bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Do Older Workers Lower IT-Enabled Productivity?
Authors: Bertschek Irene , Meyer Jenny
Published: April 2016

The paper provides empirical evidence for the question whether firms’ IT-enabled labour productivity is affected by the age structure of the workforce. We apply a production function approach with heterogenous labour to firm-level data from German manufacturing and services industries. We find that workers older than 49 are not significantly less productive than prime age workers, whereas workers younger than 30 are significantly less productive than prime age workers. Older workers using a computer are significantly more productive than older non-computer users. The positive and significant relationship between labour productivity and IT intensity is not affected by the proportion of older workers.
Erwartete externe Effekte und Wahlverhalten: Das Beispiel der Münchner Allianz-Arena / Expected External Effects and Voting: The Case of the Munich Allianz-Arena
Authors: Ahlfeldt Gabriel M. , Maennig Wolfgang , Scholz Hanno
Published: April 2016

We investigate at the precinct-level the 2001 stadium referendum for the Allianz-Arena in Munich, where voters had to decide upon a projected site as well as on public subsidies for provision of transport infrastructure. This is the first analysis of a stadium referendum with respect to the spatial dimension outside the U.S. The new arena, which is the home venue of the professional soccer clubs FC Bayern München and TSV 1860 München and also was a major venue during the FIFA World Cup 2006 clearly won the approval of a majority of voters in one of the referendums with the largest participation in the history of Munich. However, in proximity of the projected site, residents strongly opposed the project, which reflects in significantly reduced shares of yes-votes. Assuming rationality, we conclude that at city level residents expected an increase in utility from the new arena that justified public expenses. However, our results also point to considerable proximity cost, probably related to the presence of fan crowds and congestion. This finding contradicts the existing evidence on stadium impact from the U.S. There are also major differences in the socio-economic determinants of voting behavior, indicating that the expected net-benefit of proximity to professional sports facilities may vary across sports and countries.
What Drives Housing Prices Down? Evidence from an International Panel
Authors: Kholodilin Konstantin A. , Menz Jan-Oliver , Siliverstovs Boriss
Published: April 2016

In this study, we suggest an explanation for the low growth rates of real housing prices in Canada and Germany in comparison to other OECD countries over the period 1975-2005. We show that the long-run development of housing markets is determined by real disposable per-capita income, the real long-term interest rate, population growth, and urbanization. The differential development of real housing prices in Canada and Germany is attributed to the fundamentals in these two countries. Canada and Germany are characterized by relatively low average growth rates of real disposable income and relatively high interest rates, resulting in depressed housing prices over a long period of time. Institutional structure accentuates these tendencies. Given the importance of housing wealth for private consumption, our paper aims at drawing the attention of policymakers to the necessity of preventing not only overheating but also overcooling of the housing market that entails lower economic growth rate.
Erhöhung der Mehrwertsteuer für Lebensmittel: Budget- und Wohlfahrtseffekte für Konsumenten / Increase of the Value Added Tax (VAT): Budget- and Welfare- Effects for Consumers
Authors: Thiele Silke
Published: April 2016

On January 1st 2007 the Federal Republic of Germany increased the value added tax (VAT) from16% up to 19%. The reduced VAT for food of 7% has been is kept but it is often debated. The issue in debate is whether distributional effects between different groups of households occur if the VAT of food is increased up to 19%. The objective of this analysis is to quantify the welfare effects of an increase of the VAT for different German household groups. Furthermore budget effects are calculated, which look upon household expenditures before and after the VAT increase. The methodical basis of this analysis is the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) estimated with cross sectional data of 11,831 German households. Two aspects have to be taken into account with the use of cross-sectional data: insufficient price information and zero expenditures. To derive quality adjusted prices an approach of Cox/Wohlgenannt (1986) is applied. To take censoring of the dependent variables into account a procedure of Shonkwiler/Yen (1999) was employed. The results show that low income households and households with children will have comparatively high welfare losses.
Die Auswirkungen der Geldmenge und des Kreditvolumens auf die Immobilienpreise – Ein ARDL-Ansatz für Deutschland / Money, Credit and House Prices – An ARDL-Approach for Germany
Authors: Belke Ansgar
Published: April 2016

