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This paper studies regional economic development on the municipality-level in Poland and Germany along the Oder–Neisse border. We use high-quality satellite night-time light intensity data as an innovative and comparable measure to proxy for overall economic activity on both sides of the border consistently over a long period of time (1992–2012). We use descriptive heat maps as well as regression analysis to investigate two aspects: first, how far is the economic convergence along the Polish-German border? Second, what effect does the distance to the border have on economic activity as measured with light emissions? Our findings suggest that convergence in overall activity across the border has been complete. Polish municipalities that used to be economically much weaker have caught up with those on the German side of the Oder and the Neisse rivers. As regards the importance of distance, we highlight different results for Germany and Poland. While distance to the border never mattered significantly for German regions, Polish municipalities closer to the border used to be substantially worse off in the early 1990s but caught up with regions further to the east by the end of the period of our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the reasons for the gaps in post-schooling transitions between migrant and native pupils in Germany. While differences in parental background or skills partly explain the gaps, they are not sufficient. Conditional on these factors, there is a 'polarization' of educational choices: migrants are more likely to attend tertiary education, less likely to attend vocational education, and more likely to end without qualified training than their background and skills would predict. This is driven by the migrants' more academic career aspirations and expectations before leaving school. On the one hand, these higher ambitions allow high-skilled migrants to achieve tertiary education despite their less favourable background. On the other hand, low-skilled migrants who in Germany's tracked school system do not have the option to enter tertiary education, may be diverted from vocational training as a more viable alternative. Finally, possible explanations for the different career plans are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying a BVAR model, the present paper first identifies the possible drivers of Germany's TARGET claims. In this context, in terms of potential causes, a distinction is made between a rise in the global risk assessment, tensions within the euro area, and European monetary policy. It becomes evident that the TARGET flows between 2015 and 2017 can be ascribed in large part to monetary policy and to a minor extent to the risk assessment within the euro area. At the peak of the European debt crisis between 2010 and mid-2012, the TARGET flows were affected by uncertainty in the euro area as a dominant factor, although global factors also played a key role according to the model. The BVAR model we use opens up the possibility of studying the causes of current fluctuations in Germany's TARGET claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate whether households change electricity consumption after they switch to a green electricity tariff. Using metered data of household electricity consumption from a large provider of green electricity in Germany, our quasi-experimental analysis finds that household switching to a green tariff leads to a non-monetary renewable rebound effect of around 7.7%. Further, our findings imply that this renewable rebound effect is persistent over at least four years. These findings are observationally consistent with moral licencing effects which induce households to permanently change their habitual behaviours and/or to acquire additional electricity-consuming technologies. Thus, failure to account for a renewable rebound in policy evaluation may lead to systematically underestimate the costs of achieving energy and climate targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper econometrically estimates residential water consumption in Germany between 2007 and 2013 based on a panel of almost 3000 supply areas. In particular, the analysis distinguishes periods of rising and falling water and sewage water prices. The short-run (long-run) price elasticity is estimated at around 4.2% (13%), but water demand appears to respond asymmetrically to rising and falling prices. When prices are rising, the short-run (long-run) price elasticity is around 6.5% (17%). When prices are falling, the short-run price elasticity is not statistically different from zero, and the long-run price elasticity is estimated at around 12%. Additional results illustrate that employing average prices instead of marginal prices results in substantially overestimating the price elasticity. These findings are particularly relevant for utilities and regulators planning to alter the tariff structure towards a higher fixed fee and a lower volumetric fee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I analyse the role of ethnic and native human capital – defined, respectively, as the average years of schooling of ethnic groups and of natives within a specific region – and of ethnic concentrations in the educational attainment of second-generation immigrants in Germany. Compared to natives’ children, parents’ education has a small and insignificant effect on second-generation immigrants’ education. Ethnic concentrations have a negative effect, while ethnic capital is insignificant. The effect of native capital, too, is insignificant but much larger in magnitude than the effect of ethnic capital. For women, mother’s education is relatively more important. For men, ethnic concentrations constitute a stronger impediment to educational attainment than for women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The