External refereed essays

Physical Activity Patterns of European 50+ Populations

Many aspects of the economic transition which started in 1989 in Poland are by now complete. However, the route Polish governments have so far taken concerning the system of support for low-income families still implies very different poverty alleviation schemes compared to those found in many developed countries. We examine the Polish system of social assistance in a comparative context with Germany ...

Safety Net Still in Transition: Labour Market Incentive Effects of Social Support in Poland and Germany

Many aspects of the economic transition which started in 1989 in Poland are by now complete. However, the route Polish governments have so far taken concerning the system of support for low-income families still implies very different poverty alleviation schemes compared to those found in many developed countries. We examine the Polish system of social assistance in a comparative context with Germany ...

MIDAS vs. Mixed-Frequency VAR: Nowcasting GDP in the Euro Area

This paper compares the mixed-data sampling (MIDAS) and mixed-frequency VAR (MF-VAR) approaches to model specification in the presence of mixed-frequency data, e.g. monthly and quarterly series. MIDAS leads to parsimonious models which are based on exponential lag polynomials for the coefficients, whereas MF-VAR does not restrict the dynamics and can therefore suffer from the curse of dimensionality. ...

Soaring Dragons, Roaring Tigers, Growling Bears: Determinants of Regional Growth and Convergence in China, India and Russia

We perform a comparative analysis of regional growth and convergence in China, Russia and India over the period 1993-2003 by means of non-parametric methods and kernel density estimates. Our results indicate that wealthy regions were largely responsible for the rapid growth in all three countries. For China and India, capital dissipation was identified as the major determinant of regional growth. In ...

An Economic Analysis of Dismissal Legislation: Determinants of Severance Pay in West Germany

Severance pay is a vital part of employment protection legislation (EPL). We investigate the incidence and level of severance pay for dismissed employees. Our theoretical model predicts that not only the law and its interpretation by labour courts but also the costs of a suit have an impact. Using West German panel data for 1991-2006, we find that theemployees' costs resulting from a suit and the legal ...

Die wahrgenommene Gerechtigkeit des eigenen Erwerbseinkommens: geschlechtstypische Muster und die Bedeutung des Haushaltskontextes

Die zunehmende Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen und die Ausbreitung "atypischer" Beschäftigungsverhältnisse hat zur Folge, dass der Anteil an Haushalten, in denen der Mann der alleinige Ernährer der Familie ist, abnimmt und der Anteil an Zweiverdienerhaushalten seit Jahren ansteigt. Vor diesem Hintergrund fragt dieser Beitrag, welche Bedeutung Haushaltskontexte, in denen das traditionelle male-breadwinner-Modell ...

A Positive Theory of the Earnings Relationship of Unemployment Benefits

In a wage bargaining model, a stronger earnings relationship of unemployment benefits may reduce wages. Therefore, the benefit structure significantly influences profits and trade union utility, raising the question as to how the benefit structure is determined in the political process. We consider a government that chooses the earnings relationship in order to maximize its political support. Our model ...

The Shadow Economy in International Comparison: Options for Economic Policy Derived from an OECD Panel Analysis

Building on new behavioral theories, using a data set of about 450 variables and augmenting the Sala-i-Martin definition of robustness, we find evidence in support of the hypothesis that the standard causes of the shadow economy (SE), taxes, the administrative burden and labor market regulations, are not per se crucial in determining the size of the SE. Many of the robust influences emanate from relatively ...

Shadow Economy, Tax Evasion, and Transfer Fraud: Definition, Measurement, and Data Problems

The paper tries to shed some light on the definition of the shadow economy, in order to separate shadow activities from market activities and household production. A total income concept is applied, which is based on the labor force being engaged in market, shadow and household activities. Based on such a clear concept, tax evasion can be defined and identified in the market sector and is also usually ...

Shadow Economy in High Income Countries - Much Ado about Nothing? Editors' Introduction

Locational Conditions and Firm Performance: Introduction to the Special Issue

Pitfalls of Post-model-selection Testing: Experimental Quantification

Traditional specification testing does not always improve subsequent inference. We demonstrate by means of computer experiments under which circumstances, and how severely, data-driven model selection can destroy the size properties of subsequent parameter tests, if they are used without adjusting for the model-selection step. The investigated models are representative of macroeconometric and microeconometric ...

Incentive Effects of Fiscal Equalization: Has Russian Style Improved?

The effects of intergovernmental fiscal arrangements on variation in regional economic growth are analyzed for Russia, a country with large cross-regional differences and considerable fiscal redistribution. Moreover, fiscal reforms implemented in the first half of the 2000s, which to some extent followed scientific advice, make analysis of this case particularly interesting. We observe that postreform ...

Does Aging Influence Structural Change? Evidence from Panel Data

Our study represents a first attempt to single out the effects of aging on the entire structure of the economy that is approximated by employment shares in different sectors. We find that even after controlling for the effects of other relevant factors - e.g., income per capita, share of trade in GDP, government consumption share in GDP, population size - aging does have a statistically significant ...

The Heckscher-Ohlin Model and the Network Structure of International Trade

This paper estimates for 28 product groups a characteristic parameter that reflects the topological structure of its tradingnetwork. Using these estimates, it describes how the structure of international trade has evolved during the 1980-2000 period. Thereafter, it demonstrates the importance of networks in international trade by explicitlyaccounting for their scaling properties when testing the prediction ...

Benchmarking and Firm Heterogeneity: A Latent Class Analysis for German Electricity Distribution Companies

In January 2009, the German Federal Network Agency introduced incentive regulation for the electricity distribution sector based on results obtained from econometric and nonparametric benchmarking analysis. One main problem for the regulator in assigning the relative efficiency scores is unobserved firm-specific factors such as network and technological differences. Comparing the efficiency of different ...

Gone with the Wind? Electricity Market Prices and Incentives to Invest in Thermal Power Plants under Increasing Wind Energy Supply

The increased wind energy supplied to many electricity markets around the world has to be balanced by reliably ramping units or other complementary measures when wind conditions are low. At the same time wind energy impacts both, the utilization of thermal power plants and the market prices. While the market prices tend to decrease, the impact on the utilization of different plant types is at the outset ...

Participation in Micro Life Insurance and the Use of Other Financial Services in Ghana

This article investigates households' decisions to take up micro life insurance and to use other financial services. It estimates a multivariate probit model based on Ghanaian household survey data. The results suggest a mutually reinforcing relationship between the use of insurance and the use of other formal financial services. Risk-averse households and households who consider themselves more exposed ...

Kinship Institutions and Sex Ratios in India

This article explores the relationship between kinship institutions and sex ratios in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Because kinship rules vary by caste, language, religion, and region, we construct sex ratios by these categories at the district level by using data from the 1901 Census of India for Punjab (North), Bengal (East), and Madras (South). We find that the male-to-female sex ratio ...

Reflections on Implementing EU ETS : Pricing Carbon: The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. A Denny Ellerman ... , Cambridge University Press, New York 2010, 390 pp: Book Review