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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 494 / 2005
In this paper a dynamic bi-factor model with Markov switching is proposed to measure and predict turning points of the German business cycle. It estimates simultaneously the composite leading indicator (CLI) and composite coincident indicator (CCI) together with corresponding probabilities of being in recession. According to the bi-factor model, on average, CLI leads CCI by 3 months at both peaks and ...
2005| Konstantin A. Kholodilin
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DIW Discussion Papers 479 / 2005
Competition is claimed to be beneficial in development projects promoting micro and small enterprise finance although there are still some doubts whether these loans can be developed into a profitable business. Actually nothing is known about how many MSE banking units optimally should be created and supported in a certain region. Our research aims at shedding new light on this important issue in development ...
2005| Dorothea Schäfer, Boriss Siliverstovs, Eva Terberger
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DIW Discussion Papers 477 / 2005
We study the effect of capital controls on the level of investment in human capital and the resulting growth path of an economy. The economy consists of two groups of agents based on the ownership of factors of production. One type of agents - called workers - own human capital and bequeath education to their offsprings. The other group of agents - called capitalists - own and bequeath physical capital. ...
2005| Debajyoti Chakrabarty, Areendam Chanda, Chetan Ghate
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DIW Discussion Papers 476 / 2005
The paper explores dynamics of inflation in Ukraine in the period of relative macroeconomic stability. The analysis of interrelationship between inflation, money growth, wage growth, and a proxy for devaluation expectations is based on impulse responses and variance decomposition of a vector autoregression model. We find that changes in devaluation expectations appear to be the most important factor ...
2005| Boriss Siliverstovs, Olena Bilan
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DIW Discussion Papers 471 / 2005
This paper addresses the issue of estimating and forecasting productivity growth trends in the US and Germany from the perspective of a business cycle researcher who wants to use the available information in time series of aggregate labor productivity to derive a model for short- and/or long-term forecasts of labour productivity. We will use stability tests and a deterministic model with structural ...
2005| Georg Erber, Ulrich Fritsche
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DIW Discussion Papers 461 / 2004
I propose an econometric model that improves upon existing methods of estimating the natural rate of unemployment (NAIRU) by using information contained in the trend of productivity growth. My approach enhances the recently proposed model of Staiger, Stock and Watson (1997) in several respects. Statistically speaking, the method substantially shrinks the width of the 95% confidence interval, performs ...
2004| Jiri Slacalek
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DIW Discussion Papers 433 / 2004
This paper investigates the effect of economic integration on the ability of firms to maintain a collusive understanding about staying out of each other's markets. The paper distinguishes among different types of trade costs: ad valorem, unit, fixed. It is shown that for a sufficient reduction of ad valorem trade costs, a cartel supported by collusion on either quantities or prices will be weakened, ...
2004| Ulrich Fritsche, Vladimir Kuzin
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DIW Discussion Papers 431 / 2004
This note explores the relationship between the price elasticity of demand and the R&D intensity of the product. We introduce the concept of R&D intensity into a standard Dixit-Stiglitz/Krugman-type setting. R&D activity is treated as a fixed cost of production. Within this framework, sectors with a higher R&D intensity show a lower price elasticity of demand. This proposition is confirmed by an empirical ...
2004| Mechthild Schrooten, Sabine Stephan