External refereed essays

Comparing Three Models for Introduction of Competition into Railways

In this paper we report the use of the open source Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeler (STEM, www.eclipse.org/stem) to compare three basic models for seasonal influenza transmission. The models are designed to test for possible differences between the seasonal transmission of influenza A and B. Model 1 assumes that the seasonality and magnitude of transmission do not vary between influenza A and ...

Family Location and Caregiving Patterns from an International Perspective

We conduct a cross-national econometric analysis of intra-family location and caregiving patterns. Using European data, we first assess, from an international perspective, the relationship between family structure and the geographic proximity between adult children and their parents. We then examine whether differences in family structure are related to the amount of informal care adult children provide ...

L'entrée sur le marché du travail des descendants d'immigrés: une analyse comparée France-Allemagne

The Global Dimension of Inflation: Evidence from Factor-Augmented Phillips Curve

We examine the global dimension of inflation in 24 OECD countries between 1980 and 2007 in a Phillips curve framework. We decompose output gaps and changes in unit labour costs into common (or global) and idiosyncratic components using a factor analysis and introduce these components separately in the regression. We find that the common component of changes in unit labour costs has a notable impact ...

Armut und Resilienz: über die Bedingungen von gymnasialem Schulerfolg bei Jugendlichen mit Armutserfahrung

The following study investigates the conditions under which adolescents in Germany between the ages of 16 and 19 who experienced poverty at some point during childhood complete sec-ondary school. Based on considerations from resilience and socialization theory, we test the relevance of social and personal factors for success in secondary school. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study ...

Assessing the Strength and Effectiveness of Renewable Electricity Feed-in Tariffs in European Union Countries

In the last two decades, feed-in tariffs (FIT) have emerged as one of the most popular policies for supporting renewable electricity (RES-E) generation. A few studies have assessed the effectiveness of RES-E policies, but most ignore policy design features and market characteristics (e.g. electricity price and production cost) that influence policy strength. We employ 1992-2008 panel data to conduct ...

The Dynamics of Repaet Migration: A Markov Chain Analysis

This article studies repeat or circular migration between the host and home countries using panel data for Germany, distinguishing between factors generating single moves, circular migration, and absorption. Migrants are more likely to leave early after their first arrival in Germany, and when they have social and familial bonds in the home country, but less likely when they have a job in Germany and ...

The Good Governance Indicators of the Millenium Challenge Account: How Many Dimensions Are Really Being Measured?

This paper assesses the validity of the perception-based governance indicators used by the US Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) for aid allocation decisions. By conducting Explanatory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of data from 1996 to 2009, we find that although the MCA purports to measure seven distinct dimensions of governance, only two discrete underlying dimensions, the perceived "participatory ...

Who Gives Aid to Whom and When? Aid Accelerations, Shocks and Policies

We address the pitfalls of averaging by exploiting the longitudinal variation in aid to identify sudden and sharp increases in aid flows. Focusing on specific events, we testif aid accelerations correspond to policies and shocks in the recipient country. We find that positive regime changes and wars are significant predictors of aid accelerations. The results also suggest the presence of aid spill-overs, ...

Survey of Photovoltaic Industry and Policy in Germany and China

Photovoltaic (PV) technologies have demonstrated significant price reductions, but large-scale global application of PV requires further technology improvements and cost reductions along the value chain. We survey policies in Germany and China and the industrial actors they can encourage to pursue innovation, including deployment support, investment support for manufacturing plants and R&D support ...

Is There a Bubble in the Chinese Housing Market?

For many analysts, the Chinese economy is being spurred on by a bubble in the housing market, probably driven by the fiscal stimulus package and massive credit expansion, with potentially adverse effects on the real economy. The house price development is investigated by panel cointegration techniques. Evidence is based on a data-set for 35 major cities. Cointegration is detected between real house ...

A Further Examination of the Export-Led Growth Hypothesis

This article challenges the common view that exports generally contribute more to GDP growth than a pure change in export volume, as the export-led growth hypothesis predicts. Applying panel cointegration techniques to a production function with non-export GDP as the dependent variable, we find for a sample of 45 developing countries that: (i) exports have a positive short-run effect on non-export ...

Jobless Now, Sick Later? Investigating the Long-Term Consequences of Involuntary Job Loss on Health

In the light of the current economic crises which in many countries lead to business closures and mass lay-offs, the consequences of job loss are important on various dimensions. They have to be investigated not only in consideration of a few years, but with a long-term perspective as well, because early life course events may prove important for later life outcomes. This paper uses data from SHARELIFE ...

Targeted Pricing and Customer Data Sharing among Rivals

It is increasingly observable that competitors in different industries share customer data, which can be used for targeted pricing. We propose a modified Hotelling model with two-dimensional consumer heterogeneity to analyze the incentives for such sharing and its ensuing welfare effects. We show that these incentives depend on the type of customer data and on consumer heterogeneity in the strength ...

Asset Demand in the Financial AIDS Portfolio Model: Evidence from a Major Tax Reform

In this article, new evidence from the financial Almost Ideal Demand Sysytem (AIDS) portfolio model is featured, making use of additional exogenous rate-of-return variation, which has been mostly disregarded in the relevant literature so far. A Two-Stage Budgeting Model (2SBM) of asset demand is constructed and applied to German survey data for a time frame where first implementations of a major income ...

Intangibles, Can They Explain the Dispersion in Return Rates?

It is proven that the observed return rates on capital have an upward bias if firms are producing with unobserved intangible capital. Using a comprehensive firm level database for Germany, this theoretical preposition is supported empirically. Furthermore, by making unobserved intangible capital observable, dispersion in return rates is dramatically reduced. The results support the assumption that ...

Financial Inclusion and Financial Integrity: Aligned Incentives?

The Financial Action Task Force embraces financial inclusion as complementary to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing, as it enhances transparency. This support is based on the premise that the increased use of formal financial services leads to a reduction of usage of informal services. We present evidence on eight African countries that both are not negatively associated. Moreover, ...

The Course of Subjective Sleep Quality in Middle and Old Adulthood and Its Relation to Physical Health

Objectives. Older adults more often complain about sleep disturbances compared with younger adults. However, it is not clear whether there is still a decline of sleep quality after age 60 and whether changes in sleep quality in old age are mere reflections of impaired physical health or whether they represent a normative age-dependent development. - Method. Subjective sleep quality and perceived physical ...

Biografische Drift und zweite Chance: Bildungs- und Berufsverläufe von Migrantennachkommen in Deutschland und Frankreich

Statistical Matching of Administrative and Survey Data: An Application to Wealth Inequality Analysis

Using population representative survey data fromthe German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and administrative pension records from the Statutory Pension Insurance, the authors compare four statisticalmatching techniques to complement survey information on net worth with social security wealth (SSW) information from the administrative records. The unique properties of the linked. - data allow for a straight ...