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DIW Discussion Papers 889 / 2009
This paper applies semiparametric regression models using penalized splines to investigate the profile of well-being over the life span. Splines have the advantage that they do not require a priori assumptions about the form of the curve. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), the analysis shows a common, quite similar, age-specific ...
2009| Christoph Wunder, Andrea Wiencierz, Johannes Schwarze, Helmut Küchenhoff, Sara Kleyer, Philipp Bleninger
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DIW Discussion Papers 888 / 2009
Sick leave payments represent a significant portion of public health expenditures and labor costs. Reductions in replacement levels are a commonly used instrument to tackle moral hazard and to increase the efficiency of the health insurance market. In Germany's Statutory Health Insurance (SHI) system, the replacement level for periods of sickness of up to six weeks was reduced from 100 percent to 80 ...
2009| Nicolas R. Ziebarth
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DIW Discussion Papers 887 / 2009
In Europa bestehen deutliche Unterschiede im Ausmaß und in der Struktur von Armut von Erwerbstätigen. Die vorliegende Untersuchung analysiert in einem Vergleich von 20 Ländern, inwieweit dies auf die unterschiedliche Ausgestaltung der institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen eines jeweiligen Landes zurückzuführen ist. Die Analysen basieren auf Mikrodaten aus der EU Statistik zu Einkommen und Lebensbedingungen ...
2009| Henning Lohmann
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DIW Discussion Papers 886 / 2009
This paper empirically investigates the antecedents of internationalization of SMEs, focusing on differences between the manufacturing and service sectors. Specifically, employing a bivariate probit model based on survey data of approximately 3,900 East German firms, I analyze which firm-related and external factors affect a firm's decision to export and/or relocate production or other operations abroad. ...
2009| Anna Lejpras
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DIW Discussion Papers 885 / 2009
This paper examines the integration of stock markets in Germany, France, Netherlands, Ireland and UK over January 1973-August 2008 at the aggregate market and industry level considering the following industries: basic materials, consumer goods, industrials, consumer services, health care and financials. The analysis is carried out by using correlation analysis, ß-convergence and s-convergence methods. ...
2009| Burcu Erdogan
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DIW Discussion Papers 884 / 2009
This paper analyzes research efficiency at the industry level in manufacturing for 13 European member and four nonmember countries during 2000 and 2004. A unique dataset was compiled that matches patent applications at the European Patent Office (EPO) to industry-specific R&D inputs from EU KLEMS. We find that Germany, the United States, and Denmark have the highest efficiency scores on average in ...
2009| Jens Schmidt-Ehmcke, Petra Zloczysti
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DIW Discussion Papers 883 / 2009
This paper assesses the relative efficiency of knowledge production in the OECD using a nonparametric DEA approach. Resources allocated to R&D are limited and should therefore be used efficiently given the institutional and legal constraints. This paper presents efficiency scores based on an intertemporal frontier estimation for the period 1995 to 2004 and analyzes the impact of the regulatory environment ...
2009| Astrid Cullmann, Jens Schmidt-Ehmcke, Petra Zloczysti
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DIW Discussion Papers 882 / 2009
This paper considers the issue of forecasting financial fragility of banks and insurances using a panel data set of performance indicators, namely distance-to- default, taking unobserved common factors into account. We show that common factors are important in the performance of banks and insurances, analyze the influences of a number of observable factors on banking and insurance performance, and ...
2009| Kerstin Bernoth, Andreas Pick
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DIW Discussion Papers 881 / 2009
In January 2009 Germany introduced incentive regulation for the electricity distribution sector based on results obtained from econometric and nonparametric benchmarking analysis. One main problem for the regulator in assigning the relative efficiency scores are unobserved firm-specific factors such as network and technological differences. Comparing the efficiency of different firms usually assumes ...
2009| Astrid Cullmann
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DIW Discussion Papers 880 / 2009
A budget-constrained buyer wants to purchase items from a shortlisted set. Items are differentiated by quality and sellers have private reserve prices for their items. Sellers quote prices strategically, inducing a knapsack game. The buyer's problem is to select a subset of maximal quality. We propose a buying mechanism which can be viewed as a game theoretic extension of Dantzig's greedy heuristic ...
