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Angewandte Forschung und Politikberatung in Deutschland : Editorial

Dynamic Measures of Individual Deprivation

We introduce a one-parameter class of individual deprivation measures. Motivated by a suggestion of Runciman, we modify Yitzhaki's index by multiplying it by a function that is interpreted as measuring the part of deprivation generated byan agent's observation that others in his reference group move on to a higher level of income than himself. The parameter reflects the relative weight given to these ...

Eine panelökonometrische Evaluation des deutschen Strafverfolgungssystems

probability and severity of punishment - results in a reduction of crime due to deterrence. What appears to be a simple and straightforward hypothesis turns out to be a demanding task for empirical examination because "crime" is composed of many different offence categories and expected punishment is influenced by the actions and decisions of different institutions such as police, public prosecutor's ...

Bundling of Social and Private Goods and the Soft Budget Constraint Problem

Firms in socialist and transitional economies are often obliged to provide social goods at the same time that they are competing with private firms. This paper analyzes the impact of such bundling on the provision of private and social goods focussing on the inability of politicians to commit not to bail out firms experiencing financial trouble. This soft budget constraint problem results in firms ...

Fiscal Federalism in Russia: Theory, Comparisons, Evaluations

Russia's system of fiscal federalism is examined and evaluated. Current theories of fiscal federalism provide criteria for evaluating such systems. Developments in OECD countries are examined to provide comparative perspectives. Data from Russia's Goskomstat and the Ministry of Finance, which provide an overview of Russia's regional economic characteristics, are used to apply the selected evaluation ...

Analyseergebnisse auf Basis der anonymisierten Steuerdaten

I Think I Can, I Think I Can: Overconfidence and Entrepreneurial Behavior

High failure rates and low average returns suggest that too many people may be entering markets as entrepreneurs. Thus, anticipating how one will perform in the market is a fundamental component of the decision to start a business. Using a large sample obtained from population surveys conducted in 18 countries, we study what variables are significantly associated with the decision to start a business. ...

Pets and Human Health in Germany and Australia: National Longitudinal Results

The German and Australian longitudinal surveys analysed here are the first national representative surveys to show that (1) people who continuously own a pet are the healthiest group and (2) people who cease to have a pet or never had one are less healthy. Most previous studies which have claimed that pets confer health benefits were cross-sectional. So they were open to the objection that owners may ...

Measuring Performance Heterogeneity within Groups: A Two-dimensional Approach

We introduce a two-dimensional measure for the heterogeneity of performance within groups. It leads to a much more differentiated description of heterogeneity than alternative measures and it is relatively robust with regard to extreme values of small units ("outliers").

Economic Relations between Women and Their Partners: An East and West German Comparison after Reunification

This article compares women's and men's economic relations in East and West Germany following the 1990 reunification to exemplify the impact of varying opportunity structures on women's relative contribution to family income. West Germany's takeover set in motion a rapid transformation of East German institutions and employment structures. The analysis shows that women in West Germany became less dependent ...

How Free is the Radio Spectrum? Guest Editorial

Peer Influence in Network Markets: An Empirical Investigation

Relationship Banking and SMEs: A Theoretical Analysis

Reliable information on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is rare and costly for financial intermediaries. Therefore relationship banking is often considered as the appropriate lending technique. In this paper we offer a theoretical model to analyze relationship banking and the pricing behavior of banks in a Bertrand competition framework with monitoring costs. We show that the lack of reliable ...

The Spatial Econometrics of Elephant Population Change: A Note

While previous research found no other variable than corruption to have a negative impact on the growth rate of the elephant populations of African countries, we show that one further significant impact is exerted by "neighbourhood effects". Elephants travel long distances, often crossing borders. Using spatial econometric tools, we find that elephant population changes in one country have a positive ...

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, ...

Competition with Congestible Networks

We analyse competition between two network providers when the quality of each network depends negatively on the number of customers connected to that network. With respect to price competition we provide a sufficient condition for the existence of a unique pure strategy Nash equilibrium. Comparative statics show that as the congestion effect gets stronger quantities will decrease and prices increase, ...

Income Satisfaction and Relative Deprivation: An Empirical Link

This paper explores the relationship between two well-established concepts of measuring individual well-being: the concept of happiness, i.e. self-reported level of satisfaction with income, and relative deprivation, i.e. the gaps between the individual's income and the incomes of all individuals richer than him. Operationalizing both concepts using micro panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, ...

Not for Lack of Trying: American Entrepreneurship in Black and White

Using a sample obtained from a survey conducted in the United States during summer 2002, we study the variables related to observed differences in the rate of entrepreneurial involvement between black and white Americans. We find strong evidence that differences in subjective and often biased perceptions are highly associated with entrepreneurial propensity across these two racial groups. In addition, ...

The Measurement of Social Exclusion

This paper develops an axiomatic approach to the measurement of social exclusion. At the individual level, social exclusion is viewed in terms of deprivation of the person concerned with respect to different functionings in the society. At the aggregate level we treat social exclusion as a function of individual exclusions. The class of subgroup decomposable social exclusion measures using a set of ...

Internationale Mobilität von deutschen Staatsbürgern: Chance für Arbeitslose oder Abwanderung der Leistungsträger?