Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre

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A direct test of socially desirable responding in contingent valuation interviews
(2011) Börger, Tobias
Assessing uncertainty in Europe and the US : is there a common factor?
(2012) Sauter, Oliver
This paper aims an empirical investigation of uncertainty in the Euro Zone as well as the US. For this purpose I conduct a factor analysis of uncertainty measures starting in 2001 until the end of 2011. I use survey-based data provided by the ECB and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia as well as the stock market indices VSTOXX and VIX, both measures of implied volatility of stock market movements. Each measure shows an increase in uncertainty during the last years marked by the financial turmoil. Given the rise in uncertainty, the question arises whether this uncertainty is driven by the same underlying factors. For the Euro Zone, I show that uncertainty can be separated into factors of short and long-term uncertainty. In the US there is a sharp distinction between uncertainty that drives stock market and ?real? variables on the one hand and inflation (short and long-term) on the other hand. Combining both data sets, factor analysis delivers (1) an international stock market factor, (2) a common European uncertainty factor and (3) an US-inflation uncertainty factor.
Avoiding evolutionary inefficiencies in innovation networks
(2011) Pyka, Andreas
Innovation policy is in need for a rational which allows the design and evaluation of policy instruments. In economic policy traditionally the focus is on market failures and efficiency measures are used to decide whether policy should intervene and which instrument should be applied. In innovation policy this rational cannot meaningfully be applied because of the uncertain and open character of innovation processes. Uncertainty is not a market failure and cannot be repaired. Inevitably policy makers are subject to failure and their goals are to be considered as much more modest compared to the achievement of a social optimum. Instead of optimal innovation, the avoidance of evolutionary inefficiencies becomes the centrepiece of innovation policy making. Superimposed to the several sources of evolutionary inefficiencies are socalled network inefficiencies. Because of the widespread organisation of innovation in innovation networks, the network structures and dynamics give useful hints for innovation policy, where and when to intervene.
Capital income shares and income inequality in the European Union
(2013) Schmid, Kai Daniel; Schlenker, Eva
In this paper, we measure the effect of changing capital income shares upon inequality of gross household income. Using EU-SILC data covering 17 EU countries from 2005 to 2011 we find that capital income shares are positively associated with the concentration of gross household income. Moreover, we show that the transmission of a shift in capital income shares into the personal distribution of income depends on the concentration of capital income in an economy. Using fixed effect models we find that changing capital income shares play an important role in the development of household income inequality. Hence, in many industrialized countries income inequality has by no means evolved independently from the observed structural shift in factor income towards a higher capital income share over the last decades.
Cyclicality of real wages in the USA and Germany : new insights from wavelet Analysis
(2012) Gómez, Víctor ; Marczak, Martyna
This article provides new insights into the cyclical behavior of consumer and producer real wages in the USA and Germany. We apply two methods for the estimation of the cyclical components from the data: the approach based on the structural time series models and the ARIMA?model?based approach combined with the canonical decomposition and a band?pass filter. We examine the extracted cycles drawing on two wavelet concepts: wavelet coherence and wavelet phase angle. In contrast to the analysis in the time or frequency domains, wavelet analysis allows for the identification of possible changes in cyclical patterns over time. From the findings of our study, we can infer that the USA and Germany differ with respect to the lead?lag relationship of real wages and the business cycle. In the USA, both real wages are leading the business cycle in the entire time interval. The German consumer real wage is, on the other hand, lagging the business cycle. For the German producer real wage, the lead?lag pattern changes over time. We also find that real wages in the USA as well in Germany are procyclical or acyclical until 1980 and countercyclical thereafter.
