Externe referierte Aufsätze

One Last Puff? Public Smoking Bans and Smoking Behavior

This paper investigates the short-term effects of public smoking bans on individual smoking behavior. In 2007 and 2008, state-level smoking bans were gradually introduced in all of Germany's federal states. We exploit this variation to identify the effect that smoke-free policies had on individuals' smoking propensity and smoking intensity. Using rich longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic ...

How Emission Certificate Allocations Distort Fossil Investments: The German Example

Despite political activities to foster a low-carbon energy transition, Germany currently sees a considerable number of new coal power plants being added to its power mix. There are several possible drivers for this "dash for coal", but it is widely accepted that windfall profits gained through free allocation of ETS certificates play an important role. Yet the quantification of allocation-related investment ...

Gender Relations in Central and Eastern Europe - Change or Continuity? Introduction to the Special Issue

Introduction to the Special Issue

The Impact of the Financial System's Structure on Firms' Financial Constraints

We estimate firms' cash flow sensitivity of cash to empirically test how the financial system's structure and level of development influence their financial constraints. For this purpose we merge Almeida et al.'s work, a path-breaking design for evaluating a firm's financial constraints, with that of Levine, who paved the way for comparative analysis of financial systems around the world. We conjecture ...

Trust, Positive Reciprocity, and Negative Reciprocity: Do These Traits Impact Entrepreneurial Dynamics?

Experimental evidence reveals that there is a strong willingness to trust and to act in both positively and negatively reciprocal ways. So far it is rarely analyzed whether these variables of social cognition influence everyday decision making behavior. We focus on entrepreneurs who are permanently facing exchange processes in the interplay with investors, sellers, and buyers, as well as needing to ...

Physical Activity Patterns of European 50+ Populations

Many aspects of the economic transition which started in 1989 in Poland are by now complete. However, the route Polish governments have so far taken concerning the system of support for low-income families still implies very different poverty alleviation schemes compared to those found in many developed countries. We examine the Polish system of social assistance in a comparative context with Germany ...

Safety Net Still in Transition: Labour Market Incentive Effects of Social Support in Poland and Germany

Many aspects of the economic transition which started in 1989 in Poland are by now complete. However, the route Polish governments have so far taken concerning the system of support for low-income families still implies very different poverty alleviation schemes compared to those found in many developed countries. We examine the Polish system of social assistance in a comparative context with Germany ...

MIDAS vs. Mixed-Frequency VAR: Nowcasting GDP in the Euro Area

This paper compares the mixed-data sampling (MIDAS) and mixed-frequency VAR (MF-VAR) approaches to model specification in the presence of mixed-frequency data, e.g. monthly and quarterly series. MIDAS leads to parsimonious models which are based on exponential lag polynomials for the coefficients, whereas MF-VAR does not restrict the dynamics and can therefore suffer from the curse of dimensionality. ...

Soaring Dragons, Roaring Tigers, Growling Bears: Determinants of Regional Growth and Convergence in China, India and Russia

We perform a comparative analysis of regional growth and convergence in China, Russia and India over the period 1993-2003 by means of non-parametric methods and kernel density estimates. Our results indicate that wealthy regions were largely responsible for the rapid growth in all three countries. For China and India, capital dissipation was identified as the major determinant of regional growth. In ...

An Economic Analysis of Dismissal Legislation: Determinants of Severance Pay in West Germany

Severance pay is a vital part of employment protection legislation (EPL). We investigate the incidence and level of severance pay for dismissed employees. Our theoretical model predicts that not only the law and its interpretation by labour courts but also the costs of a suit have an impact. Using West German panel data for 1991-2006, we find that theemployees' costs resulting from a suit and the legal ...

Die wahrgenommene Gerechtigkeit des eigenen Erwerbseinkommens: geschlechtstypische Muster und die Bedeutung des Haushaltskontextes

Die zunehmende Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen und die Ausbreitung "atypischer" Beschäftigungsverhältnisse hat zur Folge, dass der Anteil an Haushalten, in denen der Mann der alleinige Ernährer der Familie ist, abnimmt und der Anteil an Zweiverdienerhaushalten seit Jahren ansteigt. Vor diesem Hintergrund fragt dieser Beitrag, welche Bedeutung Haushaltskontexte, in denen das traditionelle male-breadwinner-Modell ...

A Positive Theory of the Earnings Relationship of Unemployment Benefits

In a wage bargaining model, a stronger earnings relationship of unemployment benefits may reduce wages. Therefore, the benefit structure significantly influences profits and trade union utility, raising the question as to how the benefit structure is determined in the political process. We consider a government that chooses the earnings relationship in order to maximize its political support. Our model ...

The Shadow Economy in International Comparison: Options for Economic Policy Derived from an OECD Panel Analysis

Building on new behavioral theories, using a data set of about 450 variables and augmenting the Sala-i-Martin definition of robustness, we find evidence in support of the hypothesis that the standard causes of the shadow economy (SE), taxes, the administrative burden and labor market regulations, are not per se crucial in determining the size of the SE. Many of the robust influences emanate from relatively ...

Shadow Economy, Tax Evasion, and Transfer Fraud: Definition, Measurement, and Data Problems

The paper tries to shed some light on the definition of the shadow economy, in order to separate shadow activities from market activities and household production. A total income concept is applied, which is based on the labor force being engaged in market, shadow and household activities. Based on such a clear concept, tax evasion can be defined and identified in the market sector and is also usually ...

Shadow Economy in High Income Countries - Much Ado about Nothing? Editors' Introduction

Locational Conditions and Firm Performance: Introduction to the Special Issue

Pitfalls of Post-model-selection Testing: Experimental Quantification

Traditional specification testing does not always improve subsequent inference. We demonstrate by means of computer experiments under which circumstances, and how severely, data-driven model selection can destroy the size properties of subsequent parameter tests, if they are used without adjusting for the model-selection step. The investigated models are representative of macroeconometric and microeconometric ...

Incentive Effects of Fiscal Equalization: Has Russian Style Improved?

The effects of intergovernmental fiscal arrangements on variation in regional economic growth are analyzed for Russia, a country with large cross-regional differences and considerable fiscal redistribution. Moreover, fiscal reforms implemented in the first half of the 2000s, which to some extent followed scientific advice, make analysis of this case particularly interesting. We observe that postreform ...

Does Aging Influence Structural Change? Evidence from Panel Data

Our study represents a first attempt to single out the effects of aging on the entire structure of the economy that is approximated by employment shares in different sectors. We find that even after controlling for the effects of other relevant factors - e.g., income per capita, share of trade in GDP, government consumption share in GDP, population size - aging does have a statistically significant ...

The Heckscher-Ohlin Model and the Network Structure of International Trade

This paper estimates for 28 product groups a characteristic parameter that reflects the topological structure of its tradingnetwork. Using these estimates, it describes how the structure of international trade has evolved during the 1980-2000 period. Thereafter, it demonstrates the importance of networks in international trade by explicitlyaccounting for their scaling properties when testing the prediction ...