The current financial crisis is often said to be caused by excessive liquidity and distorted incentives in the US subprime real estate sector. Taking this as a starting point, this paper analyzes the relation between house prices and credit respectively money growth between 1992 and 2006 (West German price data) and from 1997 to 2006 (East German price data). We focus on the German economy which - due to the creation of excess capacities in the wake of reunification - did not experience a house price bubble in contrast to other euro area economies such as Ireland and Spain. Applying an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach we test for cointegration among the relevant variables. After estimating the long-run coefficients, we derive the optimal specification of the corresponding error-correction models and estimate them. Our results suggest that both monetary and credit policy are responsible for house price development especially in Western Germany. We also check exhaustively for well-behaved estimated residuals and conduct some tests for structural breaks and robustness checks. For instance, we show that tax policies - specific depreciation possibilities in the new federal states - also have a significant impact on house prices but without dominating the impact of credit and money growth. Our results are also robust to the application of a more traditional cointegration testing procedure in the spirit of Johansen and Juselius.
Bank Lending and Monetary Policy Transmission in Austria
Authors: Burgstaller Johann
Published: April 2016

This paper examines the role of banks in the propagation process of monetary policy actions. Testable hypotheses are deduced from the theory of the lending channel, which argues that after a policy-induced drain of funds from the banking sector, some (types of) institutions are unable or unwilling to retain their prior levels of lending. To identify the decisive bank attributes, disaggregated data for the full population of Austrian banks is used for the 1998-2005 period. The average Austrian bank is found to significantly reduce its growth rate of loans after an increase in policy-driven interest rates. Heterogeneous lending reactions appear to be more pronounced for the institutions that are organized in multi-tier sectors. At large, the results are not compatible with the widespread notion that the Austrian banking sector absorbs monetary shocks. The lending channel also seems of aggregate importance as impulses in loan supply are found to significantly affect the growth rate of real GDP.
The Development of Employers’ Training Investments Over Time – A Decomposition Analysis Using German Establishment Data
Authors: Görlitz Katja
Published: April 2016

Using establishment data covering the time period 1997 to 2007, this paper investigates trends of employer-sponsored further training in Germany, with a focus on the share of establishments investing in training. In West and East Germany alike, I find a positive time trend in the share of training active establishments. Applying Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition techniques shows that changes in some establishment characteristics affect the trend, however, not only in a positive way.While the increase of the fraction of skilled workers, changes in industry composition and the risen share of innovative establishments contribute positively to the trend, the decreased fraction of establishments engaged in collective bargaining operates in the opposite direction. In spite of these findings, the overall characteristics effect is rather small.
Matchingprozesse auf beruflichen Teilarbeitsmärkten / Job Matching on Occupational Labour Markets
Authors: Stops Michael , Mazzoni Thomas
Published: April 2016

Our paper presents new estimates of matching functions on partial labor markets. We used extensive data, ranging from 1982 to 2003, which results in new insights, extending the knowledge obtained by former empirical studies. We also used the extended time series data to validate model assumptions, like stationarity, statistically. It is shown that some of these assumptions do not hold if recent data is included. We discuss potential consequences and modifications, resulting from these findings. Subsequently, we use a sophisticated pooled mean group panel model to provide more detailed insights into matching processes in the concerning partial labor markets. This approach allows for a more general perspective and furthermore, parameters can be estimated asymptotically efficient via maximum likelihood. The results obtained suggest movements to stable matching processes, positive elasticities of overall matching and decreasing returns to scale. The economical implications of these findings are discussed and compared with the results of other recent studies.
Are Personal Budgets a Financially Sound Reform Option for the German Long-Term Care Insurance?
Authors: Arntz Melanie , Thomsen Stephan L.
Published: April 2016

In a long-run social experiment, personal budgets have been tested as an alternative home care program of the German long-term care insurance (LTCI). By granting the monetary value of in kind services in cash, personal budgets are considered to enable customized home care arrangements, thereby avoiding costly nursing home care and thus saving LTCI spending. However, personal budgets also compete with the already existing and less generous cash option of the LTCI. Any transition from the receipt of cash benefits to personal budgets thus challenges the view of personal budgets as a cost savings device, unless personal budgets sufficiently reduce the use of costly nursing home care to balance these extra costs.

This paper therefore contrasts the short-term costs of implementing personal budgets with potential cost savings if personal budgets enhance the stability of home care and avoid costly nursing home care. For this purpose, the paper investigates the effects of personal budgets on the duration of home care until moving to a nursing home as well as the perceived stability of home care. Despite a positive effect of personal budgets on the stability of home care, LTCI spending is likely to increase in the short to medium run. In the long run, however, the expected transition to decreasing numbers of cash recipients favors the introduction of personal budgets.
Auswirkungen von Mehrfachmandaten deutscher Vorstands- und Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender auf den Unternehmenserfolg / The Impact of Multiple Board Memberships of CEOs and Chairmen of Supervisory Boards on Corporate Performance in Germany
Authors: Balsmeier Benjamin , Buchwald Achim , Peters Heiko
Published: April 2016