Distal embedding as a technology innovation network formation strategy
(2012) Pyka, Andreas; Paredes-Frigolett, Harold
Although the area of innovation economics dates back to the early twentieth century with the seminal contributions of Schumpeter (1911), it is only recently that governments have understood the role of a comprehensive approach towards public sector economics that puts innovation systems in the eye of public policy decision makers. Although well researched in academia in recent years, the role that innovation networks play in driving successful processes of innovation and entrepreneurship has been less understood by policy makers. Indeed, so far public policy makers have been concerned with the macro level of public policy in a way that has been rather ?disconnected? from the meso level of innovation networks. Not surprisingly, overall strategies for innovation network formation have not been on the radar screen of public policy. The academic community, on the other hand, has been devoting more attention to the study of innovation networks in an attempt to understand the role they play as a catalyst of innovation and entrepreneurship. By and large in the research community, the process of innovation network formation has been left rather unattended. Indeed, the question of how these networks are formed and what strategies can be developed to ignite processes of innovation network formation has been largely absent from the academic debate. In this article, we make a contribution in this area and present ?distal embedding" as one of three generic innovation network formation strategies. We also show why ?distal embedding'' is particularly well suited for emerging regions of innovation and entrepreneurship. Our contributions lie at the macro-meso interface and can shed light on public policy at the macro level aiming to have a direct impact at the meso level of innovation network formation.
Earnings shocks and tax-motivated income-shifting : evidence from European multinationals
(2011) Riedel, Nadine; Dharmapala, Dhammika
This paper presents a new approach to estimating the existence and magnitude of taxmotivated income shifting within multinational corporations. Existing studies of income shifting use changes in corporate tax rates as a source of identification. In contrast, this paper exploits exogenous earnings shocks at the parent firm and investigates how these shocks propagate across low-tax and high-tax multinational subsidiaries. This approach is implemented using a large panel of European multinational affiliates over the period 1995-2005. The central result is that parents? positive earnings shocks are associated with a significantly positive increase in pretax profits at low-tax affiliates, relative to the effect on the pretax profits of high-tax affiliates. The result is robust to controlling for various other differences between low-tax and high-tax affiliates and for country-pair-year fixed effects. Additional tests suggest that the estimated effect is attributable primarily to the strategic use of debt across affiliates. The magnitude of income shifting estimated using this approach is substantial, but somewhat smaller than that found in the previous literature.
Die Entwicklung des Lebensstandards im Dritten Reich : eine glücksökonomische Perspektive
(2011) Wahl, Fabian
The goal of this paper is to provide an explanation for the remarkable difference in the contemporary Germans positive self-assessment of their living conditions and the development of the most important economic welfare indicators (like GDP or consumption per capita) during the Third Reich. To explain this discrepancy, findings of the new research field of happiness economics are applied to the peacetime of the Third Reich to analyze the development of the standard of living in this period. First, the theory of adaption and aspiration is used to explain the growing satisfaction of the Germans after the Great Depression. In the second step, based on current life satisfaction studies, the development of the most important economic determinants of happiness during the 1930s is examined.
Innovation, economic diversification and human development
(2013) Pyka, Andreas; Hartmann, Dominik
In this paper we bridge a gap between innovation economics and the human development approach by analyzing positive and negative effects of different types of economic diversification on social welfare. Economic variety is a driver and outcome of economic development. However, diversification leads to ambiguous effects on the well-being of human agents: on the one hand, increasing variety augments the freedom of human agents to choose. On the other hand, it can overburden their capabilities to make economic decisions and can deteriorate their well-being. It becomes clear that human development policy has to go hand in hand with an industrial policy that promotes qualitative economic diversification. Depending on its dynamics, this diversification can be achieved via related and unrelated variety. We can expect a better design of development policies from a better understanding of the co-evolutionary development of variety, freedom of choice and well-being.
Integration durch Währungsunion? : der Fall der Euro-Zone
(2012) Spahn, Peter
Old OCA theory recommends to unite homogenous countries so that their macroeconomic interrelations do not pose severe stabilisation problems. New OCA theory rightly criticizes the 1960s flavour of the old approach and believes in the endogenous emergence of an OCA if countries use the facilities of an integrated financial market for their catching-up. Whereas in theories of intertemporal optimisation single agents and national economies succeed to go from indebtedness to development, in EMU they were tempted live beyond their intertemporal budget constraint. Professional observers tended to tolerate high current account deficits and loss of competitiveness as temporary phenomena by relying on the Lawson Doctrine. Actually, some EMU countries could avoid insolvency only by monetising their balance of payment deficit.
Intelligente (Software-)Agenten : eine neue Herausforderung für die Gesellschaft und unser Rechtssystem?