riskiness of individuals' saving behaviour affects their old-age wealth and has wider-ranging implications for macroeconomic development and stability. To which extent individuals take financial risks depends on their preferences, which may be moulded by the economic system they live in. I analyse households' financial risk taking after the collapse of the German Democratic Republic. Conditional on their income and financial wealth positions, East German households were more prone to financial risk taking than West German households after reunification. The differences in risk taking were quantitatively relevant shortly after reunification and gradually vanished until 2008. Risk taking of households who were exposed to the socialist system longer was higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical technological progress has been shown to be the main driver of health care costs. A key policy question is whether new treatment options are worth the additional costs. In this analysis we assess the causal effect of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), a major new heart attack treatment, on mortality. We use a full sample of administrative hospital data from Germany for the years 2005 to 2007. To account for non-random treatment assignment of PTCA, instrumental variable approaches are implemented that aim to randomize patients into getting PTCA independent of heart attack severity. Instruments include differential distances to PTCA hospitals and regional PTCA rates. Our results suggest a 4.5 absolute percentage point mortality reduction for patients who have access to PTCA compared to patients receiving only conservative treatment. We relate mortality reduction to the additional costs for this treatment and conclude that PTCA treatment is cost-effective in lowering mortality for AMI patients at reasonable cost-effectiveness thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land market regulations are often justified by the assumption that activities of foreign and non-agricultural investors drive up prices in domestic land markets. However, empirical knowledge about the dynamics of agricultural land prices across borders is sparse. Using the German reunification as a natural experiment, we study the effect of the former inner German border on the dynamics of agricultural land prices in East and West Germany. We apply a land price diffusion model with an error correction specification to analyse spatial agricultural land markets. A novel feature of our model is its ability to distinguish price diffusion within states and across state borders. We provide evidence for a persistent border effect given that the fraction of spatially integrated counties is larger within states than across the former border. Moreover, we observe non-significant error correction terms for many counties along the former border. From a policy perspective, it is striking to realize that even 25 years after German reunification, pronounced land price differences persist. It is quite likely that price diffusion through existing borders within the EU would take even more time given language barriers, different institutional frameworks, and information asymmetries between domestic and foreign market participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Germany, retraining is an important measure in active labour market policy, providing unemployed individuals with extensive vocational training. Using administrative data, we show that retraining participants are more likely to take up jobs that require their educational degree and are more often employed in those occupations for which they have received vocational training. Moreover, retraining leads to higher earnings. As these effects may be driven by the positive impact of retraining on employment, we additionally try to isolate the direct effect by restricting our analyses to those formerly unemployed who find employment irrespective of participation in retraining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the financial crisis of 2007, the Economic Sentiment Indicator for Germany had already started the deepest drop in its history, reaching a new historical low in the second quarter of 2009. The drop was only temporary, as Germany became the de facto 'safe heaven' country and thus within 2 years the low became a sharp increase reaching a historical all-time high. The effect of 'safe heaven' country that Germany exhibited during the crisis and the resulting numbers for economic sentiment pose the question as to whether economic sentiment can be used to improve the positioning on the German financial market. We examine the link between sentiment and the performance of the German market, and how investors' herd behaviour should have used such a sentiment signal to take advantage of, during the depression and beyond. We perform a careful sample-split analysis of both the characteristics of sentiment and financial market performance in various sub-periods from the 1990s until today and also use economic sentiment as a guide for timing the German stock market. In our analysis, economic sentiment acquires a leading guide role for investors in the German market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We wish to reconcile the major trends in wages and the terms of trade using a directed technical change approach in which: (i) tradable and nontradable goods can be substitutes or complements; and (ii) scale effects can be present or can be partially or totally removed. With a lower skilled labour ratio and a higher relative wage in the tradable sector, the price (real exchange rate or terms of trade) mechanism is crucial in determining sectoral productivity differences and thus wage inequality. Along the balanced growth path, the real exchange rate can be negatively related with the relative productivities in horizontal innovation (the Balassa-Samuelson