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DIW Discussion Papers 1066 / 2010
Survey-based indicators such as the consumer confidence are widely seen as leading indicators for economic activity, especially for the future path of private consumption. Although they receive high attention in the media, their forecasting power appears to be very limited. Therefore, this paper takes a fresh look on the survey data, which serve as a basis for the consumer confidence indicator (CCI) ...
2010| Christian Dreger, Konstantin A. Kholodilin
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DIW Discussion Papers 1065 / 2010
The amendment to the German Trade and Crafts Code in 2004 offers a natural experiment to asses the causal effects of this reform on the probabilities of being self-employed and transition into and out of self-employment, using cross-sections (2002-2006) of German microcensus data. This study applies the difference-in-differences technique in logit models for four occupational groups. Easing the educational ...
2010| Davud Rostam-Afschar
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DIW Discussion Papers 1064 / 2010
This paper examines the forecasting performance of a broad monetary aggregate (M3) in predicting euro area inflation. Excess liquidity is measured as the difference between the actual money stock and its fundamental value, the latter determined by a money demand function. The out-of sample forecasting performance is compared to widely used alternatives, such as the term structure of interest rates. ...
2010| Christian Dreger, Jürgen Wolters
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DIW Discussion Papers 1063 / 2010
In this paper, we argue that the effect of governance on the emergence of crimes of different levels of sophistication is highly non-linear. State failure, anarchy and a lack of infrastructure are not conducive to establishing any business, including illicit enterprises. At the bottom of the spectrum, therefore, both legal business and criminal gangs benefit from improved governance. With further improvements ...
2010| Olaf J. de Groot, Anja Shortland
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DIW Discussion Papers 1062 / 2010
We provide an overview of China's economic rise through time. Over the past decade, China has maintained 10% growth in GDP, albeit with a GDP per capita at the low level of a developing country. Its tremendous economic development has overlooked the growing social inequalities and rising resentments of the 'cheap' workers and those laid off. The main contributor to its ascension is international trade ...
2010| Amelie F. Constant, Bienvenue N. Tien, Klaus F. Zimmermann, Jingzhou Meng
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DIW Discussion Papers 1061 / 2010
In this paper employment effects of a sectoral minimum wage in the German construction sector are estimated from a single cross-sectional wage distribution using parametric and semi-parametric models. Parametric functional form assumptions seem too restrictive and lead to implausible results. We suggest semi-parametric censored quantile regression models to relax these assumptions and find that employment ...
2010| Kai-Uwe Müller
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DIW Discussion Papers 1060 / 2010
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 ...
2010| Timm Bönke, Carsten Schröder
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DIW Discussion Papers 1059 / 2010
We analyse the role of mass violent conflict in influencing individual expectations. We hypothesise that individuals are likely to report negative expectations if they were exposed to conflict events in the past. We combine individual and household level data from the Northern Uganda Livelihood Survey of 2007 with a disaggregated conflict exposure index based on the Armed Conflict Locations Events ...
2010| Carlos Bozzoli, Tilman Brück, Tony Muhumuza
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DIW Discussion Papers 1058 / 2010
This paper empirically investigates the effects of differential income taxation on households' portfolio choice and asset allocation applying a two-stage budgeting model of asset demand to German survey data. The model is structured into the discrete asset choice and the continuous asset choice, and the marginal income tax rate is simulated in a module of income taxation. Households that face relatively ...
2010| Richard Ochmann
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DIW Discussion Papers 1057 / 2010
Micro-econometric intra-cohort profitability analyses of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension contributions are rare. We use representative employment histories of a birth cohort of German PAYG pension insurants retiring in year 2005 to econometrically examine the determinants of the profitability of such contributions using nominal internal rates of return (IRR) as profitability measure. When future nominal ...
2010| Carsten Schröder
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DIW Discussion Papers 1056 / 2010
Much analysis in macroeconomics empirically addresses economy-wide incentives behind consumer/investment choices by using insights from the way a single representative household would behave. Heterogeneity at the micro level can jeopardize attempts to back up the representative consumer construct with microfoundations. One complex aspect of micro-level heterogeneity is household size, as individuals ...
