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DIW Discussion Papers 946 / 2009
The Google Insights data are a collection of recorded Internet searches for a huge number of the keywords, which are available since January 2004. These searches represent a kind of revealed perceptions of Internet users, which are a (possibly not entirely representative) sample of the general public. These data can be used to improve the short-term forecasts or nowcasts of various macroeconomic variables. ...
2009| Konstantin A. Kholodilin, Maximilian Podstawski, Boriss Siliverstovs, Constantin Bürgi
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DIW Discussion Papers 945 / 2009
After 20 years of transition from an economy integrated in an exchange scheme of planned economies towards an open market economy based on the ideas of competition, we ask whether East German firms succeeded in finding their place in the international division of labour. We concentrate on the question, to what extent they have caught up with the productivity level of their Western counterparts of similar ...
2009| Bernd Görzig, Martin Gornig, Ramona Voshage, Axel Werwatz
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DIW Discussion Papers 944 / 2009
This paper examines the significance of different fundamental regimes by applying various monetary models of the exchange rate to one of the politically most important exchange rates, the exchange rate of the US dollar vis-à-vis the euro (the DM). We use monthly data from 1975:01 to 2007:12. Applying a novel time-varying coefficient estimation approach, we come up with interesting properties of our ...
2009| Joscha Beckmann, Ansgar Belke, Michael Kühl
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DIW Discussion Papers 943 / 2009
This paper deals with the impact of the $/€ exchange rate on German exports in the period from 1995Q1 to 2008Q4. Our main aim is to identify "pain thresholds" for German exporters. We rely on a non-linear model according to which suddenly strong spurts of exports occur when changes of the EXR go beyond a kind of "play" area (analogous to a mechanical play). We implement an algorithm describing play-hysteresis ...
2009| Ansgar Belke, Matthias Göcke, Martin Günther
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DIW Discussion Papers 942 / 2009
This paper examines global (mature market) and regional (emerging market) spillovers in local emerging stock markets. Tri-variate VAR GARCH(1,1)-in-mean models are estimated for 41 emerging market economies (EMEs) in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. The models capture a range of possible transmission channels: spillovers in mean returns, volatility, and cross-market GARCH-in-mean effects. ...
2009| John Beirne, Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Marianne Schulze-Ghattas, Nicola Spagnolo
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DIW Discussion Papers 941 / 2009
The aim of this paper is to provide new empirical evidence on the impact of international financial integration on the long-run Real Exchange Rate (RER) in 39 developing countries belonging to three different geographical regions (Latin America, Asia and MENA). It covers the period 1979-2004, and carries out "second-generation" tests for non-stationary panels. Several factors, including international ...
2009| Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Thouraya Hadj Amor, Christophe Rault
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DIW Discussion Papers 940 / 2009
This paper reviews the main features of the banking and financial sector in ten new EU members, and then examines the relationship between financial development and economic growth in these countries by estimating a dynamic panel model over the period 1994-2007. The evidence suggests that the stock and credit markets are still underdeveloped in these economies, and that their contribution to economic ...
2009| Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Christophe Rault, Robert Sova, Anamaria Sova
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DIW Discussion Papers 939 / 2009
The aim of this work is to evaluate the impact of domestic and global biofuel policies on Germany's agricultural sector. The central part of our study is divided into four sections. Section 2 presents in detail the issues that make biofuels a debated topic in today's economic policies. Fundamental aspects of our energy consumption patterns and the geographic location of our natural resources are highlighted ...
2009| Giovanni Sorda, Martin Banse, Claudia Kemfert
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DIW Discussion Papers 938 / 2009
In this paper, we make multi-step forecasts of the annual growth rates of the real GRP for each of the 31 Chinese provinces simultaneously. Beside the usual panel data models, we use panel models that explicitly account for spatial dependence between the GRP growth rates. In addition, the possibility of spatial effects being different for different groups of provinces (Interior and Coast) is allowed. ...
2009| Eric Girardin, Konstantin A. Kholodilin
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DIW Discussion Papers 937 / 2009
The paper scrutinizes the role of wages and capital flows for competitiveness in the new EU member states in the context of real convergence. For this purpose it extends the seminal Balassa-Samuelson model by international capital markets. The augmented Balassa-Samuelson model is linked to the monetary overinvestment theories of Wicksell and Hayek in order to trace cyclical deviations of real exchange ...
