Hohenheimer Diskussionsbeiträge

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Asset prices, inflation and monetary control : re-inventing money as a policy tool
(2010) Spahn, Peter
Low inflation on goods markets provides no reliable precondition for asset-market stability; it might even promote the emergence of bubbles because interest rates and risk premia appear to be low. A further factor driving asset demand is easy availability of credit, which in turn roots in the banking system operating in a regime of endogenous central-bank money. A comparison of Bundesbank and ECB policies suggests that credit growth can be controlled more efficiently if rising interest rates are accompanied by some liquidity squeeze that supports the spillover of a monetary restriction to capital markets. The announcement effect of a central bank Charter including the goal of financial-market stability helps to deter private agents from excessive asset trading.
Die Aussenhandelspolitik der EU gegenüber China: "China-Bashing" ist keine rationale Basis für Politik
(2007) Belke, Ansgar; Spies, Julia
Mit der Verabschiedung einer handelspolitischen Strategie gegenüber China Ende Oktober 2006 richtet sich die Europäische Union (EU) in einem veränderten globalen Wettbewerbsumfeld neu aus. Erstmals wird mit dem Einsatz von Schutzmaßnahmen gedroht, sollte China die multilateralen Vereinbarungen der Welthandelsorganisation (World Trade Organization ? WTO) nicht vollständig umsetzen. Doch hat auch die EU ihre ?Hausaufgaben? in den vergangenen Jahren nicht immer erledigt. Auf die Einfuhrschwemme von Textilien und Bekleidung Anfang 2005 reagierte sie durch die Erhebung neuer Quoten. In diesem Papier argumentieren wir, dass nur eine reziproke Marktöffnung eine stabile Partnerschaft bedingt, bei der beide Seiten vom ohnehin nicht aufzuhaltenden Vormarsch Chinas profitieren können.
Auswirkungen von Steueränderungen im Bereich Entfernungspauschale und Werbungskosten : ein Mikrosimulationsmodell
(2006) Wagenhals, Gerhard; Buck, Jürgen
To overcome a lack of information in official income tax statistcs, we developed a statistical matching approach for adding additional data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to the most recent official income tax statistics data as of 2002. Based on a representative dataset of more than 35000 original tax report extracts, we implemented a microsimulation model that calculates the fiscal impact of changes in the area of tax deductible income related expenses, in particular tax deductible expenses for traveling from home to work and the lump sum deductible for all income related expenses. The new model allows a more detailed simulation of the fiscal impact of changes in the German income tax law than previously possible.
Bargained wages in decentralized wage-setting regimes
(2006) Heinbach, Wolf Dieter
Collective wage agreements still play an important role in the German wage bargaining system. However, there is a critical debate in Germany whether collective agreements deliver the flexibility needed by firms to adjust to the needs of international competition and technological change. In recent years, the social partners in some industries have responded to this possible lack of flexibility by introducing so called opening clauses into their collective bargaining agreements. These allow firms to deviate from their collective agreement under certain conditions. The aim of this paper is to empirically analyze the prevalence of opening clauses in the German manufacturing sector and their impact on the wage structure. To provide a basis for the empirical analyses, a survey on the existence and intensity of opening clauses in central collective agreements has been conducted. Thereby, these sectoral data about opening clauses are exactly combined with those from the German Structure of Earnings Survey 1995 and 2001, a linked employer-employee dataset from German official statistics. The results show the number of collective bargaining agreements containing opening clauses increasing remarkably since 1991. Furthermore, the implementation of opening clauses into collective contracts creates significant effects on wages.
Better than their reputation : a case for mail surveys in contingent valuation
(2008) Sinphurmsukskul, Nopasom; Sangkapitux, Chapika; Neef, Andreas; Kitchaicharoen, Jirawan; Frör, Oliver; Ekasingh, Benchaphun; Ahlheim, Michael
Though contingent valuation is the dominant technique for the valuation of public projects, especially in the environmental sector, the high costs of contingent valuation surveys prevent the use of this method for the assessment of relatively small projects. The reason for this cost problem is that typically only contingent valuation studies which are based on face-to-face interviews are accepted as leading to valid results. Especially in countries with high wages face-to-face surveys are extremely costly considering that for a valid contingent valuation study a minimum of 1,000 completed face-to-face interviews is required. In this paper we try a rehabilitation of mail surveys as low-budget substitutes for costly face-to-face surveys. Based on an empirical contingent valuation study in Northern Thailand we show that the validity of mail surveys can be improved significantly if so-called citizen expert groups are employed for a thorough survey design.
Can international migration ever be made a Pareto improvement?