Members of management boards as well as supervisory boards often attract public criticism when they are simultaneously active in several other boards. We use a panel data set of the biggest German corporations for the period from 1996-2006 to estimate the impact of multiple board memberships of the CEO and the chairman of the supervisory board on corporate performance. The results suggest a positive and inverse U-shaped relation between the number of external supervisory board seats of the CEO and corporate performance. Chairmen of supervisory boards who simultaneously serve on external management boards tend to improve the performance of the controlled firm. Further external supervisory board seats of the chairman of a supervisory board do not seem to have any influence on corporate performance, though.
Analyse der Übertragung US-amerikanischer Schocks auf Deutschland auf Basis eines FAVAR / A FAVAR-based Analysis of the Transmission of US Shocks to Germany
Authors: Eickmeier Sandra
Published: April 2016

The paper assesses the transmission of US supply, demand and monetary policy shocks between 1976 and 2008 based on a factor-augmented vector autoregressive model (FAVAR) which is applied to a newly constructed set of more than 200 German time series. The study not only assesses the transmission of US shocks to German GDP via impulse response analysis but also to a large number of variables capturing the various transmission channels. The inclusion not only of aggregate trade variables but also of variables covering trade with different partner countries/regions helps analyzing more deeply the trade channel, e. g. the role of direct trade versus trade with third countries. Another focus lies on the transmission of US shocks to specific industries such as the car and the machinery industries which were particularly severely affected by the global financial crisis. Finally, the role of US shocks for the most recent downturn in Germany is assessed based on a historical decomposition.
Logik des Marktes Marktordnung, Marktverhalten und Marktergebnisse / Logic of Markets Market Rules, Behaviour of Actors, and Market Outcome
Authors: Gudehus Timm
Published: April 2016

This contribution shows how the outcome of dynamic markets can be derived, without the unrealistic assumptions of a perfect market, from the current rules of a market and the possible behaviour of the actors. An analysis of the observable rules for real-life markets results in transfer equations and algorithms for the calculation of the individual purchasing prices and sales quantities.With distribution functions for offer and demand, which reflect the behaviour of the actors, the collective market outcome can be calculated, such as market price and sales, their variance and time dependency as well as the distribution effects of markets. The market laws, which result by simulation and probability theory, deviate in many respects from the statements of common price- and market-theories. The new approach enables to solve current problems, such as the market design for material and immaterial goods and finance products.
Notes on Unit Value Index Bias
Authors: Diewert W.Erwin , Lippe Peter von der
Published: April 2016

It is often the case that the value of a number of somewhat similar units (e. g., automobiles of a certain general type) is divided by the number of units in order to form a unit value price and these unit value prices are compared over two periods in order to form a unit value price index. This unit value price index or Drobisch price index can then be compared with other standard index number formulae and the bias in the index can be determined. The present paper presents most of the known results on this bias (and derives some new ones) in a coherent framework using a simple identity from the statistics literature. A related question first considered by Párniczky (1974) is also considered: does disaggregation of a unit value into more homogeneous subgroups reduce the unit value bias? The answer seems to be: probably yes.
Aggregate Indices and Their Corresponding Elementary Indices
Authors: Mehrhoff Jens
Published: April 2016

“Which index formula at the elementary level, where no expenditure share weights are available, corresponds to a desired aggregate index?” To answer this question, this paper develops a statistical approach. It proposes a theoretical framework which makes it possible to achieve numerical equivalence of an elementary index with the Laspeyres, Paasche or Fisher price index. Depending on the price elasticity, different elementary indices should be applied to different groups of goods in order to approach the desired aggregate index as closely as possible. Furthermore, the new statistical approach assures internal consistency between price and volume measurement.
Lowe and Cobb-Douglas Consumer Price Indices and their Substitution Bias
Authors: Balk Bert M.
Published: April 2016

Catching the effect of substitution behaviour in a Consumer Price Index (CPI) as good as possible is a goal pursued by statistical agencies throughout the world. The difference between a CPI and a certain target cost-of-living index is called substitution bias. Balk and Diewert (2003) considered the substitution bias of a Lowe Consumer Price Index; see also CPI Manual (2004: Chapter 17). The present paper considers the substitution bias of a Cobb-Douglas (or Geometric Young) CPI, and compares the two price indices with respect to their substitution bias. It appears difficult to draw a clear-cut conclusion.
Reconsideration of Weighting and Updating Procedures in the US CPI
Authors: Greenlees John S. , Williams Elliot
Published: April 2016

In 2002, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) introduced a supplemental C-CPI-U employing a superlative formula to provide a closer approximation to a cost-of-living index (COLI). This paper focuses on whether the BLS can improve upon the headline CPI-U’s current biennial weight update process, thereby reducing the CPI-U’s growth rate and bringing the index closer to the C-CPI-U.