effect) and with the relative labour level, depending on scale effects. The wage premium increases due to an increase in the relative labour level in the nontradable sector under substitutability with scale effects or under complementarity without scale effects. A calibrated version of the model indicates that the model closely replicates the data for Germany. Moreover, while the Balassa-Samuelson effect is quantified, an increase in the relative supply of labour in the tradable sector decreases both terms of trade and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I analyse the joint efficiency of export and import forecasts by leading economic research institutes for the years 1970 to 2017 for Germany in a multivariate setting. To this end, I compute, in a first step, multivariate random forests in order to model links between forecast errors and a forecaster's information set, consisting of several trade and other macroeconomic predictor variables. I use the Mahalanobis distance as performance criterion and, in a second step, permutation tests to check whether the Mahalanobis distance between the predicted forecast errors for the trade forecasts and actual forecast errors is significantly smaller than under the null hypothesis of forecast efficiency. I find evidence for joint forecast inefficiency for two forecasters, however, for one forecaster I cannot reject joint forecast efficiency. For the other forecasters, joint forecast efficiency depends on the examined forecast horizon. I find evidence that real macroeconomic variables as opposed to trade variables are inefficiently included in the analysed trade forecasts. Finally, I compile a joint efficiency ranking of the forecasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, the number and ratio of multiple jobholders has more than doubled, although the German labour market has been experiencing a strong and sustained upswing. This study analyses multiple jobholding from a time series as well as a cross section perspective. We use rich register data and multinomial logit estimations. The microeconometric findings are linked to macroeconomic trends. Workers hold multiple jobs primarily because of earnings´ or hours´ constraints in the main job. Towards the upper end of the earnings distribution, the probability to have another job does not rise again. Thus, we do not find evidence that another job shall enrich the job portfolio as such. Moreover, female workers, migrants, workers in West Germany as well as in service sectors have a higher than average probability of multiple jobholding. However, the individual factors explain the rise of multiple jobholding over time to a very small extent. Hence, we argue that the far-reaching exemption of second marginal jobs from social security contributions and taxes sets wrong incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses a Bayesian VAR (BVAR) to demonstrate that the recent boom in German house prices can be explained by falling interest rates and that higher interest rates are likely sufficient to stop the price increase. The latter suggests a potential drawback of the current monetary policy of the ECB. The BVAR's prior information shrinks the model parameters towards a parsimonious benchmark in order to avoid overfitting the data. We use an empirical Bayes approach to select the informativeness of the prior. To choose relevant control variables, we use a Bayesian variable selection approach. In addition to impulse responses and variance decompositions, we use a Bayesian conditional forecast to test the hypothetical effect of an interest rate increase on house prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several empirical studies show that renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, typically supplied at low marginal cost, can cause electricity market prices to fall. Recent theoretical research and simulations also highlight the link between the integration of renewable energy and market performance in an oligopolistic energy market. This article looks at these dynamics in the context of cross-border effects between two highly interconnected electricity markets, France and Germany. Using a rich panel dataset for hourly data from November 2009 to July 2015, I estimate the impact of German wind and solar power production on both prices and market power in the French wholesale market. The findings highlight the importance of coordinating energy policies via joint renewable energy support schemes among interconnected European electricity markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite measures on the European level to increase the compatibility between the higher education sectors, the recent literature exposes variations in their efficiencies. To gain insights into these differences, we split the efficiency term according to the two management levels each university is confronted with. We separate short-term and long-term efficiency while controlling for unobserved institution-specific heterogeneity. We argue that the first term reflects the efficiency of the individual universities working within the country, while the second term echoes the influence of the overall country-specific higher education structure. The cross-country comparison displays whether efficiency differences between countries are related to the individual performance of their universities or their higher education structure. This allows more purposeful policy recommendations and expands the literature regarding the efficiency of universities in a fundamental way. Choosing Italy and Germany as two important illustrative examples, we show that the Italian higher education sector exhibits a higher overall efficiency value. With the individual universities working at the upper bound of efficiency in both countries, the remaining inefficiency and the gap between the countries are caused by