External refereed essays

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 ...

An Empirical Analysis of Voluntary Payments for Information Goods on the Internet

This paper presents results from a field study on voluntary contributions for an information public good provided via the Internet (an electronic newsletter for authors). Whereas the standard private provision model predicts that individuals contribute less if other individuals contribute more, we find that readers are more likely to pay the more they expect others to give. This result is consistent ...

Reform der Erdgaswirtschaft in der EU und in Deutschland: wie viel Regulierung braucht der Wettbewerb?

The Social Logic of Bounded Partisanship in Germany: A Comparison of West Germans, East Germans, and Immigrants

Taking "Don't Knows" as Valid Responses: A Multiple Complete Random Imputation of Missing Data

Incomplete data is a common problem of survey research. Recent work on multiple imputation techniques has increased analysts' awareness of the biasing effects of missing data and has also provided a convenient solution. Imputation methods replace non-response with estimates of the unobserved scores. In many instances, however, non-response to a stimulus does not result from measurement problems that ...

The Argentinean Currency Crisis: A Markov-Switching Model Estimation

In 2002, the Argentinean currency board came to a sudden and dramatic end. Although the country had been suffering from weak economic fundamentals for years, the timing and severity of the currency crisis surprised most observers. The present study analyzes the role of fundamentals and self-fulfilling speculation in the Argentinean crisis. Arguing within a theoretical model of a fixed exchange rate ...

The Microeconometric Estimation of Treatment Effects: An Overview

The Making of Entrepreneurs in Germany: Are Native Men and Immigrants Alike?

This paper uses a state of the art three-stage estimation technique to identify the determinants of the self-employed immigrant and native men in Germany. Their making is surprisingly alike. Employing data from the German Socioeconomic Panel 2000 (GSOEP) release we find that self-employment is not significantly affected by exposure to Germany or by human capital. But this choice has a very strong intergenerational ...

Buyer Power and Supplier Incentives

This paper analyzes the origins and welfare consequences of buyer power. We show that if suppliers are capacity constrained or have strictly convex costs, there are two different channels through which large buyers can obtain more favorable terms from their suppliers. In particular, we show how the presence of large buyers can then erode the value of suppliers' outside option. Somewhat surprisingly, ...

Reference Groups and Individual Deprivation

We provide an axiomatization of Yitzhaki's index of individual deprivation. Our result differs from an earlier characterization due to Ebert and Moyes in the way the reference group of an individual is represented in the model.

Modeling Inflation Dynamics in Transition Economies: The Case of Ukraine

This paper explores the dynamics of inflation in Ukraine in a period of relative macroeconomic stability. The analysis of the interrelationship among inflation, money growth, wage growth, and 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 driving ...

Fiscal Competition, Capital-Skill Complementarity, and the Composition of Public Spending

Following Keen and Marchand (1997), the paper analyzes 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 labor. Each group of workers benefits from a different kind of public good. Mobility of skilled workers provides an incentive for jurisdictions to ...

Geography of the Family

We study the residential choice of siblings who are altruistic towards their parents. The firstborn child's location choice influences the behavior of the second-born child and can shift some of the burden of providing care for the parents from one child to the other. These strategic considerations lead to an equilibrium location pattern with firstborn children locating further away from their parents ...

European Labour Mobility: Challenges and Potentials

European Union economies are pressed by (i) a demographic change that induces population ageing and a decline of the workforce, and (ii) a split labour market that is characterized by high levels of unemployment for low-skilled people and a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers. This lack of flexible high-skilled workers and the aging process has created the image of an immobile labour force and ...