(2014) Müller-Hengstenberg, Claus D.; Kirn, Stefan
Inter-firm R&D networks in pharmaceutical biotechnology : what determines firm's centrality-based partnering capability?
(2013) Schwalbe, Ulrich; Riedel, Nadine; Krogmann, Yin
This paper analyses the inter-firm R&D network formed in the pharmaceutical biotechnology industry during the 1990s from different perspectives: theoretical network formation, firm's structural positions and its collaborations at the entire network level, and the determinants for firm's centrality-based partnering capability. The results indicate that pharmaceutical biotechnology industry has experienced a significant evolutional change in size and structure during 1991-1998. By considering individual structural positions, the descriptive statistics show that in the 1990s, established pharmaceutical companies developed into dominant star players with multiple partnerships while holding central roles in the R&D network. In the network analysis that emphasized aggregate network level, the degree-based and betweenness-based network centralization were not high implying that the distribution of overall positional advantages in the pharmaceutical biotechnology industry is, to a large degree, not unequal and even though most firms in this sector are linked to the R&D network, some of them are more active than others. The current analysis also shows that firm's efficiency, firm's dependency on its complementary resources and firm's experiences at managing partnerships are important determinants for firm's centrality-based partnering capability, which has important managerial implications for understanding firm's strategic partnering behaviour.
Inter-firm R&D networks in the global pharmaceutical biotechnology industry during 1985?1998 : a conceptual and empirical analysis
(2011) Krogmann, Yin; Schwalbe, Ulrich
This paper analyses a large database on inter-firm R&D cooperation formed in the pharmaceutical biotechnology industry during the period 1985?1998. The results indicate that network size largely grows, whereas the density of the network declines during the periods. In the network analysis that emphasizes individual structural positions, the empirical results show that small biotechnological companies had a crucial bridging role for the large pharmaceutical firms in the second half of the 1980s. In the 1990s, the bridge role of biotechnology companies became less important and established pharmaceutical companies developed into dominant start players with many collaborators while holding central roles in the research network. The current analysis also shows that degree-based and betweenness-based network centralization are both low implying that the overall positional advantages are relatively equally distributed in the inter-firm R&D network of the pharmaceutical biotechnology industry.
Kartellbekämpfung und interne Kartellstrukturen : ein netztheoretischer Ansatz
(2013) Saitis, Athanasios
Die ökonomische Theorie beschäftigt sich schon seit längerer Zeit mit dem Phänomen von Kartellen und ihrer Bekämpfung, doch die Bedeutung der internen Strukur eines Kartellnetzwerks blieb dabei weitgehend unberücksichtigt. In dieser Arbeit soll deshalb anhand einiger grundlegender netzwerktheoretischer und spieltheoretischer Konzepte die Problematik der internen Stabilität von Kartellstrukturen vor dem Hintergrund analysiert werden, dass eine Kartellbehörde existiert, die das Verhalten der Kartellmitglieder zu entdecken und zu sanktionieren versucht. Dabei zeigt sich in einem einfachen ökonomischen Grundmodell, dass die Art und Weise der Bestrafung der Kartellmitglieder einen Einfluss auf die interne Struktur eines Kartells und dessen Stabilität haben kann. Während sich fixe Bußgelder als strukturneutral erweisen, führt eine Bestrafung, die die Bedeutung der einzelnen Kartellteilnehmer bei der Ermittlung der Bußgelder berücksichtigt, unter bestimmten Bedingungen zu einer Veränderung der internen Kartellstruktur.
Macroeconomic stabilisation and bank lending : a simple workhorse model
(2013) Spahn, Peter
A hybrid standard macro model is supplemented by an explicit analysis of bank lending, based on a five-position aggregative balance sheet. In the model's two versions credit supply is based on a leverage targeting rule or on simple optimisation, taking into account lending risks and funding costs. Model simulations explore consequences of supply and demand disturbances, discretionary interest rate moves, asset valuation and credit risk shocks. Besides standard Taylor policies, the paper compares the relative efficiency of additional stabilisation tools like external-funding taxes and anti-cyclical leverage regulation. Quantitative restrictions for bank activities seem to be useful.
