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Beitragssatz, Kassenwettbewerb und Gesundheitsreform: eine empirische Analyse

The premium rates paid for statutory health insurance in Germany play a key role in the competition among health care funds. With the most recent health care reform (GKV-Wettbewerbsstärkungsgesetz GKV-WSG), a range of new products have been introduced that could erode the advantageous selling proposition of the premium rates. In addition to the pure monetary incentive to change health insurance provider, ...

Die Kosten des Klimawandels: der Mensch heizt die Erde auf - was muss er dafür bezahlen?

Intergenerational Mobility and Marital Sorting

We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey to estimate the extent of intergenerational economic mobility in a framework that highlights the role played by assortative mating. We find that assortative mating plays an important role. On average about 40-50% of the covariance between parents' and own permanent family income can be attributed to the person to ...

Efficiency Analysis of German Electricity Distribution Utilities: Non-Parametric and Parametric Tests

This study applies non-parametric and parametric tests to assess the efficiency of electricity distribution companies in Germany. Traditional issues in electricity sector benchmarking are addressed, such as the role of scale effects and optimal utility size, as well as new evidence specific to the situation in Germany. Labour, capital, and peak load capacity are used as inputs, and units sold and the ...

Innovative Energy Technologies and Climate Policy in Germany

Due to the size and structure of its economy, Germany is one of the largest carbon emitters in the European Union. However, Germany is facing a major renewal and restructuring process in electricity generation. Within the next two decades, up to 50% of current electricity generation capacity may retire because of end-of-plant lifetime and the nuclear phase-out pact of 1998. Substantial opportunities, ...

Testing the Effectiveness of French Work-sharing Reform: A Forecasting Approach

The macroeconomic impact of the French work-sharing reform of 2000 (a reduction of standard working hours in combination with wage subsidies) is analysed. Using avector error correction model (VECM) for several labour market variables, as well as inflation and output, out-of-sample forecasts for 2000/2001 are produced. A comparison of these forecasts - which serve as a benchmark simulation without ...

A Game Theoretic Model of the Northwestern European Electricity Market: Market Power and the Environment

This paper develops a static computational game theoretic model. Illustrative results for the liberalising European electricity market are given to demonstrate the type of economic and environmental results that can be generated with the model. The model is empirically calibrated to eight Northwestern European countries, namely Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and ...

Improving the Institutional Structures for Disseminating Energy Efficiency in Emerging Nations: A Case Study for Energy Agencies in South Africa

Emerging nations are typically characterised by highenergy intensities despite significant energy efficiency potentials and numerous project oriented efforts to introduce energy-efficient technologies. The paper argues that successful technology dissemination needs appropriate institutional structures to reduce the related transaction cost. While a project-by-project approach risks to evaporate after ...

Convergence of European Spot Market Prices for Natural Gas? A Real-Time Analysis of Market Integration Using the Kalman Filter

This letter provides a textbook example of an econometric analysis of the integration between two commodity markets and the subsequent price convergence or absence thereof. Price relations between spot markets are analysed for natural gas in Europe. The European market for natural gas is currently undergoing a liberalization process with the aim of creating a single, unified market. Time-varying coefficient ...

Cohort Effects and the Returns to Education in West Germany

Using a Mincer-type wage function, we estimate cohort effects in the returns to education for West German workers born between 1925 and 1974. The main problem to be tackled in the specification is to separately identify cohort, experience, and possibly also age and year effects in the returns. For women, we find a large and robust decline in schooling premia: In the private sector, the returns to a ...