External refereed essays

Economic Impact Assessment of Climate Change: A Multi-Gas Investigation with WIAGEM-GTAPEL-ICM

Induced Technological Change in a Multi-Regional, Multi-Sectoral, Integrated Asessment Model (WIAGEM): Impact Assessment of Climate Policy Strategies

This paper illustrates the representation of induced technological change in the multi-regional, multi-sectoral integrated assessment model WIAGEM. The main aim of the paper is to investigate quantitatively the economic impacts of climate policy measures due to the induced technological changes that are considered. Improved technological innovations are triggered by increased R&D expenditures that ...

Interactions between Climate and Trade Policies: A Survey

Incentives for Basic Research in a Large Institution: Some General Considerations and a Case Study

Discusses incentives for basic research, which were recently introduced in the German Institute for Economic Research, including both team and individual incentives. Possible problems arise from focussing on the measurable, crowding out intrinsic motivation and undesirable externalities. Furthermore, provides survey evidence on the perception of the incentives by the institute's researchers.

Insider Privatisation and Restructuring Incentives

In the literature on privatisation and restructuring it is a generally held belief that manager owned firms will be restructured more rigorously than worker owned companies. This gives the clear recommendation that property rights and control rights should be allocated to managers in the process of (insider-) privatisation. One of the implied arguments is, that managers' career concerns will make them ...

Stricter Enforcement May Increase Tax Evasion

This paper shows that stricter enforcement may increase tax evasion. Individuals vote on a linear income tax, which is used to finance lump sum transfers. Individuals may evade taxes, but they have to pay fines when caught. Stricter enforcement may make redistributive taxation more attractive to the decisive voter. The tax rate and transfer may rise, which in turn may increase tax evasion. The paper ...

Expert Opinion Leaders' Impact on Voter Turnout: The Case of the Internet Chess Match Kasparov vs. World

This paper investigates empirically for the first time the impact of experts' agreement on voter turnout. Data were obtained when voters, advised by four independent experts, had to decide on the next move against a chess world champion. Analyzing total voter turnout as well as individual voters' behavior in a panel data subsample, and employing OLS median and ARMAX regression techniques, we find that ...

Respondent Behavior in Panel Studies: A Case Study for Income Nonresponse by Means of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Many validation studies deal with item nonresponse and measurement error in earnings data. In this article, the author explores respondents' motives for failing to revealearnings using the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). The SOEP collects socioeconomic information from private households in the Federal Republic of Germany.The author explains the evolution of income nonresponse in the SOEP and demonstrates ...

Misleading Indicators? The Argentinean Currency Crisis

Despite the fact that Argentina has been suffering from recession for years, the timing and severity of the recent currency crisis surprised most observers. There is an extensive literature on early warning systems, which claim to be apt for a systematical prediction of currency crises. One of the most prominent "early warning system" approaches was first developed by Kaminsky, Lizondo, and Reinhart ...

Regional Productivity Differences: Theoretical Predictions and Empirical Evidence for Western Europe

Zur Bedeutung von Interviewereffekten im Sozio-ökonomischen Panel (SOEP): Eine Analyse mit Hilfe Kumulierter Logits

Employer Learning and the Returns to Schooling

Theoretical models of employer learning suggest that an employee's education is an important signal to the employer initially. Over time, however, the returns to schooling should decrease with labor market experience and increase with initially unobserved ability, since the employer gradually obtains better information on the productivity of an employee. Replicating US studies using a large German ...

Kinderbetreuung und Fertilität in Deutschland

Der Einfluss von Persönlichkeitseigenschaften und sozialen Ressourcen auf die Arbeitslosigkeitsdauer

Acceptability of Transport Pricing Measures amongst Public and Professionals in Europe

Transport pricing has been an actively debated topic in the European Union for a number of years. This debate has been stimulated both by the European Commission policy and by a multitude of national policy initiatives. A central theme in this debate is the issue of the public and (linked to this) political acceptability of pricing measures. Indeed, concerns about acceptability now constitute the most ...

Occupational Choice across Generations

There are few studies on occupational choices in Germany, and second-generation occupational choice and mobility has been investigated even less. Such research is important because occupations determine success in the labor market. In a country like Germany, occupations also reflect a general socio-economic standing. This paper looks at the patterns of employment in Germany, analyzes how individual ...

Energy Demand until 2010 in Ukraine

The economic development and environmental soundness of Ukraine is hampered and even threatened today by an outdated energy system, which delivers energy to the customers at high (internal and external) costs. Painful changes are necessary to adapt this system to the requirements of a market economy and international competition. Realistic projections of future energy consumption may help to clarify ...

In memoriam: Professor Wassilij Leontief

Der niederländische Weg: Durch Konsens zum Erfolg

Terrorism and International Trade: An Empirical Investigation

This paper examines the effect of terrorism and warfare on international trade. We investigate bilateral trade flows between more than 200 countries over the period from 1960 to 1993. Applying an augmented gravity model that includes several measures of terrorism and large-scale violence, we find compelling evidence that terrorist actions reduce the volume of trade; a doubling in the number of terrorist ...