External refereed essays

Forecasting the German Cyclical Turning Points: Dynamic Bi-Factor Model with Markov Switching

A Note on R&D and Price Elasticity of Demand

Political Economy of Commuting Subsidies

We study the political economy of commuting subsidies in a model of a monocentric city with two income classes. Depending on housing demand and transport costs, either the rich or the poor live in the central city and the other group in the suburbs. Commuting subsidies increase the net income of those with long commutes or high transport costs. They also affect land rents and therefore the income of ...

An Economic Analysis of Security Policies

This paper analyses public policy choices in the security economy from an economic perspective. It discusses the role of public goods for national and global security and identifies the importance of the first- and second-order indirect effects of insecurity on economic activity, which include the behavioural responses of agents and the government to security measures, akin to such effects in insurance ...

Why Are Europeans So Tough on Migrants?

Regionalization of Innovation Policy: Introduction to the Special Issue

Intervieweffekte bei der Erhebung des Körpergewichts in Bevölkerungsumfragen

Daten zum Körpergewicht der Bevölkerung werden aus Kostengründen oftmals nicht objektiv gemessen, sondern durch subjektive Angaben erhoben. Frühere Untersuchungen zur Erhebung des Körpergewichts zeigen, dass sich subjektive Gewichtsangaben von objektiv gemessenen Daten unterscheiden, was auf den fehlenden Bekennermut der Befragten zurückgeführt wird. Verschiedene Methodenstudien deuten darauf hin, ...

Intellectual Property Rights in Mexico: Do They Play a Role?

There is little empirical evidence concerning the effects of intellectual property rights (IPR) in technologically advanced developing countries. Complete enumeration of the Mexican maize breeding industry showed that, contrary to the hypothesis that IPR would support innovation, IPR play no role in the industry. IPR theory should be revised to include characteristics of developing countries critical ...

Produktdiversifizierung und Unternehmenserfolg: Nutzung der Forschungsdatenzentren der Statistischen Ämter

International Market Integration for Natural Gas? A Cointegration Analysis of Prices in Europe, North America and Japan

This paper investigates the degree of integration of natural gas markets in Europe, North America and Japan in the time period between the early 1990s and 2004. The relationship between international gas market prices and their relation to the oil price are explored through principal components analysis and Johansen likelihood-based cointegration procedure. Both of them show a high level of natural ...

The Role of Technological Change for a Sustainable Development: Editorial

Technological change has become a major focus in environmental policy as well as in energy and climate policy. Indeed, there is a growing body of knowledge about how and in which direction technological change might have an impact on environmental resource constraints and how environmental policy might have an impact on this direction. In this article we introduce the contributions to this special ...

Freizeitverhalten als Ausdruck sozialer Ungleichheiten oder Ergebnis individualisierter Lebensführung? Zur Bedeutung von Einkommen und Bildung im Zeitverlauf

In den modernen Gesellschaften ist die Freizeit eine Dimension des Lebens, die immer mehr an Bedeutung gewinnt und die Erklärung von Unterschieden im Freizeitverhalten soziologisch interessant macht. Die "subjektzentrierte" Lebensstilforschung vertritt die Ansicht, dass sozio-ökonomische Unterschiede auf Grund der langfristigen Verbesserung der materiellen Lebensumstände an Bedeutung verloren haben ...

A Comment on Choi, Kristiansen and Nahm

Can EU Conditionality Remedy Soft Budget Constraints in Transition Countries?

Soft budget constraints (SBCs) are a persistent feature of transition economies and have been blamed for a lack of fiscal consolidation and sluggish growth. EU eastward enlargement has been conditioned on tackling SBCs. This paper analyzes such outside conditionality theoretically and empirically. First, by modeling the SBC problem as a war of attrition between the applicant countries' governments ...

Automatic Identification of Faked and Fraudulent Interviews in the German SOEP

A Comparison of the Relationship between Obesity and Earnings in the U.S. and Germany

International Outsourcing and German Manufacturing Wages

Transitions from Welfare to Employment: Does the Ratio between Labor Income and Social Assistance Matter?

Distributional Effects of the German Tax Reform 2000: A Behavioral Microsimulation Analysis

Student Aid, Repayment Obligations and Enrolment in Higher Education in Germany: Evidence from a "Natural Experiment"