We begin by estimating superlative price indexes for 1999 through 2007 along with indexes based on the constant-elasticity-of-substitution demand model. Our analyses confirm that the consumer expenditure data underlying the CPI imply substantial consumer substitution, implying that the CPI-U’s Lowe index formula yields higher inflation estimates than would a true COLI.

Simulating feasible weight update processes, we find that a Lowe index with two-year weight reference periods but annual updating rises by about 0.03 percentage points less per year than the CPI-U. Another 0.01 percentage point on average is subtracted by imposing annual revision with one-year base periods. Thus, indexes with more timely weights may offer improved representation of current price change, as well as closer approximations to a COLI.
User Costs versus Waiting Services and Depreciation in a Model of Production
Authors: Diewert W.Erwin
Published: April 2016

The paper develops an extension of a one period model of production involving beginning and end of the period capital stocks along with output and input flows that is due to Hicks and Edwards and Bell. This generalized Austrian model of production takes into account that end of the period capital stocks result from: (i) purchases of new investment goods; (ii) internal construction of firm capital stock components and (iii) holdings of (depreciated) capital goods that were held by the firm at the beginning of the period. These different methods of creating end of period holdings of capital stocks generally have different resource requirements and hence the one period production possibilities set is more complex than the usual one. This general model of production is used to justify the decomposition of the Jorgensonian user cost of capital into separate waiting services and depreciation components.
Hedonic Price Indexes: A Comparison of Imputation, Time Dummy and ’Re-Pricing’ Methods
Authors: Haan Jan de
Published: April 2016

The main approaches to measuring hedonic indexes in the academic literature are the imputation approach and the time dummy approach. This paper compares both approaches, discusses an alternative method called hedonic re-pricing, and comments on a recent contribution by Diewert et al. (2009). The aim is to explain the differences between the various hedonic approaches as well as their similarities, and to point to the implications for statistical agencies. Hedonic price indexes can be weighted or unweighted and the paper addresses the issue of choice of regression weights. For unweighted indexes it is shown that the ’full’ hedonic imputation approach and the time dummy approach implicitly leave the matched part of the indexes unaffected, just like ’single’ and ’double’ hedonic imputation do explicitly.
Combining Survey Forecasts and Time Series Models: The Case of the Euribor
Authors: Krüger Fabian , Pohlmeier Winfried , Mokinski Frieder
Published: April 2016

This paper reinterprets Maganelli’s (2009) idea of “Forecasting with Judgment” to obtain a dynamic algorithm for combining survey expectations data and time series models for macroeconomic forecasting. Existing combination approaches typically obtain combined forecasts by linearly weighting individual forecasts. The approach presented here instead uses survey forecasts in the estimation stage of a time series model. Thus an estimate of the model parameters is obtained that reflects two sources of information: a history of realizations of the variables that are involved in the time series model and survey expectations on the future course of the variable that is to be forecast. The idea at the estimation stage is to shrink parameter estimates towards values that are compatible (in an appropriate sense) with the survey forecasts that have been observed. It is exemplified how this approach can be applied to different autoregressive time series models. In an empirical application, the approach is used to forecast the three-month Euribor at a six-month horizon.
Practice and Prospects of Medium-term Economic Forecasting
Authors: Hofer Helmut , Weyerstraß Klaus , Schmidt Torsten
Published: April 2016

Government agencies and other national and international institutions are asked to perform forecasts over the medium term. In particular, the EU Stability and Growth Pact contains the obligation to formulate stability programmes over four years, covering a general economic outlook as well as the projected development of public finances. However, the current practice of performing medium-term economic projections is unsatisfactory from a methodological point of view as the applied methodology has been developed for short-run forecasting and it is questionable whether these methods are useful for the medium term. In particular, currently medium-term projections are mostly based on the neoclassical Solow growth model with an aggregate production function with labour, capital and exogenous technological progress. It might be argued, however, that for medium-run projections endogenous growth models might be better suited. In this paper we give an overview of currently used methods for medium-term macroeconomic projections. Then we analyse the performance of medium-term forecasts for Austria to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the typical approach. In particular, the five-year projections of real GDP growth, inflation and the unemployment rate are investigated. Finally, we describe some approaches to improve medium-run projections.
Poverty in Germany – Statistical Inference and Decomposition
Authors: Bönke Timm , Schröder Carsten
Published: April 2016

