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DIW Discussion Papers 578 / 2006
The German labor market reforms seem to be on the right track. However, they need to be adjusted especially on the organizational side to make them more effective. The labor market instruments can be concentrated on temporary company wage subsidies, training measures and financial incentives for business start-ups. It is essential to increase incentives, intensify competitive structures and to ensure ...
2006| Hilmar Schneider, Werner Eichhorst, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 577 / 2006
Dieses Paper zeigt, dass die Messung der Handgreifkraft ein auch in sozialwissenschaftlichen Bevölkerungsumfragen einfach zu ermittelndes, nicht-invasives und verlässliches objektives Gesundheitsmaß ist. Die Greifkraftmessung stellt nicht nur eine sinnvolle Ergänzung zu selbst berichteten Indikatoren des Gesundheitszustandes dar, sondern besitzt darüber hinaus hinsichtlich einer Vielzahl relevanter ...
2006| Karsten Hank, Hendrik Jürges, Jürgen Schupp, Gert G. Wagner
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DIW Discussion Papers 576 / 2006
Using data from the March Current Population Surveys in the United States, the Household Panel Survey in Great Britain and the Socio-Economic Panel in Germany we find gains from economic growth in the United States over their 1990s business cycle (1989-2000) were more equitably distributed than were the gains over their 1980s business cycle (1979-1989). Furthermore, they were more equitably distributed ...
2006| Richard V. Burkhauser, Ludmila Rovba
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DIW Discussion Papers 575 / 2006
Demographische und ökonomische Veränderungen der Gesellschaft werfen Fragen nach deren Konsequenzen für den Sport auf. Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags wird untersucht, in welcher Weise die Sportpartizipation in Deutschland von demogra-phischen und ökonomischen Parametern abhängt und wie sich die Sportpartizipation bei einer Änderung demographischer und ökonomischer Rahmenbedingungen wandelt. Das zugrunde ...
2006| Christoph Breuer
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DIW Discussion Papers 574 / 2006
Using a sample obtained from a survey conducted in the United States during summer 2002, we study the variables related to observed differences in the rate of entrepreneurial involvement between black and white Americans. We find strong evidence that differences in subjective and often biased perceptions are highly associated with entrepreneurial propensity across these two racial groups. In addition, ...
2006| Philipp Köllinger, Maria Minniti
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DIW Discussion Papers 573 / 2006
In this paper we suggest a Stata routine for multinomial logit models with unobserved heterogeneity using maximum simulated likelihood based on Halton sequences. The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, we provide a description of the technical implementation of the estimation routine and discuss its properties. Further, we compare our estimation routine to the Stata program gllamm which solves ...
2006| Peter Haan, Arne Uhlendorff
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DIW Discussion Papers 572 / 2006
We investigate hysteresis and persistence behaviour in the course of unemployment in EU countries and US states by means of first and second generation panel unit root tests. While the former tests assume independent cross sections, the latter control for dependencies. The first generation tests indicate, that unemployment is persistent, but nevertheless stationary. Second generation tests reveal mixed ...
2006| Christian Dreger, Hans-Eggert Reimers
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DIW Discussion Papers 571 / 2006
We investigate the relevance of the Carroll's sticky information model of inflation expectations for four major European economies (France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom). Using survey data on household and expert inflation expectations we argue that the model adequately captures the dynamics of household inflation expectations. We estimate two alternative parametrizations of the sticky information ...
2006| Jörg Döpke, Jonas Dovern, Ulrich Fritsche, Jiri Slacalek
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DIW Discussion Papers 570 / 2006
In this paper, I suggest an empirical framework for the analysis of mothers' labor supply and child care choices, explicitly taking into account access restrictions to subsidized child care. This is particularly important for countries such as Germany, where subsidized child care is rationed and private child care is only available at considerably higher cost. I use a discrete choice panel data model ...
2006| Katharina Wrohlich
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DIW Discussion Papers 569 / 2006
Increasing work incentives for people with low incomes is a common topic in the policy debate across European countries. The "Mini-Job" reform in Germany - introduced on April 1, 2003 - can be seen in line with these policies, exempting labour income below a certain threshold from taxes and employees' social security contributions. We carry out an ex-post evaluation to identify the short-run effects ...
