External refereed essays

Estimating Level Effects in Diffusion of a New Technology: Barcode Scanning at the Checkout Counter

Cross-country or cross-industry studies of technology diffusion typically estimate how independent factors affect diffusion speed or timing, often based on a two-stage approach. In many applications, however, countries (industries) differ most in the saturation level of diffusion. In a single-stage econometric approach to a standard diffusion model, we therefore estimate how the saturation level covaries ...

Narrow Bracketing and Dominated Choices

We show that any decision maker who "narrowly brackets" (evaluates decisions separately) and does not have constant-absolute-risk-averse preferences will make a first-order stochastically dominated combined choice in some simple pair of independent binary decisions. We also characterize the preference-contingent monetary cost from this mistake. Empirically, in a real-stakes laboratory experiment that ...

On Selection of Components for a Diffusion Index Model: It's Not the Size, It's How You Use It

This article suggests a novel approach to pre-selection of the component series of the diffusion index based on their individual forecasting performance. It is shown that this targeted selection allows substantially improving the forecasting ability compared to the diffusion index models that are based on the largest available data set.

Is Flow Velocity a Significant Parameter in Flood Damage Modelling?

Flow velocity is generally presumed to influence flood damage. However, this influence is hardly quantified and virtually no damage models take it into account. Therefore, the influences of flow velocity, water depth and combinations of these two impact parameters on various types of flood damage were investigated in five communities affected by the Elbe catchment flood in Germany in 2002. 2-D hydraulic ...

Assessing the Impact of the ECB's Monetary Policy on the Stock Markets: A Sectoral View

This paper shows that the ECB's monetary policy has a heterogeneous impact on the sectoral stock market indexes in the Euro Area. We show that the heteroskedasticity based approach of Rigobon (2003) should be preferred to the event study approach.

Bildungsungleichheiten und blockierte Lernpotenziale: welche Bedeutung hat die Persönlichkeitsstruktur für diesen Zusammenhang?

This paper examines the impact of underachievement on inequality of educational opportunities. It also investigates whether personality traits are a mediating mechanism between social origin and underachievement. Underachievement is defined as achieving a school attainment that is below the individual cognitive learning potential, measured by tests of fluid intelligence. The paper develops a definition ...

25 Jahre Sozio-oekonomisches Panel - ein Infrastrukturprojekt der empirischen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsforschung in Deutschland: Einleitung in das Themenheft

The longitudinal German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study has been providing microdata for social, behavioral, and economic research for over 25 years. This paper presents an overview of this nationally and internationally important infrastructural facility for empirical social research, and shows that SOEP data are of key sociological interest in two respects. First, they allow for annual representative ...

Verwaltung und Entscheidung: bestimmt das individuelle Einkommen die Machtverteilung in Paarbeziehungen?

Für die Betrachtung haushaltsinterner Ungleichheit ist die Frage zentral, welche Faktoren partnerschaftliche Machtungleichgewichte determinieren. Der sozialen Austauschtheorie, der Ressourcentheorie und dem Cooperative-Bargaining-Modell zufolge basiert Macht auf dem Besitz individueller Ressourcen, vor allem des Einkommens. Diese Studie untersucht den Einfluss des individuellen Einkommens ebenso wie ...

Would a Flat-Rate Tax Stimulate Entrepreneurship in Germany? A Behavioural Microsimulation Analysis Allowing for Risk

When potential income tax reforms are debated, the suspected impact on entrepreneurship is often used as an argument in favour of or against a certain policy. Quantitative ex-ante evaluations of the effect of certain tax reform options on entrepreneurship are very rare, however. This paper estimates the ex-ante effects of the German tax reform 2000 and of two hypothetical flat-rate tax scenarios on ...

Estimating Price Elasticities of Convalescent Care Programs

This study is the first to estimate price elasticities of demand for convalescent care programmes. In 1997, the German legislature more than doubled the daily co-payments for the publicly insured from €6 to €13. The measure caused the overall demand for convalescent care treatments to fall by 20 to 25%. I estimate the price elasticity for medical rehabilitation programmes aimed at preventing work disability ...

Poverty during Transition: Household Survey Evidence from Ukraine

The paper analyzes the incidence, the severity and the correlates of household poverty in Ukraine during transition using two comparable surveys from 1996 and 2004. We measure poverty using income and consumption and various poverty lines. Poverty estimates are higher than previously reported if controlling for transition-related labor market shocks. Poverty in both periods follows some of the correlates ...

The Impact of E-Procurement on the Number of Suppliers: Where to Move to?

This paper examines how electronic procurement influences firms' sourcing strategy. The relationship between the technology choice in a vertical structure is illustrated with respect to its impact on the coordination cost and the competition between suppliers. Hypotheses are tested using data from the e-Business W@tch survey. Assessing the relationship between the effect of electronic procurement on ...

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The Returns to Cognitive Abilities and Personality Traits in Germany

We provide the first joint evidence on the relationship between individuals' cognitive abilities, their personality and earnings for Germany. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we employ scores from an ultra-short IQ-test and a set of measures of personality traits, namely locus of control, reciprocity and all basic items from the Five Factor Personality Inventory. Our estimates ...

Does the European Natural Gas Market Pass the Competitive Benchmark of the Theory of Storage? Indirect Tests for Three Major Trading Points

This paper presents the first comparative analysis of the relationship between natural gas storage utilization and price patterns at three major European trading points. Using two indirect tests developed by (Fama and French, 1987) and (Fama and French, 1988) that are applied in other commodity markets, we impose the no arbitrage condition to model the efficiency of the natural gas market. The results ...

Optimising the Framework for Innovation in the Electricity System: Lessons from Five Case Studies in Germany

This paper examines success factors for five emerging innovations in the electricity system under the influence of current environmental and economic paradigms such as climate policy and market liberalisation. It widens the conventional focus on technological innovations to encompass organisational and behavioural innovations. The investigation builds on five empirical studies of recent developments ...

Countervailing Power and Dynamic Efficiency

This paper studies the impact of buyer power on dynamic efficiency. We consider a bargaining model in which buyer power arises endogenously from size and may impact on a supplier's incentives to invest in lower marginal cost. We challenge the view frequently expressed in policy circles that the exercise of buyer power stifles suppliers' incentives. Instead, we find that the presence of larger buyers ...

Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in a Carbon Constrained World: The Role of Carbon Capture and Storage

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) promises to allow for low-emissions fossil-fuel-based power generation. The technology is under development; a number of technological, economic, environmental and safety issues remain to be solved. CCS may prolong the prevailing coal-to-electricity regime and countervail efforts in other mitigation categories. Given the need to continue using fossil-fuels for some ...

A Modified Yardstick Competition Mechanism

This paper expands Shleifer's (Rand J Econ 16:319-327, 1985) theory of yardstick competition and develops 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, prices and output of all firms. The MYC mechanism can ensure a socially ...

Distributional Impacts of Car Road Pricing: Settlement Structures Divergence across Countries

Social questions of distribution and equity are of major importance for the political acceptance of car road pricing. The argument that kilometre-based private vehicle charging disadvantages the poor is often the core reason for opposing its introduction. An article in this journal [Steininger, K.W., Friedl, B., Gebetsroither, B., 2007. Sustainability impacts of car road pricing: a computable general ...