(2009) Felbermayr, Gabriel; Kohler, Wilhelm
We argue that compensating losers is more difficult for immigration than for trade and capital movements. While a tax-cum-subsidy mechanism allows the government to turn the gains from trade into a Pareto improvement, the same is not true for the so-called immigration surplus, if the redistributive mechanism is not allowed to discriminate against migrants. We discuss policy conclusions to be drawn from this fundamental asymmetry between migration and other forms of globalization.
Competition between airports with an application to the state of Baden-Württemberg
(2006) Strobach, Daniel
Classical theories of competition in two-dimensional space mainly deal with the questions of where firms locate in the plane and what shape their market areas willconsequently adopt. Out of that develops the construct of catchment areas. As part of long-term infrastructure equipment, an airport can not change location. Once it is chosen and operational, an airport has to compete for passengers and market share on basis of its prevailing catchment areas. Passenger choice determines the shape of an airport?s market and these markets, other than in the presented theories, commonly overlap. On the basis of passengers? selection criterions, the valuation of an airport?s attraction takes place. The developed procedure is applied to the state of Baden-Württemberg. It paints a picture of airport competition in the German Southwest. In order to get a sharper image, the formed catchment areas are subdivided into zones of different competition intensity.
Deflationary vs. inflationary expectations : a new-Keynesian perspective with heterogeneous agents and monetary believes
(2009) Sauter, Oliver; Geiger, Felix
We expand a standard New-Keynesian model by allowing for a special role of money in the inflation and expectations building process. Motivated by the two-pillar Phillips curve, we introduce heterogeneous expectations. Thereby a fraction of agents forms inflation expectations by observing trend money growth. We show that in the presence of these monetary believers, contractive shocks to the economy produce smoother dynamics for inflation and output. We also find that monetary policy should follow a conventional Taylor rule with contemporaneous inflation and output data, if it is uncertain about the fraction of monetary believers.
Does immigration boost per capita income?
(2008) Sala, Davide; Felbermayr, Gabriel J.; Hiller, Sanne
Using a cross-section of countries, we adapt Frankel and Romer's (1999) IV strategy to international labor mobility. Controlling for institutional quality, trade, and financial openness, we establish a robust and non-negative causal effect of immigration on real percapita income.
Downward nominal wage rigidity in Europe : an analysis of European micro data from the ECHP 1994-2001
(2006) Knoppik, Christoph; Beißinger, Thomas
This paper substantially extends the limited available evidence on existence and extent of downward nominal wage rigidity in the European Union and the Euro Area. For this purpose we develop an econometric multi-country model based on Kahn?s (1997) histogram-location approach and apply it to employee micro data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) for twelve of the EU?s current member states. Our estimates for the degree of downward nominal wage rigidity on the national as well as the EU-wide level point to marked downward nominal wage rigidity within the European Union.
Effekte verschiedener Rabattformen : Überlegungen zu einem ökonomisch fundierten Ansatz
(2008) Schwalbe, Ulrich; Inderst, Roman
Der vorliegende Aufsatz diskutiert die ökonomischen Wirkungen von Treuerabatten im Ein-Produkt-Fall. Es zeigt sich, dass die in der letzten Zeit vorgebrachten Argumente bezüglich der ?prokompetitiven? Wirkungen solcher Rabatte mit Skepsis beurteilt werden müssen. Dies gilt insbesondere für die unterstellten Wirkungen von Treuerabatten bei ?doppelten Gewinnaufschlägen?, bei fallenden Durchschnittskosten, bei Größenvorteilen auf der vor- und nachgelagerten Stufe sowie im Zusammenhang mit Preisdiskriminierung und Nachfragemacht. Wir argumentieren, dass viele der behaupteten Wirkungen auch mit Rabattformen erreicht werden könnten, bei denen die Gefahr von wettbewerbsbeschränkenden Wirkungen geringer sein sollte. Unsere Skepsis beruht aber auch darauf, dass oft die Voraussetzungen für die den Argumenten zugrunde liegenden Theorien nicht oder nicht hinreichend gegeben sind?und vor allem oft nicht hinreichend explizit gemacht werden. Allerdings müssen auch die unterstellten wettbewerbsbeschränkenden Wirkungen von Treuerabatten ökonomisch besser fundiert werden. Insgesamt regt dieser Artikel die Weiterentwicklung eines an der Form des jeweiligen Rabattsystems orientierten Beurteilungsmaßstabs an.
