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DIW Discussion Papers 1707 / 2017
In order to identify structural shocks that affect economic variables, restrictions need to be imposed on the parameters of structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) models. Economic theory is the primary source of such restrictions. However, only over-identifying restrictions can be tested with statistical methods which limits the statistical validation of many just-identified SVAR models. In this study, ...
2017| Helmut Lütkepohl, Tomasz Woźniak
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DIW Discussion Papers 1706 / 2017
Haushalte mit unteren und mittleren Einkommen profitieren kaum von Senkungen des Einkommensteuertarifs oder vom Abbau des Solidaritätszuschlags. Zugleich führen schon moderate Entlastungen im Eingangsbereich des Steuertarifs oder beim „Mittelstandsbauch“ zu beträchtlichen Steuerausfällen und entlasten auch hohe Einkommen, soweit die Spitzensteuersätze nicht angehoben werden. Wenn die Steuerpolitik ...
2017| Stefan Bach, Michelle Harnisch
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DIW Discussion Papers 1705 / 2017
Many people around the world live in patrilocal societies. Patrilocality prescribes that women move in with their husbands’ parents, relieve their in-laws from housework, and care for them in old age. This arrangement is likely to have labour market consequences, in particular for the women. We study the effect of co-residence on female labour supply in Kyrgyzstan, a strongly patrilocal setting. We ...
2017| Andreas Landmann, Helke Seitz, Susan Steiner
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DIW Discussion Papers 1704 / 2017
We exploit a new dataset based on EU procurement award notices to investigate the relationship between the degree of centralization of public procurement and its performance. We focus on the case of Italy, where all levels of government, along with a number of other public institutions, are involved in procurement and are subject to the same EU regulation. We find that i) municipalities and utilities, ...
2017| Olga Chiappinelli
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DIW Discussion Papers 1703 / 2017
This paper examines persistence in the cryptocurrency market. Two different longmemory methods (R/S analysis and fractional integration) are used to analyse it in the case of the four main cryptocurrencies (BitCoin, LiteCoin, Ripple, Dash) over the sample period 2013-2017. The findings indicate that this market exhibits persistence (there is a positive correlation between its past and future values), ...
2017| Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Luis Gil-Alana, Alex Plastun
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DIW Discussion Papers 1702 / 2017
This paper analyses financial literacy and financial behavior of middle class people living in an urban Asian economy. Other than most papers on financial literacy that focus on people in developed countries, we surveyed people living Bangkok. Using standard financial literacy questions, we find that financial literacy levels are largely comparable to industrialized countries, but understanding of ...
2017| Antonia Grohmann
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DIW Discussion Papers 1701 / 2017
This study investigates the international spillover effects of contractionary US monetary policy and its transmission channels on members of the euro area (EA) before and after the implementation of the euro. I find the multilateral spillover effects on individual EA economies' real activity and inflation to be asymmetric, i.e. the responses are mainly expansionary but not exclusively so. While the ...
2017| Max Hanisch
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DIW Discussion Papers 1700 / 2017
Nuclear power was one of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century, and it continues to play an important role in twenty-first century discussions about the future energy mix, climate change, innovation, proliferation, geopolitics, and many other crucial policy topics. This paper addresses some key issues around the emergence of nuclear power in the twentieth century and perspectives ...
2017| Christian von Hirschhausen
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DIW Discussion Papers 1699 / 2017
This paper analyzes the dynamic relationship between CO2 emissions, energy consumption, GDP, and trade-openness from 1971 to 2013, based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for 70 WTO countries. Using recently developed secondgeneration panel data methods, the empirical results support the EKC hypothesis for the high-, middle-, and lower-income panels used. Concerning the energy consumption ...
2017| Lars Sorge, Anne Neumann
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DIW Discussion Papers 1698 / 2017
This study uses German social security records to provide novel evidence about the heterogeneity in life expectancy by lifetime earnings and, additionally, documents the distributional implications of this earnings-related heterogeneity. We find a strong association between lifetime earnings and life expectancy at age 65 and show that the longevity gap is increasing across cohorts. For West German ...