persistent, structural inefficiency. Future measures should hence aim at the country-specific structure and not solely at the activities of single universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new German minimum wage applies a specific exemption clause for internships, where internships that last up to three months are exempted while internships that exceed three months are due to the minimum wage. Negative minimum wage effects on internships are heavily debated as internships are mostly non-productive. Difference-in-difference analyses that exploit establishment and regional variation in the bite of the minimum wage do not show a reduction in the number of internships. In addition, we pursue an innovative approach by using Google search data to analyse how the search intensity for internships changed in course of the minimum wage introduction. Difference-in-difference comparisons with other countries in Europe do not reveal an effect on the search for internship positions in general, but we observe a significant reduction in Google search for 'generation internship'. This suggests that the underlying societal phenomenon of a generation entering internships without a perspective for regular jobs has lost in relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically examines the sources of fluctuations in hours worked in Canada, Germany, Japan and the U.S. It is particularly motivated by Galí's (1999) VAR study, which demonstrates that a positive technology shock reduces hours worked, at least in the short run. However, in the present study, a technology shock is identified without recourse to Galí's long-run restriction, which has been subject to active controversy. Furthermore, this study uncovers other important sources of fluctuations in hours worked to reflect the concern, raised by numerous studies, that technology shocks leave most variations in hours worked unexplained. Specifically, there are six shocks underlying our model, and they are identified using a set of sign restrictions. The empirical results confirm that in all four countries, a positive technology shock significantly reduces hours worked. This technology shock, along with labor supply and demand shocks, accounts for most of the short-term variations in hours worked. As the forecasting horizon increases, technology and demand shocks become less important, whereas labor supply shocks contribute to explaining the bulk of long-run variations in hours worked. Finally, the empirical relevance of Galí's longrun identification restriction is tested and the results are related to those obtained using the sign restriction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We contribute to the debate on high-powered versus low-powered incentives in regulation by studying their heterogeneous impacts on different subpopulations, using data from the introduction of a high-powered prospective payment system (PPS) for hospital reimbursement in Germany. While no overall effect on quality or cost saving is found, our results support hypotheses drawn from an incentive and selection perspective: PPS reduces the length of stay of older relative to younger patients, of more severe relative to less severe cases, and in smaller relative to larger hospitals. Hospitals which adopted PPS earlier provide higher quality under PPS as proxied by the case-specific readmission rate. Our study also contributes to the health economic literature on hospital reimbursement as our data permits us to identify the treatment effect via different timings of adoption of PPS and to use a mo [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is often proposed as a politically feasible way by which rural municipalities can cope with intensified interregional competition and demographic change. We provide first evidence on citizens' support for IMC using survey data from rural Germany. We find little evidence that citizens are more willing to support IMC in munici-palities that can - by the logic of economic theory - expect higher net benefits from IMC. Citizens' support for IMC is primarily shaped by individual-level factors like the level of education, trust in local politicians and the degree of emotional attachment to the home mu-nicipality. Citizens' beliefs regarding the economic and political consequences of IMC are found to have the largest marginal effect by far. Regressions predicting interpersonal differ-ences in these beliefs show that these beliefs have to be considered independent drivers of policy preferences. This result suggests that more research is needed to better understand the factors shaping citizens' understanding of how economic policy works. This lack of under-standing applies to virtually all fields of economic policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly after a fall-back linked to recent financial crises, private equity investing has been undergoing a strong revival, especially in Germany. In a country known for the large number of small- and medium-sized companies, private equity investors can profit from a large choice of potential targets. Researchers have been broadly studying the field of private equity for many years, especially exploring post-investment value creation. But most articles missed to address the importance of pre-acquisition determinants such as target characteristics. Under these circumstances, this study focuses on exploring the relationship between pre-acquisition target characteristics and deal performance by analysing a sample of 125 transactions in Germany using an ordinal logistic regression analysis. The findings suggest that asset lightness, management experience and the healthcare industry are positively linked to the deal success by increasing the likelihood of achieving a higher return category. This implies that private equity investors active in Germany could outperform if they set according to investment