Externe referierte Aufsätze

Wage Mobility in East and West Germany

This article studies long run wage mobility as a characteristic of regional labor markets. Using German administrative data we describe wage mobility since 1975 in West and since 1992 in East Germany. Wage mobility declined substantially in East Germany in the 1990s and moderately in East and West Germany since the late 1990s. These findings are robust in many dimensions. We apply RIF regression based ...

Credit Provision and Banking Stability after the Great Financial Crisis: The Role of Bank Regulation and the Quality of Governance

In response to the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), bank regulatory regimes were tightened world-wide to strengthen banking stability and the resilience of the banking sectors. Yet, it is often claimed that regulatory tightening may lead banks to cut back on lending and comes at the cost of a lower loan supply. The present paper uses a country panel for 50 advanced and emerging market economies to analyze ...

Unconventional Monetary Policy and Money Demand

This paper investigates the usefulness of the money demand relationship in times of unconventional monetary policies by cointegration methods. Our empirical evidence shows the existence of stable long run money demand functions even in the period of interest rates near the zero bound, both for the US economy and the euro area. Evidence is based on standard monetary aggregates, i.e. MZM for the US and ...

Andere Länder, andere Wege: Pflege im internationalen Vergleich?

Expansion of Full-Day Childcare and Subjective Well-Being of Mothers: Interdependencies with Culture and Resources

This study investigates whether an expansion of state-subsidized full-day childcare may improve the subjective well-being of mothers of children under school age by acting as a boundary-spanning resource to facilitate the combination of employment and childcare responsibilities. It extends previous studies that showed contradictory results by demonstrating that the relationship with parental subjective ...

Rates of Return and Early Retirement Disincentives: Evidence from a German Pension Reform

To counteract the financial pressure emerging in aging societies, statutory pension schemes are undergoing fundamental reforms in many Western countries. Starting with cohort 1937, Germany introduced permanent pension deductions for early retirement. This study examines the profitability of pension contributions against the background of this reform for cohorts 1935–1945. Internal rates of return (IRR) ...

Firms' Evaluation of Location Quality: Evidence from East Germany

Our study provides evidence for firms’ evaluation of location quality. We use a 2004 survey of 6,000 East German firms that contained questions on the importance and assessment of 15 different location factors ranging from closeness to customers and suppliers, transport infrastructure, and proximity to research institutions and universities, as well as questions about the local financial institutions ...

Language Acquisition of Recently Arrived Immigrants in England, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands

This study examines processes of language acquisition among new immigrants from Poland and Turkey in different European destinations focusing on the first few months after arrival. Starting from a human capital framework, a variety of pre- and post-migration conditions of language learning are addressed, including economic and non-economic incentives, the amount of exposure to the destination language ...

Technical Efficiency and CO2 Reduction Potentials: An Analysis of the German Electricity and heat Generating Sector

In this paper, we analyze the technical efficiency and CO2 reduction potentials of German power and heat plants, using a non-parametric sequential Data Envelopment Analysis. We apply a metafrontier framework to evaluate plant-level efficiency in the transformation of inputs into desirable (energy) and undesirable (CO2 emissions) outputs, taking into account different fossil fuel generation technologies. ...

Locus of Control and Low-Wage Mobility

We investigate whether non-cognitive skills – in particular Locus of Control – are important determinants of mobility processes for male workers at the low-wage margin. Our results reveal a significant amount of state dependence in low pay even after controlling for non-cognitive skills. Furthermore, compared to individuals with an external Locus of Control, individuals with a more internal Locus of ...

Exchange Rate Forecasts and Expected Fundamentals

Using a large panel of individual professionals' forecasts, this paper demonstrates that good exchange rate forecasts are related to a proper understanding of fundamentals, specifically good interest rate forecasts. This relationship is robust to individual fixed effects and further controls. Reassuringly, the relationship is stronger during phases when the impact from fundamentals is more obvious, ...

A Coordinated Strategic Reserve to Safeguard the European Energy Transition

In Germany and beyond, various capacity mechanisms are currently being discussed with a view to improving the security of electricity supply. One of these mechanisms is a strategic reserve that retains generation capacity for use in times of critical supply shortage. We argue that strategic reserves have specific advantages compared to other capacity mechanisms in the context of the European energy ...

Long-Term Effects of an Extensive Cognitive Training on Personality Development

Objective: Previous research found that cognitive training increases the Big Five personality trait openness to experience during and some weeks after the intervention. The present study investigated whether long-term changes happen in openness to experience and other personality traits after an extensive cognitive training of memory and perceptual speed.Method: Intervention group consisted of 204 ...

Shocks, Individual Risk Attitude, and Vulnerability to Poverty among Rural Households in Thailand and Vietnam

We examine whether the experience of shocks influences individual risk attitude. We measure the risk attitude of more than 4,000 households in Thailand and Vietnam via a simple survey item. The experience of adverse shocks, which is typical for poor and vulnerable households, is related to a higher degree of risk aversion, even when controlled for a large set of socio-demographic variables. Therefore, ...

Terminal Decline in Well-Being: The Role of Social Orientation

Well-being development at the end of life is often characterized by steep deteriorations, but individual differences in these terminal declines are substantial and not yet well understood. This study moved beyond typical consideration of health predictors and explored the role of social orientation and engagement. To do so, we used social variables at the behavioral level (self-ratings of social participation) ...

A Research Symbiont

Gesamtwirtschaftlich unbedeutend: Ostmitteleuropa und die EU-Sanktionen gegen Russland

Rules versus Human Beings, and the Mandate of the ECB

The actions by the European Central Bank (ECB) during the global and European crises have triggered a highly controversial debate, in particular in Germany, about the costs and benefits of the chosen policy path. The article reviews, compares, and evaluates the different arguments made in favor and against ECB policies around three key dimensions—the link of the policy path to price stability, financial ...

Occupational Career Attainment of Single Women during Modernization: The Logic of Industrialism Thesis Revisited

Modernization processes are said to have caused major changes in individual social mobility outcomes. Whether the predictions of the logic of industrialism thesis hold for the careers of women is unclear however. This study provides the first systematic account of how regional modernization processes during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries influenced the careers of the female working population. ...

R&D Expenditures and Geographical Sales Diversification

This paper empirically examines the role of diversification in export markets on firm-level R&D activities taking account of the potential endogeneity in this relationship. We show that geographical sales diversification across different regions of the world induces UK firms to increase their R&D expenditures, as firms must innovate and develop new products to maintain a competitive edge over their ...