Endogenous skill formation and the source country effects of emigration
(2009) Felbermayr, Gabriel; Egger, Hartmut
In this paper we set up a simple theoretical framework to study the possible source country effects of skilled labor emigration. We show that for given technologies, labor market integration necessarily lowers GDP per capita in a poor source country of emigration, because it distorts the education decision of individuals. As pointed out by our analysis, a negative source country effect also materializes if all agents face identical emigration probabilities, irrespective of their education levels. This is in sharp contrast to the case of exogenous skill supply. Allowing for human capital spillovers, we further show that with social returns to schooling there may be a counteracting positive source country effect if the prospect of emigration stimulates the incentives to acquire education. Since, in general, the source country effects are not clear, we calibrate our model for four major source countries { Mexico, Turkey, Morocco, and the Philippines { and show that an increase in emigration rates beyond those observed in the year 2000 is very likely to lower GDP per capita in poor economies.
Enlarging the EMU to the East : what effects on trade?
(2007) Belke, Ansgar; Spies, Julia
The purpose of this paper is to assess the implications of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) accession of eight Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) on their share in EMU-12 imports. Overcoming biases related to endogeneity, omitted variables and sample selection, our results indicate that the common currency has boosted intra-EMU imports by 7%. Under the assumption that the same relationship between the explanatory variables and imports will hold for EMU-CEEC trade, we are able to predict the future impact of the euro. Our findings suggest that except for the least integrated countries, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, all CEECs can expect increases in the EMU-12 import share.
Equity and aggregation in environmental valuation
(2008) Lehr, Ulrike; Ahlheim, Michael
Environmental valuation studies aim at the assessment of the social benefits or the social costs caused by some change in environmental quality (in the broadest sense). The most popular field of application of environmental valuation studies is project appraisal where the benefits arising from some environmental project (measured in terms of people's willingness to pay for that project) are assessed and confronted with the costs of the project or with the benefits from some alternative project if a choice has to be made between different projects. A closer look at the results of empirical valuation studies shows that in many surveys a negative correlation between the number auf household members and the willingness to pay (WTP) stated by a household for a project can be observed. These results are rather puzzling because in larger households more people are going to benefit from an environmental improvement than in small households. A plausible explanation for these results is that household budgets are tighter for large households than for smaller households with the same household income. Therefore, large households must state a smaller WTP for a project than smaller households with the same income and the same preferences. This might have consequences for the allocation of public funds in all cases where the realization of a specific environmental project depends on the absolute value of the aggregate social benefits it generates. In order to calculate the social benefits typically the WTPs of the different households affected by that project are added up. In this aggregation process the members of larger households have a lower weight and, therefore, their WTP has a smaller impact on the decision if a certain project is realized or not. The reason for this violation of the principle of horizontal equity is that for the computation of the social benefits not individual but household WTPs are aggregated. In this paper we suggest to use household equivalence scales for the evaluation of WTP data in order to reduce this discrimination of the members of large families. We demonstrate the effects of equivalence scales on the results of environmental valuation surveys using an empirical study carried out in Eastern Germany.
Ethnic networks, information, and international trade : revisiting the evidence
(2009) Felbermayr, Gabriel; Jung, Benjamin; Toubal, Farid
Influential empirical work by Rauch and Trindade (REStat, 2002) finds that Chinese ethnic networks of the magnitude observed in Southeast Asia increase bilateral trade by at least 60%. We argue that this estimate is upward biased due to omitted variable bias. Moreover, it is partly related to a preference effect rather than to enforcement and/or the availability of information. Applying a theory-based gravity model to ethnicity data for 1980 and 1990, and focusing on pure network effects, we find that the Chinese network leads to a more modest amount of trade creation of about 15%. Using new data on bilateral stocks of migrants from the World Bank for the year of 2000, we extend the analysis to all potential ethnic networks. We find, i.a., evidence for a Polish, a Turkish, a Mexican, or an Indian network. While confirming the existence of a Chinese network, its trade creating potential is dwarfed by other ethnic networks.
