Vorträge des DIW Berlin

Innovative Activity in Renewable Energy Technologies: Empirical Evidence of Knowledge Spillovers Using Patent Data

This paper studies technological change in renewable energy technologies. It provides unique empirical evidence on the determinants of innovative activity - measured by number of patent applications - in two important renewable technologies, solar and wind energy. This article investigates a new channel through which innovation is stimulated, namely prior knowledge which spills over to the field...

Consumers' Shopping Costs as a Cause of Slotting Fees: A Rent-Shifting Mechanism

This paper explains the emergence of slotting fees in a sequential bargaining framework with one retailer and to suppliers of substitutable goods. We take consumers' shopping costs explicitly into account. To economize on their shopping time, consumers tend to bundle their purchases inducing positive demand externalities. If the complementarity effect dominates the original substitution effect,...

Impact of Industrialization on Relative Female Survival: Evidence from Trade Policies

Previous attempts at understanding the role of industrialization on son preference are confounded by the endogeneity of the industrialization process. This paper exploits an exogenous shift in the trade policy in India to study the impact of industrialization on son preference. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I find that households are more likely to have a male child in regions with...

Expected Future Earnings, Taxation, and University Enrollment: A Microeconometric Model with Uncertainty

Taxation changes the expectations of prospective university students about their future level and uncertainty of after-tax income. To estimate the impact of taxes on university enrollment, we estimate a structural microeconometric model, in which a high-school graduate decides to enter university studies if expected lifetime utility from this choice is greater than that anticipated from starting...

Conflict and Education Demand in the Basque Region

The relationship between conflict and education has been studied before. However, previous authors have always focused strongly on the supply-side effects, whereas this paper examines the influence of conflict on the demand for education. It is theoretically shown that, under relatively general conditions, individuals living in a conflict area have an incentive to increase their level of education...

Changes in Family Structure and Employment Pattern: Do They Blend with Early Childhood Outcomes?

As presented in recent literature (see Cunha and Heckman 2007, 2009), parental environment considerably influences child development. Since the early years are most important when evaluating the development of skills, we examine in our analysis mainly non-cognitive outcome measures of toddlers and preschoolers. We focus on changes in family structure and employment patterns for German families...

Risk Attitudes and Investment Decisions across European Countries: Are Women More Conservative Investors Than Men?

This study questions the popular stereotype that women are more risk averse than men in their financial investment decisions. The analysis is based on micro-level data from large-scale surveys of private households in five European countries. In our analysis of investment decisions, we directly account for individuals' self-perceived willingness to take financial risks. The empirical evidence we...

Inefficiency in the German Mechanical Engineering Sector

This paper examines the relative efficiency in the German engineering industry. Applying recently developed DEA methods on roughly 23,000 observations between 1995 and 2004 three expectations are tested: (i) there is a left skewed efficiency as expected in competitive industries, (ii) efficiency increase with firm size (iii) the expected efficiency gap between size classes is stable. The results...

Modeling Strategic Electricity Storage: The Case of Pumped Hydro Storage in Germany

We develop a game-theoretic electricity market model that allows analyzing strategic electricity storage in an imperfect market setting. We apply the model to Germany and examine different cases of pumped hydro storage operation. We find that introducing storage smoothes market prices and increases consumer rent and overall welfare. Electricity producers generally suffer from storage. The...

The Impact of Outsourcing on Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Matched Firm Level Data

The aim of this paper is to assess the influence of firms service outsourcing decisions on their performance. I evaluate whether those firms experience significant productivity gains that decide to rearrange their production process by subcontracting in-house activities to outside suppliers. The analysis is based on a representative panel dataset of German manufacturing firms. I estimate separate...

Beyond the Overall Economic Downturn: Evidence on Sector-Specific Effects of Violent Conflict from Indonesia

This paper analyses the impact of violent conflict on economic growth using a unique dataset from the villages of Indonesia. We compile a panel dataset at district level for the period 2002-2008, and disentangle the overall negative economic effect of violent conflict into its sectoral components. Our results reveal substantial differences across sectors, with manufacturing industries and the...

Self-Employment and Conflict in Colombia

Many Colombians are confronted with the ongoing conflict influencing their behaviour on labor markets. This study focuses on the impact of conflict on self-employment. Three datasets are combined for fixed effects estimation: the Familias en Acción dataset delivers information about individuals, a second dataset contains different indicators of the Colombian conflict on the municipality level and...

Long-Term Absenteeism and Moral Hazard: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

We theoretically and empirically disentangle various effects of two cuts in the statutory sick pay levels in Germany on long-term absenteeism. The reforms have not led to significant changes in the average incidence rate and duration of sick leave periods longer than six weeks. The finding is theoretically confirmed assuming that the long-term sick are seriously sick. Thus, moral hazard is less of...

Facing a Break Point in Global Inflation Transmission?

The paper addresses the issue of the co-movements of national inflation dynamics with a common factor of a global dynamic. Based on the previous work of Ciccarelli and Mojon (2005) on global inflation the authors look at the more recent development in particular after the outbreak of the global financial crisis in July 2007. As a working hypothesis they try to find out if there is already...

Germany's Next Top Manager: Does Personality Explain the Gender Career Gap?

The female share in management positions is quite low in Germany. The higher the hierarchical level, the fewer women there are in such positions. Men have numerous role models to follow whereas women lack this opportunity. Many studies have focused on the influence of human capital and other "objective" factors on career opportunities. In our study, we go a step further by also looking at the...

Comparability of EU-SILC Survey and Register Data: The Relationship of Employment, Earnings and Poverty

The Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) provide an up-to-date data source for the comparative analysis of income, material deprivation, and poverty. At the EU level, these data have become a standard source for social reporting. Yet the specific approaches to data collection in EU-SILC vary widely from one country to the next. One of the major differences is that some countries...

Extending the Empirical Basis for Wealth Inequality Research Using Statistical Matching of Administrative and Survey Data

Social security entitlements are a substantial source of wealth that grows in importance over the individual's lifecycle. Despite its quantitative relevance, social security wealth has been thus far omitted from wealth inequality analyses. In Germany, it is the lack of adequate micro data that accounts for this shortcoming. The two main contributions of this paper are: First, to elaborate a...

Distributional Effects of Non-cash Incomes in Seven European Countries

Most empirical distributional studies in developed countries rely on distributions of disposable income. From a theoretical point of view this practice is contentious since a household?s command over resources is determined not only by its spending power over commodities it can buy in the market but also on resources available to the household members through non-market mechanisms such as the in...

What Drives Regional Business Cycles? The Role of Common and Spatial Components

Regional Measures of Human Capital in the European Union