preferences. Similarly, investors are likely to get a higher return from general partners who invest in companies presenting such characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we argue that potential inefficiencies on betting markets are more likely to exist at the very beginning of a season, when the available information on the teams’ playing strength is difficult to evaluate. This lack of reliable information should be particularly large in the case of recently promoted teams that have typically undergone major changes in the composition of their roster following their promotion. Without any information on the latter teams’ potential performance, they are particularly difficult to evaluate, which may eventually lead to inefficiencies and positive returns on investment in the betting market. We analyse odds from German first division Bundesliga soccer for the seasons from 2002/03 to 2015/16 to find betting market inefficiencies at the start of the season. As expected, betting on recently promoted team wins generates temporarily positive returns, especially for away games. These results suggest bookmakers to underestimate promoted teams’ ability to familiarize with the conditions in the new league, such as having to play in front of larger, often hostile crowds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the effects of public R&D subsidies on R&D input and output of German firms. We distinguish between the direct impact of subsidies on R&D investment and the indirect effect on innovation output measured by patent applications. We disentangle the productivity of purely privately financed R&D and additional R&D investment induced by the public incentive scheme. For this, a treatment-effect analysis is conducted in a first step. The results are implemented into the estimation of a patent production function in a second step. It turns out that both purely privately financed R&D and publicly induced R&D show a positive effect on patent outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We sharpen tests for ‘discouragement’ and ‘added worker’ effects by splitting the explanatory variable – the unemployment rate – into a short-term component and a long-term component. While short-term unemployment (STU) might not result in additional workers on a large scale, long-term unemployment (LTU) reduces household income more, increasing the need for additional income. On the other hand, it may discourage older workers for psychological and sociological reasons. Applying our model to the German labour market, these hypotheses could be confirmed. Even for men, about whom only a few empirical studies on this issue are available, distinguishing between STU and LTU reveals added worker as well as discouragement effects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article contributes to the literature by using newly released comprehensive transaction-level data on all exports and imports to document facts about the amount ofintra-good trade– the simultaneous export and import of identical goods by one firm – in Germany. Combined data for trade transactions and for characteristics of a representative large sample of trading firms are then used to report differences between firms that export and import different goods only (inter-good traders) and firms that engage in the simultaneous export and import of identical goods (intra-good traders). We find that the share of intra-good trade in total trade was some 17% in Germany in 2012. Intra-good trade matters. This share differs widely between broadly defined groups of goods and between industries. Controlling for detailed industry affiliation, intra-good traders differ significantly from inter-good traders – they are larger, more human capital intensive, more productive, have a higher R&D intensity and are more profitable. The data, however, are not rich enough to reveal the direction of causality between intra-good trade and firm performance and to investigate empirically the reasons why some firms engage in intra-good trade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using a representative survey of the German population, this article studies self-reported individual consumption responses to a recent exogenous payroll tax reduction. About 55% of the respondents report that they spend the extra money, indicating considerable potential for tax changes to affect consumption and economic activity. Our analysis of the socio-demographic and economic covariates of consumption responses suggests, among other effects, that interest rates are related to consumption responses to tax changes, and that households with higher income have a higher propensity to consume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the degree of monopsony power of employers in different industries against the background of a statutory minimum wage introduction in Germany in January 2015. A semi-structural estimation approach is employed based on a dynamic model of monopsonistic competition. The empirical analysis relies on a linked employer–employee data set which allows to control for observed heterogeneity both on the worker and on the firm side. The results show important differences in monopsonistic competition among low-wage industries: While retailing, the hotel and restaurant industry as well as agriculture can be described as monopsonistic labour markets, this is not true for other services and manufacturing of food products. From a policy point of view, the introduction of a uniform minimum wage may therefore lead to different employment reactions in industries with a similar minimum wage bite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We combine status quo and social comparison considerations and investigate whether relative wage increases in the sense of differences between individual wage increases and wage increases of comparable employees are related to