2009| Ansgar Belke, Gunther Schnabl, Holger Zemanek
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DIW Discussion Papers 936 / 2009
Why are female entrepreneurs so rare? Women have both to a lower entry rate into selfemployment and a higher exit rate in Germany. To explain the gender gap, a structural microeconometric model of the transition rates is estimated, which includes a standard risk aversion parameter. As inputs into the model, the expected value and variance of earnings from self-employment and dependent employment are ...
2009| Frank M. Fossen
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DIW Discussion Papers 935 / 2009
In this paper we develop a structural model of female employment and fertility which accounts for intertemporal feedback effects between the two outcomes. We identify the effect of financial incentives on the employment and fertility decision by exploiting variation in the tax and transfer system which differs by employment state and number of children. To this end we simulate in detail the effects ...
2009| Peter Haan, Katharina Wrohlich
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DIW Discussion Papers 934 / 2009
Taxation changes the expectations of prospective university students about their future level and uncertainty of after-tax income. To estimate the impact of taxes on university enrollment, we develop and estimate a structural microeconometric model, in which a high-school graduate decides to enter university studies if expected lifetime utility from this choice is greater than that anticipated from ...
2009| Frank M. Fossen, Daniela Glocker
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DIW Discussion Papers 933 / 2009
Global liquidity expansion has been very dynamic since 2001. Contrary to conventional wisdom, high money growth rates have not coincided with a concurrent rise in goods prices. At the same time, however, asset prices have increased sharply, significantly outpacing the subdued development in consumer prices. We investigate the interactions between money and goods and asset prices at the global level. ...
2009| Ansgar Belke, Walter Orth, Ralph Setzer
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DIW Discussion Papers 932 / 2009
This paper applies the Phillips and Sul (2007) method to test for convergence in stock returns to an extensive dataset including monthly stock price indices for five EU countries (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK) as well as the US over the period 1973-2008. We carry out the analysis on both sectors and individual industries within sectors. As a first step, we use the Stock and ...
2009| Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Burcu Erdogan, Vladimir Kuzin
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DIW Discussion Papers 931 / 2009
In this paper, we discuss potential developments of the world natural gas industry at the horizon of 2030. We use the World Gas Model (WGM), a dynamic, strategic representation of world natural gas production, trade, and consumption between 2005 and 2030. We specify a "base case" which defines the business-as-usual assumptions based on forecasts of the world energy markets. We then analyze the sensitivity ...
2009| Daniel Huppmann, Ruud Egging, Franziska Holz, Sophia Rüster, Christian von Hirschhausen, Steven A. Gabriel
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DIW Discussion Papers 930 / 2009
The Arrow index of a fuzzy choice function C is a measure of the degree to which C satisfies the Fuzzy Arrow Axiom, a fuzzy version of the classical Arrow Axiom. The main result of this paper shows that A(C) characterizes the degree to which C is full rational. We also obtain a method for computing A(C). The Arrow index allows to rank the fuzzy choice functions with respect to their rationality. Thus, ...
2009| Irina Georgescu
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DIW Discussion Papers 929 / 2009
There is by now a lot of evidence showing a sharp increase in cross-sectional wage and earnings inequality during the 2000s in Germany. Our study is the first to decompose this cross-sectional variance into its permanent and transitory parts for years beyond 2000. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel on fulltime working individuals for years of 1994 to 2006, we do not find unambiguous empirical ...
2009| Michal Myck, Richard Ochmann, Salmai Qari
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DIW Discussion Papers 928 / 2009
This study questions the popular stereotype that women are more risk averse than men in their financial investment decisions. The analysis is based on micro-level data from large-scale surveys of private households in five European countries. In our analysis of investment decisions, we directly account for individuals' self-perceived willingness to take financial risks. The empirical evidence we provide ...
2009| Oleg Badunenko, Nataliya Barasinska, Dorothea Schäfer
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DIW Discussion Papers 927 / 2009
It has previously been shown that civil conflict influences many economic factors, including education, which play an important role in development and economic growth. Previous authors working on the influence of conflict on education have, however, always focused strongly on the supply-side effects, whereas this paper examines the influence of conflict on the demand for education. It is theoretically ...
2009| Olaf J. de Groot, Idil Göksel