Europäischer Lender of Last Resort
(2007) Knittel, Michael
In der Vergangenheit war es lange Zeit still um die Frage, ob ein monetäres System einen Lender of Last Resort (im weiteren LOLR) benötigt oder nicht, d.h. einen Geldgeber, der in der Lage ist, Kredite zu vergeben und Zusammenbrüche von Banken zu verhindern in Perioden, in denen kein anderer Geldgeber entweder in der Lage oder bereit ist, Liquidität in ausreichendem Maße zur Verfügung zu stellen, um Finanzpaniken und -krisen zu verhindern oder zu beenden. Wurde diese Frage im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert heiß von Henry Thornton 1802 in seinem Werk ?An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain? und in Walter Bagehots ?Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market? von 1873 diskutiert, so schenkte man ihr bis Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts keine größere Bedeutung; denn nach der Weltwirtschaftskrise im Jahre 1929 blieb die Weltwirtschaft längere Zeit von derlei Wogen verschont. Nachdem jedoch in jüngster Vergangenheit gleich mehrere Finanz- bzw. Währungskrisen auftraten, erlangte das Thema um den LOLR neue Bedeutung, was insbesondere auch für den Euroraum gilt, in dem der LOLR bislang nicht einheitlich auf zentraler Ebene geregelt ist. Ähnlich wie sich die Diskussion um die Notwendigkeit eines LOLR im Zeitablauf gewandelt hat, so unterlag auch sein Aufgabenbereich seit den Anfängen einer grundlegenden Veränderung. So stellen sich heutzutage zwei grundsätzliche Fragen. Erstens, sind die Aussagen der klassischen Diskussion heute noch immer gültig oder mußten sie den heutigen Gegebenheiten angepaßt werden und zweitens, sollte ein derartiger Sicherungsmechanismus in Europa auf zentraler Ebene einheitlich bereit gestellt werden oder sind die bisherigen nationalen Regelungen ausreichend. In diesem Zusammenhang wird daher unter anderem der Problematik nachgegangen, ob ein Bankensystem heutigen Couleurs noch von einem hohen systemischen Risiko betroffen ist, oder ob die Entwicklungen der letzten Jahre ? wie Konzentrationstendenzen im Finanzsektor und der Übergang zur Allfinanz ? die Fragilität noch erhöht haben.
Exchange rate regimes and the transitionprocess in the Western Balkans : a comparative analysis
(2007) Belke, Ansgar; Zenkic, Albina
In the academic literature some criteria have been identified which could have an impact on the success of the transition process, such as macroeconomic stability, microeconomic restructuring and implementation of legal and institutional reforms. The role of the exchange rate system in general is to foster the stability of the monetary environment characterized by low inflation rates and a stable domestic currency. Although the importance of a sustainable price-level oriented monetary policy for the transition-success has been stressed in the academic literature, there are still further questions to be answered related to the choice of the exchange rate system throughout the different phases of the transition process. This paper intends to contribute to close this gap in the literature. The guiding research question is how the choice of an exchange rate system influences the economic success of a country in transition and its gradual integration within the European Union (EU) and the European Monetary Union (EMU). For this purpose, the study focuses on the transition process of South-eastern Europe (SEE). In particular and for the first time in a joint study, we will take a look at the following South-eastern European Countries (SEECs), often referred to as the �West Balkans�: Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRM), Serbia and Montenegro, as these five countries share certain common characteristics: they were part of the Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR); they are countries in transition; they are members of the Stability Pact for South-eastern Europe and they are all potential EU-accession candidates.
Fairness, efficiency, risk, and time
(2007) Seidel, Gerald
We present a model of a 2-person-2-period-economy with specific (human) capital. Although the individuals are purely selfish, the outcome is seemingly guided by pro-social behavior. We find in our model economy that fairness and efficiency are positively related whereas risk aversion seems to have no major impact on the seemingly fair behavior. A rise in the time preference increases the disadvantaged subject?s aspiration for equal outcomes but reduces the advantaged subject?s willingness to accept them.
Frauen als stille Reserve im Ingenieurwesen
(2009) Schlenker, Eva
Recent developments in the German demography will give rise to a shortage in skilled workers in the coming decades. The German economy is in need of thousands of engineers already. A solution to this problem might involve a higher degree of integration of female engineers into the workforce. Data from the microcensus 2006, the official representative statistics of the population and the labour market in Germany, confirm the existence of a hidden reserve of female engineers. Ordered response models and seminonparametric estimation methods are used to show that the labour supply in the engineering sector is mainly determined by age. In addition, the labour supply of female engineers depends on how many children they have, on the age of their youngest child, and on their partners? income. Moreover, women care more about their families, rather than focusing on their career.
Getting people involved : a preference-based approach to water policy in China
(2009) Ahlheim, Michael
Market-oriented environmental policy instruments like taxes and fees or regulatory policy instruments like rationing are typically recommended in order to set incentives for citizens to make a sparing use of water. What is often overlooked in this context is that these instruments provoke resistance and non-compliance of citizens if they do not share the values underlying such a policy. Enforcing compliance with environmental policy instruments requires strict monitoring and the prosecution of trespassers and can be rather costly for government. The resistance to government policy and the incentives to avoid or evade the respective policy measures are the greater the less these instruments are in accordance with people's preferences, i. e. the less people accept these instruments and the goals they serve as reasonable. Compliance enforcement costs are mainly monitoring costs to identify trespassers and administration costs for their prosecution. This paper deals with possibilities to reduce such compliance costs by closing the gap between people's preferences on the one hand and government policy on the other in the case of water preservation in China.

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