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Perceptions and Practices of Replication by Social and Behavioral Scientists: Making Replications a Mandatory Element of Curricula Would Be Useful

We live in a time of increasing publication rates and specialization of scientific disciplines. More and more, the research community is facing the challenge of assuring the quality of research and maintaining trust in the scientific enterprise. Replication studies are necessary to detect erroneous research. Thus, the replicability of research is considered a hallmark of good scientific practice and ...

Capturing actual work hours and preferred work hours in Germany

The estimation of over- and underemployment in Germany is normally based on data of Mikrozensus (Ehing 2014: 4) or of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). However, the results differ and may lead to different political conclusions. A recent publication of the Statistisches Bundesamt (Rengers 2015), which is based on the Mikrozensus 2014, points out that for 9.3 percent of the overall labour force...

Monetary policy lift-off in the United States: so far only a moderate impact, but emerging markets should brace themselves

DIW Berlin claims that the US Federal Reserve’s decision to end its zero interest-rate policy has not caused turbulence in financial markets According to a recent analysis conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), the interest rate lift-off introduced by the US Federal Reserve at the end of last year has not led to distortions in the financial markets. Financing costs ...

EU Competition Policy Enforcement Supports Investment in the Energy Sectors

Energy sectors—primarily power generation and gas production, but also energy transmission and distribution—require significant capital investment in infrastructure. Market structures as well as the degree of competition and regulation are key factors that determine firms’ incentive to invest. Yet the empirical research on the link between these factors and private investment is still ...

"In an International Comparison, Too Little Is Being Invested in German Industry": Six Questions to Marcel Fratzscher

Mr. Fratzscher, there are concerns about an overall lack of investment in Germany. Is the problem more urgent in the public sector or in the private sector? The investment gap exists in both the public and private  sector. Three years ago, we calculated that Germany’s  investment gap amounts to roughly 75 billion euros  per year. The investment gap has also been confirmed  by ...

Weak Corporate Investment Requires Immediate Action

Although the federal government has been taking steps to strengthen investment in Germany, it remains considerably low. This includes private investment, on which thepresent study focuses. German companies are barely investing more than they did before the crisis, but this is not the case elsewhere: in the US, for example, the level of investment is nearly 14 percent higher than it was in 2007. One ...

In an International Comparison, Too Little Is Being Invested in German Industry: Six Questions to Marcel Fratzscher

EU Competition Policy Enforcement Supports Investment in the Energy Sectors

Energy sectors—primarily power generation and gas production, but also energy transmission and distribution—require significant capital investment in infrastructure. Market structures as well as the degree of competition and regulation are key factors that determine firms’ incentive to invest. Yet the empirical research on the link between these factors and private investment is still quite scarce, ...

Semi-Parametric Measures of Scale Characteristics of German Natural Gas-Fired Electricity Generation

Scale characteristics are key properties of production functions that determine optimal firm sizes, and have considerable policy implications for sectors undergoing restructuring. However, estimates of scale characteristics typically vary with the assumptions of the underlying empirical model. This paper derives estimators of scale efficiency and scale elasticity for semi-parametric stochastic non-smooth ...