely to start her business when financial constraints are eased. We test this hypothesis using German Socio-Economic Panel data covering the periods 2000 - 2002 and measure release from ...
2005| Dorothea Schäfer, Oleksandr Talavera
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DIW Discussion Papers 479 / 2005
Competition is claimed to be beneficial in development projects promoting micro and small enterprise finance although there are still some doubts whether these loans can be developed into a profitable business. Actually nothing is known about how many MSE banking units optimally should be created and supported in a certain region. Our research aims at shedding new light on this important issue in development ...
2005| Dorothea Schäfer, Boriss Siliverstovs, Eva Terberger
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DIW Discussion Papers 478 / 2005
A new approach in German innovation policy organizes contests of proposals for developing innovation networks. Based on an overview of the different programs, we investigate the advantages, problems and limitations of such an approach. We find that this type of policy may have a relatively large impact and can, therefore, be regarded as a rather efficient instrument of innovation policy. Compared to ...
2005| Alexander Eickelpasch, Michael Fritsch
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DIW Discussion Papers 477 / 2005
We study the effect of capital controls on the level of investment in human capital and the resulting growth path of an economy. The economy consists of two groups of agents based on the ownership of factors of production. One type of agents - called workers - own human capital and bequeath education to their offsprings. The other group of agents - called capitalists - own and bequeath physical capital. ...
2005| Debajyoti Chakrabarty, Areendam Chanda, Chetan Ghate
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DIW Discussion Papers 476 / 2005
The paper explores dynamics of inflation in Ukraine in the period of relative macroeconomic stability. The analysis of interrelationship between inflation, money growth, wage growth, and a proxy for devaluation expectations is based on impulse responses and variance decomposition of a vector autoregression model. We find that changes in devaluation expectations appear to be the most important factor ...
2005| Boriss Siliverstovs, Olena Bilan