External refereed essays

Much Ado about Nothing: Conditional Logit vs. Random Coefficient Models for Estimating Labour Supply Elasticities

This study compares several specifications of discrete choice labour supply estimations on basis of the German Socio Economic Panel. The results suggest that despite the restrictive assumptions of the error terms the conditional logit model provides an adequate model choice for the analysis of labour supply functions. Significance tests, which are based on bootstrapped confidence intervals, show that ...

Verhaltensänderung durch Einführung der Praxisgebühr und Ursachenforschung: erste empirische Ergebnisse

Im Zuge des GKV-Modernisierungsgesetzes wird seit dem 1. 1. 2004 eine sog. Praxisgebühr von 10 Euro pro Quartal für ambulante Arzt- und Zahnarztbesuche erhoben. Neben einem Beitrag zur Konsolidierung der Finanzlage der GKV sollte die Praxisgebühr auch eine Verhaltensänderung der Versicherten bewirken. Der Beitrag zeigt auf, dass die Zahl der Arztbesuche im Jahre 2004 im Vergleich zum Jahr 2003 signifikant ...

Versicherungspflicht gegen Elementarschäden: ein Lehrstück für Probleme der volkswirtschaftlichen Politikberatung

Contribution to Productivity or Pork Barrel? The Two Faces of Infrastructure Investment

This paper proposes a simultaneous-equation approach to the estimation of the contribution of transport infrastructure accumulation to regional growth. We model explicitly the political-economy process driving infrastructure investments; in doing so, we eliminate a potential source of bias in production-function estimates and generate testable hypotheses on the forces that shape infrastructure policy. ...

Social Anomie and Racial Segregation in South Africa

The concept of anomie is one of the classics of sociological theory. Developed by scholars such as Emile Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, the concept refers to the absence of clear social norms and values and to a lack of sense of social regulation. However, whereas Merton focused on features of relative deprivation that cause anomie, Durkheim was primarily interested in the link between rapid social ...

Introducing Environmental Externalities into Transport Pricing: Measurement and Implications

It is European Commission policy to charge modes of transport according to the marginal social cost of their use of the infrastructure, including environmental costs. However, progress in implementing this process has been slow, partly because of the difficulty of measuring and valuing these costs. This need has led to a great deal of research in this area in recent years. The paper presents the results ...

Konzentration statt Verzettelung: die deutsche Arbeitsmarktpolitik am Scheideweg

A Game Theoretic Model of the Northwestern European Electricity Market: Market Power and the Environment

This paper develops a static computational game theoretic model. Illustrative results for the liberalising European electricity market are given to demonstrate the type of economic and environmental results that can be generated with the model. The model is empirically calibrated to eight Northwestern European countries, namely Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and ...

Induced Technological Change: Exploring its Implications for the Economics of Atmospheric Stabilization ; Synthesis Report from the Innovation Modeling Comparison Project

Women in Managerial Positions in Europe: Focus on Germany

Introduction : The Changing Status of Women

Strategies to Induce Non-cooperating Countries to Join a Climate-policy Coalition

Research and Technology Organizations in the Service Economy: Developing Analytical Tools for Changing Innovation Patterns

Risk Classification and Public Policy: Editorial

A Simple, Analytically Solvable, Chamberlinian Agglomeration Model

This paper presents a simple Chamberlinian agglomeration model which, like the canonical core-periphery (CP) model, contains two agglomerative forces. However, in contrast to that model, the present model is analytically solvable. Moreover, the present model exhibits a "supercritical pitchfork bifurcation" rather than the "subcritical pitchfork bifurcation" of the CP model. This may be a better description ...

Economic Integration, Wage Policies, and Social Policies

This paper sets up a two country monopolistic competition model with intra-industry trade to study the effects of an exogenous differential in wage and social policies on the location of industry. Two model scenarios are considered. In the traditional one with physical capital, such a differential induces a relocation effect which increases with the level of trade integration. The 'new economic geography' ...

Berufliche Segregation im Kontext: über einige Folgen geschlechtstypischer Berufsentscheidungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland

Sichern "Männerberufe" tatsächlich einen besseren Erwerbseinstieg als "Frauenberufe"? In welchem Ausmaß können frauen-bzw. männerdominierte Berufe im Leben junger Menschen erwerbsbiographische Kontinuität stiften? Ausgehend von der Überlegung, dass die Konsequenzen geschlechtstypischer Berufsentscheidungen mit den konkreten wirtschaftsstrukturellen und institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen variieren, ...

Using Analysis of Gini (ANOGI) for Detecting whether Two Subsamples Represent the Same Universe: The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) Experience

A wildly discussed shortcoming of panel surveys is a potential bias arising from selective attrition. Based on data of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), the authors analyze potential artifacts (level, structure, income inequality) by comparing results for two independently drawn panel subsamples started in 1984 and 2000. They apply ANOGI (analysis of Gini) techniques, the equivalent of ...

Sectoral Heterogeneity in the Employment Effects of Job Creation Schemes in Germany

Job creation schemes (JCS) have been one important programme of active labour market policy (ALMP) in Germany for a long time. They aim at the re-integration of hard-to-place unemployed individuals into regular employment. A thorough microeconometric evaluation of these programmes was hindered by the fact, that available survey datasets have been too small to account for a possible occurrence of effect ...

The Impact of a Customs Union between Turkey and the EU on Turkey's Exports to the EU

This article investigates Turkey's sectoral trade flows to the EU based on panel data from the period 1988 to 2002. Turkey's 16 most important export sectors are analysed. Emphasis is placed on the role of price competition, EU protection and transport costs in the export trade between Turkey and the EU. The empirical model used is an extended version of the gravity model. This study is also a contribution ...