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DIW Discussion Papers 515 / 2005
Aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik (AAMP) umfasst eine Vielzahl staatlicher Maßnahmen zur Verhinderung von Arbeitslosigkeit und Förderung von Beschäftigung. Die quantitativ wichtigsten Programme der AAMP in Deutschland waren traditionell die Förderung der beruflichen Weiterbildung sowie Arbeitsbeschaffungs- und Strukturanpassungsmaßnahmen. In letzter Zeit haben aber auch neuere Instrumente der AAMP wie z.B. ...
2005| Marco Caliendo, Viktor Steiner
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DIW Discussion Papers 514 / 2005
This paper constructs a heterogenous agent model of endogenous distribution and growth. When the labor leisure choice of agents is exogenous, the factor holding ratios of households converges to a mass point that is independent of the initial distribution of capital in the steady state. There is complete equality and every household's preferred tax rate equals the growth maximizing tax rate. There ...
2005| Chetan Ghate
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DIW Discussion Papers 513 / 2005
The vast majority of regions in West Germany, and the EU, have become more similar in terms of per-capita income and productivity between 1980 and 2000. But a number of rich areas - generally large agglomerations - have succeeded in departing from this trend of convergence. They are continuing to rise above the average productivity level. We examine whether this development can also be seen as due ...
2005| Kurt Geppert, Martin Gornig, Axel Werwatz
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DIW Discussion Papers 512 / 2005
This study tests the hypothesis that the ongoing restructuring process in the European electricity sector, as well as market participants' adaptation to the new legal framework, have caused electricity wholesale day-ahead prices to converge towards arbitrage freeness. Using hourly cross-border capacity auction results at the Dutch-German and at the Danish-German border for the years 2002 to 2004, and ...
2005| Georg Zachmann
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DIW Discussion Papers 511 / 2005
This paper presents new evidence on the distribution of risk attitudes in the population, using a novel set of survey questions and a representative sample of roughly 22,000 individuals living in Germany. Using a question that asks about willingness to take risks on an 11-point scale, we find evidence of heterogeneity across individuals, and show that willingness to take risks is negatively related ...
2005| Thomas Dohmen, Armin Falk, David Huffman, Uwe Sunde, Jürgen Schupp, Gert G. Wagner
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DIW Discussion Papers 510 / 2005
Using data from the 2004 'Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe' (SHARE), this paper continues and extends recent cross-national research on the proximity and contacts of elderly parents to their adult children. To begin with, we provide a brief description of the 'geography of the family' in ten continental European countries. In the multivariate part of the paper we investigate into the ...
2005| Karsten Hank
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DIW Discussion Papers 509 / 2005
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 ...
2005| Katja Schumacher, Ronald D. Sands
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DIW Discussion Papers 508 / 2005
We estimate the political economy determinants of budget deficit forecast errors. Since the adoption of the Stability Pact, Eurozone governments have manipulated forecasts before elections. The political orientation and the institutional design of governments also affects the quality of forecasts.
2005| Tilman Brück, Andreas Stephan
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DIW Discussion Papers 507 / 2005
While previous research found no other variable than corruption to have a negative impact on (the growth rate of) the African countries' elephant populations, we show that one further significant impact is exerted by what one might call neighbourhood effects. Elephants travel long distances, often crossing borders. Using spatial econometric tools, we find that elephant population changes in one country ...
2005| Björn Frank, Per Botolf Maurseth
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DIW Discussion Papers 506 / 2005
As part of the Statutory Health Insurance Modernization Act a co-payment of €10 per quarter for the first contact at a physician's or a dentist's office has been introduced with effect of 1stJanuary 2004. Apart from contributing to the financial consolidation of the Statutory Health Insurance the co-payment aimed at changing the patients' behaviour towards more selfresponsibility. This article shows ...
2005| Markus M. Grabka, Jonas Schreyögg, Reinhard Busse
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DIW Discussion Papers 505 / 2005
This paper examines social agglomeration externalities. Using survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, I examine the link between city size and different measures of consumption, social interaction and social capital. Further, using responses to satisfaction questions, I analyse whether individuals are compensated for diseconomies of agglomeration by positive agglomeration externalities in ...