Based on six harmonized cross-sections of the German Sample Survey of Income and Expenditure, we study inter-temporal changes in poverty from year 1978 to 2003. Results are decomposed by region and household types, and the bootstrap method is applied to test for the statistical significance of all our findings. Across household types, single parents with children have the highest poverty risk.Most striking is a huge regional divide in poverty which only narrows slightly over the period under investigation: the incidence and the intensity of poverty are substantially higher in the New states. A nonlinear Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition is conducted to quantify the separate contribution of regional differences in households’ characteristics to the likelhood of being poor. Estimates from the decomposition indicate that differences in the distributions of socioeconomic characteristics play a negligible role for the 1993 poverty divide. Already in year 2003, however, differences in the distributions of characteristics explain more than fifty percent of the poverty divide, indicating that the poverty divide is likely to become a persistent phenomenon.
Business Cycle Co-movement and Trade Intensity in the Euro Area: is there a Dynamic Link?
Authors: Kappler Marcus
Published: April 2016

This paper extends the recent literature that exclusively looks at the static link between bilateral trade intensity and business cycle synchronisation. A cross section augmented VAR framework with an unobservered common factor structure is used in order to apply the concept of Granger causality to test for dynamic links between variables. I conclude that although countries with intensive trade linkages also tend to have more similar business cycles in the long-run, the trade channel does not help to explain much of the short-run variation of business cycle co-movement in the euro area. The common factors have high predictive power for both business cycle co-movement and bilateral trade intensity. Thus, the paper provides evidence for the common shock view on business cycle synchronisation.
Kosten des Europäischen Finanzstabilisierungsmechanismus (EFSM) aus deutscher Sicht / The Costs of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) – The German Point of View
Authors: Meyer Dirk
Published: April 2016

The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which is supported by the German Gesetz zur Übernahme von Gewährleistungen im Rahmen des europäischen Stabilisierungsmechanismus (StabMechG), suspends the Stability and Growth Pact as the basis of the European Economic and Monetary Union. The actual ‘suspension’ from the ’no bail-out’ restriction (Art. 125 TFEU) and the prohibition of funding national debts (Art. 123 TFEU) transfers risks and financial burdens from deeply indebted states to solvent EU member states. As a result an unauthorized „transfer union‘‘ emerges, whose Central Bank lost its independence to a political leadership and cannot focus on its objective of price stability as contracted any longer. Even without the use of financial and guarantee aids the German economy suffers from a distorted yield structure and crowding-out effects of private investments. From the economic point of view the used measures are neither appropriate nor necessary for achieving financial stability within the European Economic and Monetary Union. Much less these measures are proportionate. Of course, the alternative of accepting a ‘controlled’ national bankruptcy would not have been without its formidable costs.However, its attribution of arrangements in the line with market requirements and the adherence to EU-contract provisions would have been the more worthwhile regulatory policy option for a more solid budgetary policy in the future.
Product Diversification and Profitability in German Manufacturing Firms
Authors: Braakmann Nils , Wagner Joachim
Published: April 2016

We use unique rich data for German manufacturing enterprises to investigate the product diversification - firm performance relationship.We find that an increase in the degree of product diversification has a negative impact on profitability when observed and unobserved firm characteristics are controlled for. The effects are statistically significant and large from an economic point of view. This helps to understand the fact that nearly 40 percent of all enterprises with at least 20 employees are single-product firms according to a detailed classification of products, and that multi-product enterprises with a large number of goods are a rare species.
Is the Boone-Indicator Applicable? – Evidence from a Combined Data Set of German Manufacturing Enterprises
Authors: Schiersch Alexander , Schmidt-Ehmcke Jens
Published: April 2016

Boone (2008a) proposes a new competition measure based on Relative Profit Differences (RPD) that, from its theoretical properties, proves to be more robust than the Lerner-Index. However, the proof of the empirical practicability and robustness of the Boone-Indicator is missing. To fill this gap, we use a rich, newly built, data set for German manufacturing enterprises and test its empirical validity using cartel cases. Since all of the identified cartels significantly restricted market competition, we expect fiercer competition after the uncovering. We asses the validity of the indicators by comparing the indicated competition levels before and after the cartels were uncovered and stopped. The Boone-Indicator is calculated as RPDs and as a beta coefficient of a log-log regression. The Lerner-Index is used as a benchmark. Our analysis finds that the Boone-Indicator, based on a simple regression approach, fails to correctly indicate competition. Since the Boone-Indicator, based on pure RPDs, proves to be inapplicable, we propose an augmented indicator based on size-adjusted RPDs, which performs better. However, our findings suggest that, given the information typically available in census data, the Lerner-Index is still the only measure that correctly indicates competitive changes.
The Economic Consequences of One-third Co-determination in German Supervisory Boards
Authors: Boneberg Franziska
Published: April 2016