managers’ job satisfaction. Using a panel data set of managers in the German chemical industry, we indeed find first evidence. The relation between relative wage increases and job satisfaction is relevant for managers with lower absolute wage levels in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we shed more light on the subjective well-being of workfare participants and compare it to the well-being of unemployed and employed workers. We use data from a self-conducted survey among participants in workfare schemes in Germany. We examine two subdimensions of subjective well-being – life satisfaction and emotional well-being – separately to obtain a more comprehensive view of the subjective well-being of workfare participants. Our results show that the life satisfaction of people in this group is between that of employed and unemployed people. In contrast, their emotional well-being is the highest of these three groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the effects of higher bodymass index (BMI) or obesity on different labourmarket outcomes. Weextend the present literature by investigating the effect of obesity on (i) promotion likelihood and (ii) unemployment duration, in addition to the effect on (iii) wages and (iv) probability of being employed. Wefind an obesity penalty on wages,employment likelihood, promotion likelihood and unemployment duration among females in Germany taking into account of endogeneity of BMI and sample selection. We are also able to identify an unexplained effect of obesity on wages, employment and promotion likelihood for females using decomposition techniques that can be attributed to weight discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tests the additional information content of price-earnings ratios, with respect to Tobin’sq, in explaining firms’ investment behaviour. While Tobin’sqdescribes the expected future earnings related to those projected by thebook value, the price-earnings ratio compares future growth of earnings based on the projection ofcurrent earnings. In other words, a high price-earnings ratio might indicate that investors are willing to rely on future earnings growth, even though current earnings are low. By using an unbalanced panel of about 500 listed firms from Germany over the period 1987–2007, we find that including the price-earnings ratio in the investment equation does not change the explanatory power of Tobin’sq. Most notably, the price-earnings ratio exerts a positive and significant impact on investment. These results are robust to the inclusion of a measure of the firm’s internal funds and of fixed effects and also to the use of different estimators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article estimates the long-term legacies of female labour force mobilization on women’s family formation outcomes such as marriage, age at first marriage and divorce. We identify the long-term marriage effects of female labour force mobilization by exploring postwar mandatory employment in Germany. Using difference-in-differences analysis, we find that participation in postwar reconstruction efforts increased women’s probability of being currently married, ever married and marrying at younger ages. We also find that postwar employment had no differential effect on divorce rates of the affected cohorts of women. These results persist after accounting for the potential changes in the composition of the population, demand for female labour, war relief payments and postwar state-specific policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Empirical evidence reveals that German welfare recipients often participate in multiple active labour market programmes (ALMPs). However, evidence on the effectiveness of ALMPs exists mostly for single ALMP participations so far. This article evaluates the sequential participation in ALMPs for welfare recipients in Germany based on comprehensive administrative data to control for dynamic selection that arises in the evaluation of sequences. Using a dynamic causal model and an inflow sample of welfare recipients, the article analyses the effects of sequences of a public employment programme called One-Euro-Jobs on labour market outcomes. For female participants in One-Euro-Jobs in the first period, especially in West Germany, the results imply that participating in two consecutive One-Euro-Jobs compared with receiving only welfare benefits for two consecutive periods better facilitates integration into regular employment. Moreover, taking part in a One-Euro-Job directly after entry into welfare receipt is also more effective for participants in One-Euro-Jobs in the first period than taking part in a One-Euro-Job in a later period, especially for East German men (although not for West German women). However, I also find evidence of so-called programme careers and stepwise integration into regular employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the mechanisms that are associated with the gender education gap and its reversal in Germany. We focus on three outcomes, graduation from upper secondary school, any tertiary education and tertiary degree. Neither individual and family background nor labour market characteristics appear to be strongly associated with the gender education gap. There is some evidence that the gender gap in upper secondary education reflects the rising share of single parent households which impacts boys’ attainment more than girls’. The gender education gap in tertiary education is correlated with the development of class sizes and social norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the relationship between changes in the body mass index (bmi) and wages or satisfaction, respectively, in a panel of German employees. In contrast to previous findings, our dynamic models indicate an inverse u-shaped association betweenbmiand wages. As the implied maximum occurs