Measuring social capital and innovation in poor agricultural communities : the case of Cháparra, Peru
(2011) Arata, Atilio; Hartmann, Dominik
In the last decades substantive advance has been made in the measurement and understanding of frontier innovation in highly industrialized settings. However, little research focused on the process of learning and the introduction of novelties in smallholder farming of poor agricultural communities. Considering that 1.5 billion people in developing countries live in such smallholder households this is an essential shortcoming. In addressing three crucial questions about the measurement and promotion of endogenous local development this paper contributes to close this research gap. The three questions are: a) how can we measure social capital and innovation in poor agricultural communities, b) what is the impact of external agents on local structures and c) what are the relations between the social capital and the innovative performance of the farmer. In a first step a comprehensive questionnaire with 89 questions on diverse dimensions of social capital and innovation has been elaborated and applied to the agricultural valley of Cháparra in the South of Peru. The results allow for an indepth analysis of the capabilities, network position and innovative behavior of the farmers. In a second step, we apply social network analysis techniques to analyze the role and position of the relevant actors in the local as well as in the external technical information networks with a special focus on the influence of an external NGO. The analysis reveals a deep structural impact of the NGO and significant correlations between the network position of the farmers and their innovative performance. Three crucial issues for research on smallholder innovation are identified. First, diverse dimensions of social capital and innovation have to be differentiated when studying endogenous development. Second, it has to be assessed to which degree the modification of the existing social structures by external agents can be harmful or beneficial. Third, social network analysis can help us to gain a better understanding of the complex relations between social capital and innovation and how these can contribute to foster sustainable development projects.
Monthly US business cycle indicators : a new multivariate approach based on a band-pass filter
(2013) Gómez, Víctor; Marczak, Martyna
This article proposes a new multivariate method to construct business cycle indicators. The method is based on a decomposition into trend-cycle and irregular. To derive the cycle, a multivariate band-pass filter is applied to the estimated trend-cycle. The whole procedure is fully model-based. Using a set of monthly and quarterly US time series, two monthly business cycle indicators are obtained for the US. They are represented by the smoothed cycles of real GDP and the industrial production index. Both indicators are able to reproduce previous recessions very well. Series contributing to the construction of both indicators are allowed to be leading, lagging or coincident relative to the business cycle. Their behavior is assessed by means of the phase angle and the mean phase angle after cycle estimation. The proposed multivariate method can serve as an attractive tool for policy making, in particular due to its good forecasting performance and quite simple setting. The model ensures reliable realtime forecasts even though it does not involve elaborate mechanisms that account for, e.g., changes in volatility.
Non-financial hurdles for human capital accumulation : landownership in Korea under Japanese rule
(2014) Kim, Tai-Yoo; Jun, Bogang
This paper suggests that inequality in landownership is a nonfinancial hurdle for human capital accumulation. It is the first to present evidence that inequality in landownership had an adverse effect on the level of public education in the Korean colonial period. Using a fixed effects model, the present research exploits variations in inequality in land concentration across regions in Korea and accounts for the unobserved heterogeneity across these regions. The analysis establishes a highly significant adverse effect of Land inequality on education in the Korean colonial period.