In Germany, the establishment of supervisory boards and, therefore, the board-level employee representation are mandatory, depending on the legal form and size of a company. However, the empirical analysis reveals that the bigger part of the companies observed (Limited liability companies with 500 to 2000 employees active in the West-German service sector) does not satisfy the law. This fact has strong impact on research questions in the co-determination field: Many studies have tried to analyze the economic consequences of the German co-determination laws (all examining the 1976 Co-determination Act). However, as the regulations are compulsory, compelling results are difficult to obtain. The bigger part of the studies compares companies that fall into the scope of different co-determination laws. This implies that mainly big companies are contrasted to smaller ones. It is not difficult to see that a comparison of such kind entails further irregularities. The study presented allows better analysis. The data is taken from two sources: the commercial Hoppenstedt Database and official German statistics. Due to the special kind of data it is possible to compare companies of same size, same legal form, active in the same sector that only differ in the existence or non-existence of a supervisory board. Therefore, the study at hand provides more accurate evidence of the economic consequences of the German 2004 Co-determination Act.
Searching for the Concentration-Price Effect in the German Movie Theater Industry
Authors: Böhme Enrico , Müller Christopher
Published: April 2016

The empirical relationship between market concentration and prices has been well established for a long time and for numerous industries. Recently it was confirmed for the US movie theater industry. This paper investigates, whether such a price-concentration relationship can be found on local cinema markets in Germany as well, focusing on up-to-date mainstream movies. First, we develop a model of monopolistic pricing and estimate its parameters using data of monopoly markets from a new set of German micro data. Then we apply the estimated model to simulate monopoly prices on local markets with two or more operators and compare them to the prices actually observed in these markets. We find no significant difference in admission prices, which puts our study in contrast to the results found on local US markets. Searching for an explanation, we test whether movie theater operators even though being located in the same geographic area, are local monopolists, but find no hint of that, either.
Value Function Iteration as a Solution Method for the Ramsey Model
Authors: Heer Burkhard , Maußner Alfred
Published: April 2016

Value function iteration is one of the standard tools for the solution of dynamic general equilibrium models if the dimension of the state space is one ore two. We consider three kinds of models: the deterministic and the stochastic growth model and a simple heterogenous agent model. Each model is solved with six different algorithms: (1) simple value function iteration as compared to (2) smart value function iteration neglects the special structure of the problem. (3) Full and (4) modified policy iteration are methods to speed up convergence. (5) linear and (6) cubic interpolation between the grid points are methods that enhance precision and reduce the size of the grid. We evaluate the algorithms with respect to speed and accuracy. Accuracy is defined as the maximum absolute value of the residual of the Euler equation that determines the household’s savings. We demonstrate that the run time of all algorithms can be reduced substantially if the value function is initialized stepwise, starting on a coarse grid and increasing the number of grid points successively until the desired size is reached.We find that value function iteration with cubic spline interpolation between grid points dominates the other methods if a high level of accuracy is needed.
Plagiarism in Student Papers: Prevalence Estimates Using Special Techniques for Sensitive Questions
Authors: Coutts Elisabethen , Jann Ben , Krumpal Ivar , Näher Anatol-Fiete
Published: April 2016

This article evaluates three different questioning techniques for measuring the prevalence of plagiarism in student papers: the randomized response technique (RRT), the item count technique (ICT), and the crosswise model (CM). In three independent experimental surveys with Swiss and German university students as subjects (two web surveys and a survey using paper and- pencil questionnaires in a classroom setting), each of the three techniques is compared to direct questioning and evaluated based on the “more-is-better” assumption. According to our results the RRT and the ICT failed to reduce social desirability bias in self-reports of plagiarism. In contrast, the CM was more successful in eliciting a significantly higher rate of reported sensitive behavior than direct questioning. One reason for the success of the CM, we believe, is that it overcomes the “self-protective no” bias known from the RRT (and which may also be a potential problem in the ICT).We find rates of up to 22 percent of students who declared that they ever intentionally adopted a passage from someone else’s work without citing it. Severe plagiarism such as handing in someone else’s paper as one’s own, however, seems to be less frequent with rates of about 1 to 2 percent.
Pitfalls of International Comparative Research: Taking Acquiescence into Account
Authors: Franzen Axel , Vogl Dominikus
Published: April 2016

Acquiescence can be the source of a serious response bias in international comparative research. We demonstrate this by referring to an example taken from environmental sociology. The effect of wealth on individuals’ willingness to pay for environmental protection is controversially discussed in the literature. Studies analyzing the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) report that individuals in wealthier nations are more concerned about the environment, while studies using the World Values Survey (WVS) or the European Values Study (EVS) come up with the opposite finding. The puzzle is resolved when the different levels of acquiescence are taken into consideration. As it turns out, respondents in poorer nations in Asia and Eastern Europe have higher levels of acquiescence than respondents in richer Western nations. Thus, acquiescence conceals the wealth effect of studies analyzing the WVS or EVS and the issue is resolved when acquiescence is properly controlled for in multivariate statistical models.
WTP vs. WTA: Christmas Presents and the Endowment Effect
Authors: Bauer Thomas K. , Schmidt Christoph M.
Published: April 2016