2017| Peter Haan, Daniel Kemptner, Holger Lüthen
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DIW Discussion Papers 1697 / 2017
This paper characterizes capital taxation and public debt policy in a quantitative macroeconomic model with an impatient government and uncertainty. The government has access to linear taxes on capital and labor, and to non-state-contingent bonds. Government impatience generates positive and empirically realistic longrun levels of both capital taxes and public debt. Prior predictive analysis shows ...
2017| Malte Rieth
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DIW Discussion Papers 1696 / 2017
The informationally simple approach to incentive regulation applies mechanisms that translate the regulator’s objective function into the firm’s profit-maximizing objective. These mechanisms come in two forms, one based on subsidies/taxes,the other based on constraints/ price caps. In spite of a number of improvements and a good empirical track record simple approaches so far remain imperfect. The ...
2017| Mohammad Reza Hesamzadeh, Juan Rosellón, Steven A. Gabriel, Ingo Vogelsang
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DIW Discussion Papers 1695 / 2017
In this paper we propose a new modelling framework for the analysis of macro series that includes both stochastic trends and stochastic cycles in addition to deterministic terms such as linear and non-linear trends. We examine four US macro series, namely annual and quarterly real GDP and GDP per capita. The results indicate that the behaviour of US GDP can be captured accurately by a model incorporating ...
2017| Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Luis A. Gil-Alana
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DIW Discussion Papers 1694 / 2017
This paper examines the day of the week effect in the crypto currency market using a variety of statistical techniques (average analysis, Student's t-test, ANOVA, the Kruskal- Wallis test, and regression analysis with dummy variables) as well as a trading simulation approach. Most crypto currencies (LiteCoin, Ripple, Dash) are found not to exhibit this anomaly. The only exception is BitCoin, for which ...
2017| Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Alex Plastun
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DIW Discussion Papers 1693 / 2017
Economic theory predicts market failure in the market for early childhood education and care (ECEC) due to information asymmetries. We empirically investigate information asymmetries between parents and ECEC professionals in Germany, making use of a unique extension of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). It allows us to compare quality perceptions by parents and pedagogic staff of 734 ECEC ...
2017| Georg F. Camehl, Pia S. Schober, C. Katharina Spiess
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DIW Discussion Papers 1692 / 2017
Motivations to participate in the labour market as well as to invest in labour market skills are crucial for the successful integration of refugees. In this paper we use a unique dataset – the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Refugee Survey, which is a representative longitudinal study of all refugees reported on administrative records in Germany – and analyse which determinants and characteristics are correlated with ...
2017| Peter Haan, Martin Kroh, Kent Troutman
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DIW Discussion Papers 1691 / 2017
We empirically study the effects of broadband internet diffusion on local election outcomes and on local government policies using rich data from the U.K. Our analysis suggests that the internet has displaced other media with greater news content (i.e., radio and newspapers), thereby decreasing voter turnout, most notably among less-educated and younger individuals. In turn, we find suggestive evidence ...
2017| Alessandro Gavazza, Mattia Nardotto, Tommaso Valletti
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DIW Discussion Papers 1690 / 2017
Based on a life-cycle sustainability assessment and the calculation of carbon abatement costs, we quantify the greenhouse-gas emission reductions and costs if green waste in the metropolitan region of Berlin, Germany, is diverted from composting into the production of hydrothermally carbonized coal (HTC coal) that is used as a substitute for hard coal in the generation of electricity and heat. Depending ...
2017| Jakob Medick, Isabel Teichmann, Claudia Kemfert
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DIW Discussion Papers 1689 / 2017
Carbon leakage is an issue of major interest in both academic and policy debates about the effectiveness of unilateral climate policy addressing global externalities. The debate is particularly salient in Europe, where the EU Emissions TradingSystem (EU ETS) covers emissions of many traded sectors. In a first step, we review how carbon leakage and the pollution haven effect are defined and identified ...
2017| Helene Naegele, Aleksandar Zaklan
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DIW Discussion Papers 1688 / 2017
As from a political economy perspective, politicians often fail to implement structural reforms, we investigate if the resistance to reform is based on the differences in the risk preferences of voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. Based on the empirical results of a survey of the population in Germany, 175 members of the Federal German Parliament (Bundestag), and 106 officials (“bureaucrats”) from ...
2017| Tobias Thomas, Moritz Heß, Gert G. Wagner