2009| Ludwig Ensthaler, Thomas Giebe
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DIW Discussion Papers 879 / 2009
In this paper we specify a multi-factor long-memory process that enables us to estimate the fractional differencing parameters at each frequency separately, and adopt this framework to model quarterly prices in three European countries (France, Italy and the UK). The empirical results suggest that inflation in France and Italy is nonstationary. However, while for the former country this applies both ...
2009| Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Luis A. Gil-Alana
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DIW Discussion Papers 878 / 2009
Integrated assessment models lack a microeconomic foundation in modelling environmental damages to the economy. To overcome this, damage coefficients are incorporated in standard microeconomic models. Firms and consumers take both damages and prices as given. Demand, supply, profit and expenditure functions under damage coefficients are derived that allow easy implementation in applied economic models ...
2009| Harold Houba, Hans Kremers
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DIW Discussion Papers 877 / 2009
We estimate a dynamic structural life-cycle model of employment, non-employment and retirement that includes endogenous accumulation of human capital and intertemporal non- separabilities in preferences. Additionally, the model accounts for the effect of the tax and transfer system on work incentives. The structural parameter estimates are used to evaluate the effects of a tax reform targeted at low ...
2009| Peter Haan, Victoria Prowse
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DIW Discussion Papers 876 / 2009
The determinants of export behaviour at firm level have been widely investigated for manufacturing companies. By contrast, what has remained largely neglected is a detailed investigation in the service sector. As aggregate statistics show, international trade in services has grown significantly over the last few years. However, it is unclear why some companies export and others do not. This paper presents ...
2009| Alexander Eickelpasch, Alexander Vogel
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DIW Discussion Papers 875 / 2009
This paper analyses trade specialisation dynamics in two Eastern European countries (Romania and Bulgaria - EEC-2) vis-à-vis the core EU member states (EU-15) over the period 1990-2006. Specifically, we focus on whether there is a shift towards intra-industry trade leading to economic convergence and technological catch-up. We use recently developed static (FEM, REM and FEVD) and dynamic (GMM) panel ...
2009| Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Christophe Rault, Robert Sova, Anamaria Sova
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DIW Discussion Papers 874 / 2009
This paper evaluates the Morningstar mutual fund ranking system. We find that indeed higher Morningstar ratings are associated with higher returns on the portfolios including respectively five-, four-, three-, two- and one-star funds only (STAR5 to STAR1). We then perform an unconditional and conditional portfolio performance evaluation. In both cases the evidence suggests that the better performance ...
2009| Antonios Antypas, Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Nikolaos Kourogenis, Nikitas Pittis
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DIW Discussion Papers 873 / 2009
This paper examines volatility spillovers from mature to emerging stock markets and tests for changes in the transmission mechanism-contagion-during turbulences in mature markets. Tri-variate GARCH-BEKK models of returns in global (mature), regional, and local markets are estimated for 41 emerging market economies (EMEs), with a dummy capturing parameter shifts during turbulent episodes. LR tests suggest ...
2009| John Beirne, Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Marianne Schulze-Ghattas, Nicola Spagnolo
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DIW Discussion Papers 872 / 2009
We explore the long and short run relationship between private consumption, disposable income and housing and financial wealth approximated by price indices for a panel of industrialized countries. Consumption, income and wealth are cointegrated in their common, but not in their idiosyncratic components. This stresses the relevance of inter-national spillovers to explain aggregate consumption behaviour. ...
2009| Christian Dreger, Hans-Eggert Reimers
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DIW Discussion Papers 871 / 2009
We use newly available data from Germany to study the relationship between parental income and child health. We find a strong gradient between parental income and subjective child health as has been documented earlier in the US, Canada and the UK. The relationship in Germany is about as strong in the US and stronger than in theUK. However, in contrast to US results, we do not find that the disadvantages ...
2009| Steffen Reinhold, Hendrik Jürges
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DIW Discussion Papers 870 / 2009
We propose a duopoly model of competition between internet search engines endowed with different technologies and study the effects of an agreement where the more advanced firm shares its technology with the inferior one. We show that the superior firm enters the agreement only if it results in a large enough increase in demand for advertising space at the competing .rm and a relatively small improvement ...
2009| Geza Sapi, Irina Suleymanova