in the ‘overweight’ category, the positive trend in weight may not yet constitute a major limitation to productivity. Further investigation points out a stronger association among young workers and workers with jobs that are less protected. Work satisfaction of young workers is associated withbmibeyond the effect of earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The stressed financial situation in the public sector and the continuous aspiration for austerity in western governments and public bodies is omnipresent. As one core element in the New Public Management shift, Germany, like many other countries, has experienced significant reforms in public sector accounting and reporting in the last decade. We analyse the effect of new accounting and budgeting regimes. We therefore analyse the cost efficiency of German local governments in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia over 3 years using a stochastic frontier approach. This study presents evidence for increased efficiency amongst municipalities due to the adoption of accrual accounting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article investigates the predictive power of a new survey implemented by the Federal Employment Agency (FEA) for forecasting German unemployment in the short run. Every month, the CEOs of the FEA’s regional agencies are asked about their expectations of future labour market developments. We generate an aggregate unemployment leading indicator that exploits serial correlation in response behaviour through identifying and adjusting temporarily unreliable predictions. We use out-of-sample tests suitable in nested model environments to compare forecasting performance of models including the new indicator to that of purely autoregressive benchmarks. For all investigated forecast horizons (1, 2, 3 and 6 months), test results show that models enhanced by the new leading indicator significantly outperform their benchmark counterparts. To compare our indicator to potential competitors, we employ the model confidence set. Results reveal that models including the new indicator perform very well at the 10% level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With this article we present the first microeconometric analysis of the impact of a foreign acquisition on the target firm’s access to finance. By using a large database of German firms, we furthermore investigate for the first time the link between foreign ownership and access to finance in Germany, one of the world's leading target countries for FDI. We use newly available comprehensive panel data that we constructed from information collected by the German statistical offices and from credit rating scores supplied by the leading German credit rating agency. We find foreign-owned firms in German manufacturing on average to show slightly more financing restrictions than domestically owned enterprises, but this very small difference diminishes once unobserved heterogeneity is taken into account. We further demonstrate that one reason for this finding is the preference of foreign investors for targets with relatively low credit-worthiness. Although the likelihood of a foreign acquisition appears to be correlated with credit rating, there is no impact of foreign takeovers on the credit constraints of the target firmsex postand therefore no support for the hypothesis that foreign takeovers ease financial frictions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study, we show the interrelation of the purchasing power parity and the uncovered interest rate parity between the US and Germany for the recent period running from 1999:01 to 2014:04. This study extends the literature by testing both hypotheses simultaneously in a multivariate ECM. This has the advantage that interactions between capital and goods markets can be considered simultaneously. Our finding of two long-run relationships between the variables shows that a disequilibrium in one of the two markets leads to a disequilibrium in the other. While analysing the reaction to cumulative shocks, we show that US variables have a greater impact on German variables than vice versa. Therefore, the rising importance of the euro and the increased integration of the European Union in the recent decade have not changed this relation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study provides the first evidence of foreign takeover effects on the performance of acquired firms in Germany that considers a general takeover effect through the comparison with domestic takeovers. A propensity score matching approach combined with a difference-in-differences (DiD) estimator were performed with new high-quality panel data for manufacturing enterprises, provided by German official statistics. The results indicate a negative impact of foreign takeovers on employment and no productivity improvements for the period 2007–2009. This evidence contradicts existing empirical evidence for Germany which suggests significant productivity improvements and no changes in terms of employment. These findings are of particular interest to Germany as one of the most important FDI inflow destinations worldwide. They contribute to the foreign ownership performance premium literature as well as improving the understanding of foreign acquisition consequences, a subject of utmost topicality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study uses tailor-made enterprise-level data for 2008–2010 from various sources for firms from manufacturing industries to test for the link between credit constraints, measured by a credit rating score provided by a leading credit rating agency, and imports in Germany for the first time. We find empirical evidence that a better credit rating score is positively related to extensive margins of import – firms with a better score have a higher probability to import, they import more goods and they source