2005| Rainald Borck
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DIW Discussion Papers 504 / 2005
Following Keen and Marchand (1997), the paper analyses the effect of fiscal competition on the composition of public spending in a model where capital and skilled workers are mobile while low skilled workers are immobile. Taxes are levied on capital and labour. Each group of workers benefits from a different kind of public good. Mobility of skilled workers provides an incentive for jurisdictions to ...
2005| Rainald Borck
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DIW Discussion Papers 503 / 2005
This paper surveys models of voting on redistribution. Under reasonable assumptions, the baseline model produces an equilibrium with the extent of redistributive taxation chosen by the median income earner; if the median is poorer than average, redistribution is from rich to poor. Increasing inequality increases redistribution. However, under different assumptions about the economic environment, redistribution ...
2005| Rainald Borck
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DIW Discussion Papers 502 / 2005
Die Rendite von Sparkassen und Genossenschaftsbanken liegt in Deutschland über der von privaten Geschäftsbanken. Das vorliegende Papier bietet einen theoretischen Erklärungsansatz, der diese Renditeunterschiede auf Differenzen in der Kreditvergabestrategie zurückführt. Dieses Modell zeigt, dass Finanzintermediäre, die ihre Informationen über Kunden durch langfristige Kreditbeziehungen generieren, einen ...
2005| Timo Baas, Mechthild Schrooten
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DIW Discussion Papers 501 / 2005
Many firms fail shortly after inception. Yet individuals continue starting businesses. Prewar economists such as Keynes invoked animal spirits and stressed psychological factors in their explanations of economic behavior. Using a large sample obtained from surveys conducted in 18 countries, we study what variables have a significant impact on an individual's decision to start a business. We find strong ...
2005| Philipp Köllinger, Maria Minniti, Christian Schade
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DIW Discussion Papers 500 / 2005
We model competition between two unregulated mobile phone companies with price-elastic demand and less than full market coverage. We also assume that there is a regulated full-coverage fixed network. In order to induce stronger competition, mobile companies could have an incentive to raise their reciprocal mobile-to-mobile access charges above the marginal costs of termination. Stronger competition ...
2005| Pio Baake, Kay Mitusch
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DIW Discussion Papers 499 / 2005
Climate change is a long-term issue due to the long lifespan of greenhouse gases and the delayed response of the climate system. This paper investigates the long-term economic consequences of both climate change impacts and mitigation efforts by applying the multi-regional, multi-sectoral integrated assessment model WIAGEM based on GTAP-EL coupled with the reduced-form multi-gas climate model ICM. ...
2005| Claudia Kemfert, Truong P. Truong, Thomas Bruckner
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DIW Discussion Papers 498 / 2005
The paper analyses the reasons for departures from strong rationality of German business cycle forecasts based on annual observations from 1963 to 2004. We rely on forecasts from the joint forecast of the so-called "six leading" forecasting institutions in Germany. We test for a non-linear relation between forecast errors and macroeconomic fundamentals and find evidence for such a non-linearity for ...
2005| Ulrich Fritsche, Jörg Döpke
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DIW Discussion Papers 497 / 2005
This study examines the export-led growth hypothesis using annual time series data from Chile in a production function framework. It addresses the problem of specification bias under which previous studies have suffered and focuses on the impact of manufactured and mining exports on productivity growth. In order to investigate if and how manufactured and mining exports affect economic growth via increases ...
2005| Boriss Siliverstovs, Dierk Herzer
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DIW Discussion Papers 496 / 2005
Recent literature on the workhorse model of intra-industry trade has explored heterogeneous cost structures at the firm level. These approaches have proven to add realism and predictive power. This note shows, however, that this added realism also implies that there may exist a positive bilateral tariff that maximizes national and world welfare. Applying one of the simplest specifications possible, ...
2005| Jan G. Jorgensen, Philipp J. H. Schröder