2010| Christos Koulovatianos, Carsten Schröder, Ulrich Schmidt
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DIW Discussion Papers 1055 / 2010
In this paper we analyze the relationship between social networks and the job search behavior of unemployed individuals. It is believed that networks convey useful information in the job search process such that individuals with larger networks should experience a higher productivity of informal search. Hence, job search theory suggests that individuals with larger networks use informal search channels ...
2010| Marco Caliendo, Ricarda Schmidl, Arne Uhlendorff
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DIW Discussion Papers 1054 / 2010
Argentina hit world news headlines in 2002 due to the largest debt-default in history and a sudden economic collapse reminiscent of economic statistics from the Great Depression. In this article, we focus on other consequences of the crisis that are not so obvious, but that may linger for decades on. Combining macroeconomic indicators with the Argentine national registry of live births, approximately ...
2010| Carlos Bozzoli, Climent Quintana-Domeque
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DIW Discussion Papers 1053 / 2010
This paper provides a way of evaluating a player's contribution to her team and relates her effort to her salaries. We collect data from UEFA Euro 2008 Tournament and construct the passing network of each team. Then we determine the key player in the game while ranking all the other players too. Next, we identify key groups of players to determine which combination of players played more important ...
2010| Sudipta Sarangi, Emre Unlu
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DIW Discussion Papers 1052 / 2010
We present a mixed integer, multi-period, cost-minimizing carbon capture, transport and storage (CCTS) network model for Europe. The model incorporates endogenous decisions about carbon capture, pipeline and storage investments; capture, flow and injection quantities based on given costs, certificate prices, storage capacities and point source emissions.The results indicate that CCTS can theoretically ...
2010| Roman Mendelevitch, Johannes Herold, Pao-Yu Oei, Andreas Tissen
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DIW Discussion Papers 1051 / 2010
The international community has a declared intention to protect innocent civilians from direct and deliberate violence in civil conflicts, but its track record of actually doing so is mixed. Using a new monthly time-series data set, we explore the factors associated with variations in the number of civilians killed or wounded by participants in the civil war in Peru during the 1980s and 1990s. We find ...
2010| David Fielding, Anja Shortland
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DIW Discussion Papers 1050 / 2010
This survey provides an in-depth analysis of existing research on the economic analysis of terrorism and counter-terrorist measures. First the existing evidence on the causes of terrorism is analyzed, then we consider the evidence of the consequences of terrorism and we demonstrate why it is important to regarding of the issue of counter-terrorism policy. Moreover the survey presents the existing knowledge ...
2010| Friedrich Schneider, Tilman Brück, Daniel Meierrieks
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DIW Discussion Papers 1049 / 2010
This survey provides an in-depth analysis of existing research on the economic analysis of terrorism and counter-terrorist measures. First the existing evidence on the causes of terrorism is analyzed, then we consider the evidence of the consequences of terrorism and we demonstrate why it is important to regarding of the issue of counter-terrorism policy. Moreover the survey presents the existing knowledge ...
2010| Friedrich Schneider, Tilman Brück, Daniel Meierrieks
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DIW Discussion Papers 1048 / 2010
Respondent driven sampling (RDS) is a network sampling technique typically employed for hard-to-reach populations (e.g. drug users, men who have sex with men, people with HIV). Similar to snowball sampling, initial seed respondents recruit additional respondents from their network of friends. The recruiting process repeats iteratively, thereby forming long referral chains. Unlike in snowball sampling, ...
2010| Matthias Schonlau, Elisabeth Liebau
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DIW Discussion Papers 1047 / 2010
Using controlled experiments, we examine how individuals make choices when faced with multiple options. Choice tasks are designed to mimic the selection of health insurance, prescription drug, or retirement savings plans. In our experiment, available options can be objectively ranked allowing us to examine optimal decision making. First, the probability of a person selecting the optimal option declines ...
2010| Tibor Besedes, Cary Deck, Sudipta Sarangi, Mikhael Shor