Using data on the valuation of Christmas gifts received by students enrolled in different fields at a German university, we investigate whether the endowment effect, the difference between asking and bidding prices, differs between males and females, students of economics and other fields and whether it varies with the market price of the object under consideration. Our estimation results suggest that female students display a significantly higher endowment effect, indicating that experimental studies on the endowment effect are highly sensitive towards the choice of the subject pool. The results further indicate that the endowment effect depends on the market price of the object. Finally, even though the point estimates hint towards both, a lower WTP and WTA of economic students, these differences are not statistically significant at conventional levels.
Further Training and Company-Level Pacts for Employment in Germany
Authors: Bellmann Lutz , Gerner Hans-Dieter
Published: April 2016

This paper aims at investigating whether or not and to what extent company-level pacts for employment and competitiveness (CLPs) have an impact on the accumulation of human capital. The effect of CLPs on further training is analyzed utilizing the IAB Establishment Panel data of the years 2003 to 2007. CLPs are agreements between firms’ management and their respective workforce that are characterized by reduced wages or prolonged working hours in exchange for employment guarantees or investment programs, such as further training. CLPs not only explicitly contain clauses concerning further training, but also increase employment stability and may increase the firms’ incentives for human capital investments, due to the employees’ wage concessions. In order to test this hypothesis we apply parametric as well as semiparametric cross-section time-series regression models. However, our findings suggest that CLPs do not exert positive causal effects on human capital formation as measured by further training incidence and intensity variables.
One for Sure or Maybe Three
Authors: Franck Egon , Theiler Philipp
Published: April 2016

In order to avoid too many tied games after playing the five-minute overtime period, the National Hockey League (NHL) introduced two rule changes in the 1999-2000 season. First, a team that loses in overtime receives one point instead of zero points. Second, the number of skaters in overtime is reduced from five to four. The theoretical literature analyzing these rule changes predicted that they would also produce the unintended side-effect that more games would reach overtime and recommended that a team that wins in regulation should receive three points (instead of two) in order to counterbalance the converse effect. We are the first to empirically support this theoretical prediction using NHL data and data from Swiss ice hockey, in which the rule changes of the NHL were copied in the 2006–2007 season and in which the three-point rule was also introduced.
The Effects of Institutional Change in European Soccer
Authors: Haan Marco , Koning Ruud , Witteloostuijn Arjen van
Published: April 2016

The last decades have seen two profound changes in European soccer. First, international trade in talent has increased markedly. Second, international competitions such as the Champions League have become much more important. Using a theoretical model, we study how these changes affect competitive balance within national competitions, and quality differences between national competitions. Introducing international trade in talent leads to a flow to large countries, as the returns to talent are higher there. Wages increase in small countries, but decrease in large ones. The wage increase in small countries hurts small teams more than large ones. Therefore, competitive balance decreases. The wage decrease in large countries benefits small teams more, so competitive balance increases. The introduction of a Champions League implies the possibility to win a large amount of prize money. This is relatively more important for small teams. Hence, competitive balance increases in all countries, and talent flows from large to small countries, provided international trade is possible. Wages increase. When looking at both changes combined, we find that talent flows from small to large countries. Hence, in this sense, the trade effect dominates the Champions League effect. Competitive balance increases in all but the very smallest countries.
A Contest Model of a Professional Sports League with Two-Sided Markets
Authors: Dietl Helmut , Duschl Tobias , Franck Egon , Lang Markus
Published: April 2016

This paper develops a model of a professional sports league with network externalities by integrating the theory of two-sided markets into a two-stage contest model. In professional team sports, the competition of the clubs functions as a platform that enables sponsors to interact with fans. In these club-mediated interactions, positive network effects operate from the fan market to the sponsor market, while positive or negative network effects operate from the sponsor market to the fan market. We show that the size of these network effects determines the level of competitive balance within the league. If the market potential of the sponsors is small (large), competitive balance increases (decreases) with stronger combined network effects. We further deduce that clubs benefit from stronger combined network effects through higher profits and that network externalities can mitigate the negative effect of revenue sharing on competitive balance. Finally, we derive implications for improving competitive balance by taking advantage of network externalities. For example, our model suggests that an increase in the market potential of sponsors produces a more balanced league.
Infant Mortality of Professional Sports Clubs: An Organizational Ecology Perspective
Authors: Frick Bernd , Wallbrecht Björn
Published: April 2016

