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DIW Discussion Papers 559 / 2006
This paper analyzes a modified yardstick competition mechanism (MYC), where the yardstick employed consists of a tariff basket and total costs. This mechanism has a significant information advantage: the regulator "only" needs to observe total costs and output of all firms. The modified yardstick competition mechanism can ensure a socially optimal outcome when allowing for spatial and second degree ...
2006| Georg Meran, Christian von Hirschhausen
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DIW Discussion Papers 547 / 2006
There are concerns about the attachment of immigrants to the labor force, and the potential policy responses. This paper uses a bi-national survey on immigrant performance to investigate the sorting of individuals into full-time paid-employment and entrepreneurship and their economic success. Particular attention is paid to the role of legal status at entry in the host country (worker, refugee, and ...
2006| Amelie Constant, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 531 / 2005
This papers studies the effects on service quality and consumer surplus of a minimum price which is fixed by a bureaucratic non-monopolistic professional association. It shows that the price floor set by a Niskanen-type professional assocation will maximize consumer surplus only if consumers demand the highest possible average quality. If consumers demand services of lesser quality, the association's ...
2005| Georg Meran, Reimund Schwarze
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DIW Discussion Papers 460 / 2004
European Union economies are pressed by (i) a demographic change that induces population ageing and a decline of the workforce, and (ii) a split labour market that is characterized by high levels of unemployment for low -skilled people and a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers. This lack of flexible high-skilled workers and the aging process has created the image of an immobile labour force and ...
2004| Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 455 / 2004
Economically active people are either in gainful employment, are unemployed or self-employed. We are interested in the dynamics of the transitions between these states across the business cycle. It is generally perceived that employment or self-employment are absorbing states. However, innovations, structural changes and business cycles generate strong adjustment processes that lead to fluctuations ...
2004| Amelie Constant, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 436 / 2004
This paper compares the outcomes of corporate self-regulation and traditional ex-ante regulation of network access to monopolistic bottlenecks. In the model of self-regulation, the domestic gas supplier and network owner and the monopsonistic gas customer fix quantities and the network access price, whereas the competitive fringe of foreign gas producers (third party) and the household customers are ...
2004| Georg Meran, Christian von Hirschhausen
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DIW Discussion Papers 395 / 2004
There are few studies on occupational choices in Germany, and the second generation occupational choice and mobility is even less investigated. Such research is important because occupations determine success in the labor market. In a country like Germany occupations also reflect a general socio-economic standing. This paper looks at the patterns of employment in Germany, analyzes how individual men ...
2004| Amelie Constant, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 390 / 2003
The economic literature has largely overlooked the importance of repeat migration. This paper studies repeat or circular migration as it is manifested by the frequency of exits of migrants living in Germany, and by the number of years being away from the host country using count data models. More than 60% of the guestworker generation currently living in Germany, the largest European immigration country, ...
2003| Amelie Constant, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 387 / 2003
We analyze the determinants of household work contracted in the German shadow economy. The German socio-economic household panel, which enumerates casual domestic employment, is used to estimate the demand for such household work. The regressors include regional wage rates, household income and several control variables for household composition. We find that the demand for household work in the shadow ...
2003| Tilman Brück, John P. Haisken-DeNew, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 386 / 2003
This paper focuses on the entrepreneurial endeavors of immigrants and natives in Germany. We pay closer attention to Turks, since they are the largest immigrant group with a strong entrepreneurial tradition, and the self-employed Turks in Germany represent about 70% of all Turkish entrepreneurs in the European Union. We identify the characteristics of the self-employed individuals and understand their ...
2003| Amelie Constant, Yochanan Shachmurove, Klaus F. Zimmermann