Nonuse values of climate policy : an empirial study in Xinjiang and Beijing
(2013) Pelz, Sonna; Jing, Luo; Jiang Tong; Frör, Oliver; Ahlheim, Michael
Climate policy measures can be roughly subdivided into mitigation measures and adaptation measures. Mitigation policy aims at a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions with the overall goal of slowing down climate change and global warming. Since greenhouse gases like CO2, Methane etc. are global pollutants which have the same effect on world climate irrespective of where they are emitted mitigation policy creates benefits for people all over the world. Adaptation policy on the other hand does not seek to influence the world climate but, instead, is meant to reduce the negative consequences of climate change for a specific region. The benefits created by adaptation policy are, therefore, only of local importance while mitigation policy yields global benefits. This difference has, of course, consequences for the welfare economic appraisal of mitigation policy measures as compared to adaptation policy measures. Since the wellbeing of many more people worldwide is affected by mitigation measures than by adaptation measures the former will always appear more attractive in a cost-benefit analysis than the latter, at least from a global perspective. In this paper we want to show that adaption policy measures are often undervalued in cost-benefit analyses because only their so-called use values are considered, while the nonuse values they create are neglected. The use value of a commodity accrues from a direct utilization of that commodity. In an environmental context the use value of e.g. a beautiful landscape is felt by those people who visit this landscape. Beyond this use value the landscape might also have a value for people who never visit it but still enjoy the knowledge that in their country such a beautiful landscape exists and that endangered animals and plants are preserved there. This value that originates from the mere existence of a (market or environmental) good is often called its nonuse value because it is independent of a direct (and empirically observable) utilization of this good. If it can be shown that some adaptation policy measures in the context of climate policy create also nonuse values in addition to the use values this might lead to a new assessment of such measures and it might increase their chances of being approved in the political decision process. It is obvious that the systematic undervaluation of adaptation policy measures resulting from the neglect of the nonuse values they create might have the consequence that they are declined because they do not pass the cost-benefit test, though they create high nonuse values which are not considered in this test. Of course, the existence of nonuse values depends on the cultural background of the people affected by these measures and of the society they live in. Especially in an emerging country like China many people might still underestimate the importance of climate adaptation measures in comparison with economic policy measures triggering the economic growth of the country, especially if the adaptation measures are conducted in faraway regions of the country. In this study we test empirically the hypothesis that also in a growth-oriented economy like China non-materialistic values like the nonuse values of climate policy are perceived and respected by the population. This should especially hold for the better educated people living in big cities like Beijing. Therefore, we conduct a survey in Beijing where we ask people to assess a climate change adaptation project to be implemented in a faraway region, in this case in the Tarim basin in Xinjiang. In this survey we find that also Beijing citizens feel responsible for the environmental conditions in Xinjiang, especially under the impression of climate change. We find that they are even willing to contribute personally to financing a public project for the improvement of the living conditions in this remote (as viewed from Beijing) region. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: the next chapter focuses on the importance of nonuse values in environmental cost-benefit analyses; information concerning the impact of climate change on the Tarim area is provided in chapter three; the survey method and sampling procedure are introduced in chapter four; in chapter five results of the survey in Beijing are presented and analyzed, followed by some concluding remarks.
Quantitative Clusteridentifikation auf Ebene der deutschen Stadt- und Landkreise (1999 - 2008)
(2011) Rukwid, Ralf; Christ, Julian P.
Die detaillierte Untersuchung von Unternehmensagglomerationen bzw. der räumlichen Ballung von Produktionsaktivitäten war ein wesentliches Analyseziel des Forschungsprojekts ?Die Bedeutung von Innovationsclustern, sektoralen und regionalen Innovationssystemen zur Stärkung der globalen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der baden-württembergischen Wirtschaft?. In diesem Zusammenhang entstand eine Datenbank mit Cluster-Messwerten, die flächendeckend für ganz Deutschland eine präzise Verortung von Produktionsclustern auf Ebene der Stadt- und Landkreise erlaubt. Mit Hilfe eines auf die Arbeiten von Litzenberger und Sternberg zurückgehenden Cluster-Indexes (CI) wurde für jeden deutschen Kreis im Zeitraum von 1999 bis 2008 das entsprechende Cluster-Niveau bestimmt. Solche Cluster-Index-Werte liegen jeweils für die klassischen Sektoren Landwirtschaft, Verarbeitendes Gewerbe und Dienstleistungen, für die über 200 Dreisteller-Wirtschaftszweige der WZ2003 bzw. WZ93 sowie für ausgesuchte Branchenaggregate der Dreisteller-Wirtschaftszweige, sogenannte Prognos Zukunftsfelder, vor. Sämtliche Cluster-Messwerte wurden tabellarisch aufbereitet und in einen erweiterten Datenanhang integriert. Dieses Arbeitspapier beschreibt die berechneten Clusterdaten inklusive der zugrundeliegenden Ausgangsdaten und fasst die methodischen Grundlagen der durchgeführten quantitativen Clusteridentifikation zusammen.

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