from more countries of origin. The intensive margin of imports – the share of imports in total sales – is found not to be related to credit constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the exchange rate pass-through into German import prices based on disaggregated data taken on a monthly basis between 1995 and 2012. Our main contribution is twofold: firstly, we employ various time-series techniques to analyse data for different product categories, and also cointegration techniques to carefully distinguish between short-run and long-run pass-through coefficients. Secondly, in a panel data approach we estimate time-varying pass-through coefficients and explain their development with regard to various macroeconomic factors. Our results show that long-run pass-through is only partly observable and incomplete, whereas short-run pass-through shows a more unique character, although heterogeneity across product groups does exist. We are also able to identify several macroeconomic factors that determine changes in the degree of pass-through, which is especially relevant for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article uses a tailor-made newly available data set for enterprises from manufacturing industries in Germany to investigate for the first time the links between export diversification over destination countries and goods on the one hand and the profitability of the exporting firms on the other hand. We find that profits tend to be larger in firms with less diversified export sales over goods and in firms with more diversified export sales over destination countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the development of teenage fertility in East and West Germany using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel and from the German Mikrozensus. Following the international literature we derive hypotheses on the patterns of teenage fertility and test whether they are relevant to the German case. We find that teenage fertility is associated with teenage age and education, with the income of the teenager’s family, with migration status, residence in East Germany and aggregate unemployment. Our evidence supports counter-cyclical teenage fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How does labour market policy affect welfare recipients and long-term unemployed people? We investigate whether job search assistance (JSA) helps disadvantaged individuals to find jobs and whether courses or individual counselling is more successful in reaching this goal. To evaluate individual employment effects, we apply a quasi-experimental design and construct suitable comparison groups using propensity score matching methods. We compare participants to nonparticipants as well as participants of both schemes directly. Our article benefits from access to rich administrative data from the German Federal Employment Agency. When comparing participants to nonparticipants, results suggest that the individual JSA does not affect participants’ employment prospects at all and that the course JSA even decreased their employment chances. At the same time, differences in these effects can be ascribed to programme design differences and to differences in the groups of participants. Therefore, we compare both programmes directly to each other, that is, we use the other programme participants as a comparison group, respectively. We found some evidence that individual JSA performs better than course JSA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Exploiting the information contained in an economy’s input-output matrix and using the novel approach developed by Fisher and Marshall (2011), we calculate Rybczynski effects and Stolper–Samuelson effects for Germany in 2007. We show how sectoral output and factor remuneration react to exogenous changes of factor endowments and product prices, respectively. These calculations are implemented using two different models comprising one with labour and capital as the classical production factors and one where we introduce patent stock as an additional factor of production. In the former, we further differentiate between a scenario where all production factors are mobile and one with sector-specific capital. In the latter analysis, we measure the impact of innovation-targeting policy action for sectoral output. Positive Rybczynski effects of patents and high-skilled workers are strongest in knowledge-intensive sectors, while other sectors contract. The introduction of patents as a further production factor has only minor influence on the Rybczynski effects of other factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent decades, Germany’s statutory health insurance expenditure increased drastically. To combat moral hazard, moderate copayments for the purchase of prescription drugs were introduced and increased several times. These measures, however, have been insufficient to buck the steadily increasing tide of Germany’s statutory health care expenditure, making further reforms indispensable. Among a multitude of potential reform proposals, such as a switch to a health premia regime, are two policy options that provide for incentives to limit health care demand: mandatory deductibles and further elevating copayments. By combining an applied general equilibrium (AGE) model with abundant empirical data on heterogeneous household types, this article investigates the economic effects of these two policy options, thereby looking at both the current earnings-related SHI system and a hypothetical health premia regime characterized by per capita premia. As a key outcome, we find that the decrease in expenditure associated with both reform options is too small to induce substantial overall effects, most notably, because both the level of deductibles and the copayment rate are rather moderate in international contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]