Due to their limited financial resources winning the national championship or qualifying for an international cup competition is not a viable option for most small market clubs in any of the European professional team sports leagues, such as soccer, ice hockey, basketball or handball. However, since a particularly poor performance is usually punished by relegation and since being relegated to the respective second division is associated with a dramatic decline in revenues, avoiding relegation is a target in itself. Using data from seven different professional team sports leagues in four different countries we estimate various parametric and semi-parametric regression models to identify the determinants of the clubs’ length of stay in their respective first division. In line with the organizational ecology literature we find that club experience, previous club performance (number of previous championship titles and number of previous relegations) and market size (average attendance) affect survival in a statistically significant and economically relevant sense. Perhaps surprisingly, founding conditions seem to be irrelevant for a club’s length of stay in its respective first division.
Assessing the Real-Time Informational Content of Macroeconomic Data Releases for Now-/Forecasting GDP: Evidence for Switzerland
Authors: Siliverstovs Boriss , Kholodilin Konstantin A.
Published: April 2016

This study utilizes the dynamic factor model of Giannone et al. (2008) in order to make now-/ forecasts of GDP quarter-on-quarter growth rate in Switzerland. It also assesses the informational content of macroeconomic data releases for forecasting of the Swiss GDP. We find that the factor model offers a substantial improvement in forecast accuracy of GDP growth rate compared to a benchmark naive constant-growth model at all forecast horizons and at all data vintages. The largest forecast accuracy is achieved when GDP nowcasts for an actual quarter are made about three months ahead of the official data release.We also document that both business tendency surveys as well as stock market indices possess the largest informational content for GDP forecasting, although their ranking depends on the underlying transformation of monthly indicators from which the common factors are extracted.
Cyclical Adjustment, Capital-labor Substitution and Total Factor Productivity Convergence – East Germany After Unification
Authors: Smolny Werner
Published: April 2016

Despite rapid economic integration and massive help from the Federal Government East German productivity catching up faded out in the nineties. This paper presents panel-data estimates of the productivity adjustment based on a production function framework and a stylized adjustment model of the economy. The central empirical result is a decomposition of the sources of productivity growth. The estimates reveal that a large part of productivity growth in the early nineties is related to factors that were specific for that period. The fading out since the mid-nineties is attributed to the development of total factor productivity.
Diskussionsbeitrag / Discussion. Paper David Hume und die Target-Salden
Authors: Spahn Peter
Published: April 2016

According to David Hume, the specie flow mechanism allows a stabilisation effect in the case of diverging current account imbalances in a gold standard system. Likewise in EMU, trade deficits and capital flight in GIPS countries generate a transfer of euro reserves into surplus countries. Positive Target balances do not represent credit claims on deficit countries. Money creation on behalf of GIPS national central banks contradict wise principles of monetary policy making, but it may contribute to the necessary restoration of price competitiveness.
HIV, Risky Behavior and Ethno-linguistic Heterogeneity
Authors: Tequame Miron
Published: April 2016

Ethno-linguistic heterogeneity is associated with indicators of development like civil society, trust, quality of institutions, economic performance and participation. Recently, it has been found to be favorable for optimizing agents who want to engage in risky sexual behavior as they can select partners outside their own network and that of their spouse. This paper augments the literature by arguing that the effect of ethno-linguistic heterogeneity on risky sexual behavior is gender related. In contexts where women have more economic benefits (or losses) from sexual partners, they better internalize the cost of detection. This study shows that, with respect to men, ethno-linguistic heterogeneity significantly affects women’s HIV status and their risky sexual behavior. Accordingly, it also affects positively the probability of being in a discordant couple where the wife is HIV positive.
Multivariate Self-Exciting Threshold Autoregressive Modeling by Genetic Algorithms
Authors: Baragona Roberto , Cucina Domenico
Published: April 2016

Several nonlinear time series models have been proposed in the literature to explain various empirical nonlinear features of many observed financial and economic time series. One model that has gained much attention is the so-called self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) model. It has been found very effective for modeling and forecasting nonlinear time series in a wide range of application fields. Furthermore, SETAR model is able to capture nonlinear characteristics as limit cycles, jump resonance, and time irreversibility. In this work the attention is focused on a multivariate SETAR (MSETAR) model where each linear regime follows a vector autoregressive (VAR) process and the thresholds are multivariate. We propose a methodology based on genetic algorithms (GAs) for building MSETAR models. The GA is designed to estimate the structural parameters, i. e. to determine the appropriate number of regimes and find multivariate threshold parameters. The behavior of the proposed methodology has been observed on a simulation experiment involving three artificial data sets.