-
DIW Discussion Papers 1339 / 2013
Using a panel of annual data for 20 countries we show that synchronized fiscal consolidation (stimulus) programmes in different countries make their business cycles more closely linked, especially in the case of fiscal adjustments lasting 2 or 3 years. We also find: (i) little evidence of decoupling when an inflation targeting regime is unilaterally adopted; (ii) an increase in business cycle synchronization ...
2013| Luca Agnello, Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Ricardo M. Sousa
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1338 / 2013
US shale gas production is generally expected to continue its fast rise. However, a cautious evaluation is needed. Shale gas resource estimates are potentially overoptimistic and it is uncertain to which extent they can be produced economically. Moreover, the adverse environmental effects of ever more wells to be drilled may lead to a fall in public acceptance and a strengthening of regulation. The ...
2013| Philipp M. Richter
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1337 / 2013
Multiplicative growth processes that are subject to random shocks often have a skewed distribution of outcomes. In a number of incentivized laboratory experiments we show that a large majority of participants either strongly underestimate skewness or ignore it completely. Participants misperceive the outcome distribution's spread to be far too narrow-band and they estimate the median to lie too close ...
2013| Ludwig Ensthaler, Olga Nottmeyer, Georg Weizsäcker, Christian Zankiewicz
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1336 / 2013
Due to data limitations and the absence of testable, model-based predictions, theory and evidence on herd behavior are only loosely connected. This paper contributes towards closing this gap in the herding literature. We use numerical simulations of a herd model to derive new, theory-based predictions for aggregate herding intensity. Using high-frequency, investor-specific trading data we confirm the ...
2013| Christopher Boortz, Simon Jurkatis, Stephanie Kremer, Dieter Nautz
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1335 / 2013
The paper deals with the competitive effects of price guarantees in a spatial duopoly where consumers can search for lower prices but have to incur hassle costs if they want to claim a price guarantee. It is shown that symmetric equilibria with and without price guarantees exist but price guarantees will have no effect on prices if search costs are low, hassle costs are high and the number of uninformed ...
2013| Pio Baake, Ulrich Schwalbe
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1334 / 2013
The self-employed constitute a large proportion of the workforce in developing countries and the sector is growing. Different accounts exist as to the causes of this development, with pull factors such as high returns to capital contrasted with push factors such as barriers to more desirable salaried jobs. Using data from Ghana, we investigate the changing structure of earnings in self-employment relative ...
2013| Paolo Falco, Luke Haywood
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1333 / 2013
This paper studies the impact of credit rating agency (CRA) announcements on the value of the Euro and the yields of French, Italian, German and Spanish long-term sovereign bonds during the culmination of the Eurozone debt crisis in 2011-2012. The employed GARCH models show that CRA downgrade announcements negatively affected the value of the Euro currency and also increased its volatility. Downgrading ...
2013| Christopher F. Baum, Margarita Karpava, Dorothea Schäfer, Andreas Stephan
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1332 / 2013
This paper investigates the effects of global oil and food price shocks to consumer prices in Middle East-North African (MENA) countries using threshold cointegration methods. Oil and food price shocks increase domestic prices in the long run, whereby the impact of food prices dominates. While global prices are weakly exogenous, consumer prices respond to deviations from the equilibrium relationship. ...
2013| Ansgar Belke, Christian Dreger
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1331 / 2013
We evaluate the impact of M&A activity on the growth of R&D spending and R&D intensity of 265 acquiring firms and 133 merger targets between 1990 and 2009. We use different matching techniques to construct separate control groups for acquirers and targets and use appropriate difference-in-difference estimation methods to single out the causal effect of mergers on R&D growth and intensity. We find that ...
2013| Florian Szücs
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1330 / 2013
We study the effect of a merger in a dynamic high-technology industry-the videogame market- which is characterized by frequent introduction of new products. To assess the impact of the merger between two large specialist retailers in the UK, we perform a difference-in-differences analysis comparing the price evolution of the merging parties to that of their 7 major competitors on an original sample ...