2006| Marco Caliendo, Katharina Wrohlich
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DIW Discussion Papers 568 / 2006
We consider a model with two firms operating their individual networks. Each firm can choose its price as well as its investment to build up its network. Assuming a skewed distribution of consumers, our model leads to an asymmetric market structure with one firm choosing higher investments. While access regulation imposed on the dominant firm leads to lower prices, positive welfare effects are diminished ...
2006| Pio Baake, Ulrich Kamecke
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DIW Discussion Papers 567 / 2006
The paper provides a new measure of the ethnic identity of immigrants and explores its evolution in the host country. The ethnosizer, a measure of the intensity of a person's ethnic identity, is constructed from information on the following elements: language, culture, societal interaction, history of migration, and ethnic self-identification. A two-dimensional concept of the ethnosizer classifies ...
2006| Amelie Constant, Liliya Gataullina, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 566 / 2006
The determinants of migrants' remittances are the subject of this study based on German SOEP data. For our analysis of the probability and amount of remittances, we do not restrict ourselves on immigrants with a foreign citizenship, but focus on all individuals with a migration background. Major findings are: first, the degree of integration into German society matters. Second, the probability to remit ...
2006| Elke Holst, Mechthild Schrooten
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DIW Discussion Papers 565 / 2006
This paper models voters' preferences over central versus local education policies when there are private alternatives. Education is financed by income taxes and individuals are mobile between communities. Public education levels are chosen by majority vote. Contrary to conventional wisdom, centralisation may benefit the rich and poor, while the middle class prefer decentralised education. The model ...
2006| Rainald Borck
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DIW Discussion Papers 564 / 2006
This article proposes an estimation approach for panel models with mixed continuous and ordered categorical outcomes based on generalized estimating equations for the mean and pseudo-score equations for the covariance parameters. A numerical study suggests that efficiency can be gained as concerns the mean parameter estimators by using individual covariance matrices in the estimating equations for ...
2006| Martin Spieß
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DIW Discussion Papers 563 / 2006
Students from low-income families are eligible to student aid under the federal students' financial assistance scheme (BAfoeG) in Germany. We evaluate the effectiveness of a recent reform of student aid that substantially increased the amount received by eligible students to raise enrolment rates into tertiary education. We view this reform as a 'natural experiment' and apply the difference-in-difference ...
2006| Hans J. Baumgartner, Viktor Steiner
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DIW Discussion Papers 562 / 2006
Our study shows that the technological development of a firm can be subject to an endogenous acceleration mechanism. The more advanced a firm is in using a particular set of technologies, the more likely will it adopt additional, related technologies. This acceleration mechanism implies that marginal differences in early adoption decisions lead to substantial differences in technology endowment later. ...
2006| Philipp Köllinger, Christian Schade
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DIW Discussion Papers 561 / 2006
Monetary growth in the euro area has exceeded its target level especially since 2001. Likewise, recent empirical studies did not find evidence in favour of a stable long run relationship between the variables entering the money demand function. Instead the equation appears to be increasingly unstable if more recent data are included. Since the link between money balances and macroeconomic variables ...
2006| Christian Dreger, Jürgen Wolters
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DIW Discussion Papers 560 / 2006
This paper questions the perceived wisdom that migrants are more risk-loving than the native population. We employ a new large German survey of direct individual risk measures to find that first-generation migrants have lower risk attitudes than natives, which only equalize in the second generation.
2006| Holger Bonin, Amelie Constant, Konstantinos Tatsiramos, Klaus F. Zimmermann
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DIW Discussion Papers 559 / 2006
This paper analyzes a modified yardstick competition mechanism (MYC), where the yardstick employed consists of a tariff basket and total costs. This mechanism has a significant information advantage: the regulator "only" needs to observe total costs and output of all firms. The modified yardstick competition mechanism can ensure a socially optimal outcome when allowing for spatial and second degree ...
2006| Georg Meran, Christian von Hirschhausen