2013| Luca Aguzzoni, Elena Argentesi, Paolo Buccirossi, Lorenzo Ciari, Tomaso Duso, Massimo Tognoni, Cristiana Vitale
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1329 / 2013
In response to the growing burden of obesity, public primary prevention programs against obesity have been widely recommended. Several studies estimated the cost effects of diabetes prevention trials for different countries and found that diabetes prevention can be costeffective. Nevertheless, it is still controversial if prevention conducted in more real-world settings and among people with increased ...
2013| Jan Häußler, Friedrich Breyer
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1328 / 2013
Recent developments in electricity markets such as the increased deployment of variable renewable generation have prompted renewed interest over the role of energy storage. While storage technologies can in principle provide various benefits for the functioning of an electrical grid, many energy storage technologies are in initial stages of development and demonstration. The role of public policy is ...
2013| Eric Borden, Wolf-Peter Schill
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1327 / 2013
To date, the distributive implications of incentive regulation on electricity transmission networks have not been explicitly studied in the literature. More specifically, the parameters that a regulator might use to achieve distributive efficiency under price-cap regulation have not yet been identified. To discern these parameters is the motivation for the research presented in this paper. We study ...
2013| Luis Ángel Herrera, Juan Rosellón
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1326 / 2013
Classic economic theory predicts that markets will clear, leaving little or no gains from trade left on the table. Laboratory experiments have largely confirmed this, though the results of recent field experiments have been mixed, with some artefactual markets in developing countries performing relatively inefficiently. I create a realistic multi-round trading market in Uganda with market-experienced ...
2013| Nathan Fiala
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1325 / 2013
Research and development (R&D) is a common process in for-profit organizations. Despite the benefits, it is not routinely practiced in nonprofit organizations, in part because it is difficult to identify the effects of programs that are designed to involve individuals over long periods of time. This paper presents a process by which organizations looking to affect social outcomes can learn from their ...
2013| Nathan Fiala, Cormac Mangan
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1324 / 2013
Returns merely based on one purchasing price of an asset are uninformative for people regularly contributing to their old-age provision. Here, each purchase has an influence on the outcome. Still, they are commonly used in finance literature, giving an overly optimistic view of expected long-term stock market returns and risks. Moreover, around business cycle turning points when volatility is high, ...
2013| Dirk Ulbricht
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1323 / 2013
Previous work has shown that state-level antitrust enforcement activity may have impacts on entry and relocation behavior by U.S. firms. Significant state-level antitrust activity may be an indicator of a perceived adverse business environment and it is found to deter establishment entry, particularly for larger firms in the retail and wholesale sectors. An obvious question is whether establishment ...
2013| Robert M. Feinberg, Thomas A. Husted, Florian Szücs
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1322 / 2013
We study the degree of agglomeration of acquisition activity within clusters of temporal, geographic and industrial proximity based on almost 600,000 individual transactions. The findings indicate that significant clustering occurs in time and across industries, while the results on geographic clustering are mixed. This supports the view that merger waves are mostly driven by neoclassical motives. ...
2013| Florian Szücs
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1321 / 2013
We quantify externalities on profitability and market shares of competing firms in oligopolistic markets through the transition from an n to an n - 1 player oligopoly after a merger. Competitors are identified via the European Commission's market investigations and our methodology allows us to distinguish the externality due to the change in market structure from the merger effect. We obtain results ...
2013| Klaus Gugler, Florian Szücs
-
DIW Discussion Papers 1320 / 2013
This paper proposes a dynamic life cycle model of health risks, employment, early retirement, and wealth accumulation in order to analyze the health-related risks of consumption and old age poverty. In particular, the model includes a health process, the interaction between health and employment risks, and an explicit modeling of the German public insurance schemes. I rely on a dynamic programming ...
2013| Daniel Kemptner