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Plastic, plastic waste and marine litter indisputably is one of the key environmental issues of the 21st century. The already existing amount of accumulated marine litter, the high quantity of plastic waste escaping from waste management streams every year in combination with the low recycling rates for plastic and the missing awareness of the consumer for sustainable consumption pose a permanent threat to the ecosystem, biodiversity and human health. What is more, as economic and ecological interests strongly deviate from each other, the transformation of this status quo towards a more sustainable future will take place very slowly. Against this background, this paper will shortly outline the multitude of problems connected to plastic products throughout a product's lifecycle and introduce the idea of a circular economy. On this basis, the paper will critically analyze the strategy papers and the ongoing legislation of the EU introduced to solve these problems and to realize the transformation process of the EU-economy towards a circular economy from a sustainable development point of view. On the one hand, awareness raising is one main strategy of the EU to achieve this transformation, on the other hand, educational institutions are not specifically mentioned by the EU. In order to address this shortcoming, the paper will constitute the teaching principle "global development politics/education for sustainable development" as one measure to increase consumers' awareness and sustainable consumption. In general, this paper will proof that the topical area plastics can fruitfully be implemented at German schools for primary and secondary education in order to strengthen the education for sustainable development.

Education is the core of the factors that improved people for a better lifestyle and increases the level of society' development. Quality education is one of the most vital goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to actualizing these factors. Using relational network data envelopment analysis (DEA), which have three interrelated substages, this current paper computes the educational economy efficiency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries bearing in mind the characteristics related to SDGs. The contribution of our study is the use of a novel approach to computing the educational economy efficiency using relational network DEA with GAMS. Even though some interesting differences reveal in the efficiency of the countries, the findings show that countries with high-efficiency scores are clustered around countries like Latvia, Slovenia, and Korea.

This article presents abstracts of several papers about economics published in the July 1965 of the journal Zeitschrift Für Die Gesamte Staatswissenschaft. In the article The Optimal Location of Industry: An Interregional Linear Program for the West German Paper Industry, Heinz König and Rainer Thoss gave a general formulation of an interregional optimization model and discussed the advantages and limitations of this method of regional analysis. While in the article Development Theories of Balanced and Unbalanced Growth: A Confrontation, Lutz Hoffman reviewed the discussion on balanced growth and unbalanced growth.

The number of obstetric departments in German hospitals has declined in the last decades. In particular, rural hospitals are challenged to sustain their delivery services. In this paper, we analyse the role of variation and overheads of obstetric departments from the perspective of current and future German hospital financing. For this purpose, we develop a Monte Carlo simulation model that analyses the workload of the labour room and the obstetric ward. The results show that a hospital with less than 640 deliveries per year cannot break even. In order to offer services 24 h per day, 365 days per year, five nurses, five midwives, and five gynaecologists are needed. This results in high fixed costs. At the same time, the variation coefficient of the labour room and the obstetric ward declines with an increasing number of deliveries. Consequently, small hospitals have a higher risk of over- and under-utilization in the course of the year. This paper acknowledges that economics is not the only decision dimension. The quality of the institution and the transport to the hospital have to be considered, as well as the population's wish for nearby services. However, the simulations clearly demonstrate that unless the hospital financing system is changed fundamentally, the decline in the number of hospitals offering delivery services will continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of studies in several countries tested the economic understanding of people, particularly students. The performance of the subjects is typically conceived as showing "deficits". These alleged deficits seem to correspond with scepticism towards market economy. Better test scores in general correlate with higher appraisal of market society. Could therefore a better understanding influence the attitudes towards phenomena of economic life, like competition, unequal income distribution and other characteristics of market economy? This paper identifies different factors influencing both the levels of economic understanding and the attitudes towards economy. It analyzes results of empirical studies and, as a conclusion, develops an "influence model" reflecting the connection between the form of perception of market-induced phenomena, i.e. economic competence, and the evaluation of these phenomena. The model is the fundament for the design of forthcoming studies. (Contains 1 figure and 6 footnotes.)

Using German linked employer-employee data, this paper investigates the short-term impact of on-the-job training on wages. The applied estimation approach was first introduced by Leuven and Oosterbeek (2008). Wages of employees who intended to participate in training but did not do so because of a random event are compared to wages of training participants. The estimated wage returns are statistically insignificant. Furthermore, the decision to participate in training is associated with sizeable selection effects. On average, participants have a wage advantage of more than 4% compared to non-participants. (Contains 9 tables.)

Aggregate unemployment may affect individual returns to education through qualification-specific responses in participation and wage bargaining. This paper shows that an increase in regional unemployment by 1% decreases returns to education by 0.005 percentage points. This implies that higher skilled employees are better sheltered from labour market changes with respect to their jobs but they encounter larger wage changes than less skilled employees. We use representative individual data and panel variation in unemployment between German regions and employee groups. We demonstrate that our results are robust with respect to aggregation bias, time lags and potential endogeneity of the unemployment variable. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

The paper is focused on the immigrants' impact on the EU's economy in the context of the latest immigrant crisis generated by Germany and France. The analysis in the paper covers not only the economic negative effects, but the social effects as well. The scientific approach is based on the latest official data. A distinct part of the paper deals with forecasting procedures able to point out the powerful negative impact of the immigrants on the labor market and public finances on short and medium terms. The main conclusion of the paper is that Germany is not able to manage this immigrant crisis and it will try to solve the problem putting pressure on other Member States or translating the crisis management to the global organism, as Davos Conference, for example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While promoting the economic growth, energy has also brought pollution problems to the world environment, which has gradually become a bottleneck impeding sustainable economic development. In view of the rapid evolution of urbanization and industrialization, economic growth is increasingly dependent on the energy consumption, the development of the two is difficult to coordinate, and the internal contradictions are becoming increasingly serious, which hinders the sustainable development of economic growth. This study establishes the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth according to the energy Kuznets curve and studies the future trend of China's sustainable development through the comparative analysis of the energy Kuznets curve of the United States and Germany. The results show that, at the turning point of energy consumption, China's energy economic rate is higher than that of Germany and the United States. In addition, in terms of urbanization rate and industrial structure, although China's tertiary industry has made a breakthrough, it is still lower than that of the United States and Germany, but the level of urbanization rate has made significant progress. In short, China has obvious advantages in future economic development and has a late developing advantage compared with the United States and Germany. This paper makes an empirical analysis of the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in OECD countries and finds out the turning point of energy consumption, so as to provide a theoretical basis for coordinating China's energy consumption and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2019, the Digital Health Care Act ("Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetz") introduced a general entitlement to the provision and reimbursement of digital health applications (DiGA) for insured persons in the German statutory health insurance. As establishing a new digital service area within the solidarity-based insurance system implies several administrative and regulatory challenges, this paper aims to describe the legal framework for DiGA market access and pricing as well as the status quo of the DiGA market. Furthermore, we provide a basic approach to deriving value-based DiGA prices. To become eligible for reimbursement, the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices evaluates the compliance of a DiGA with general requirements (e.g., safety and data protection) and its positive healthcare effects (i.e., medical benefit or improvements of care structure and processes) in a fast-track process. Manufacturers may provide evidence for the benefits of their DiGA either directly with the application for the fast-track process or generate it during a trial phase that includes temporary reimbursement. After one year of \]reimbursement, the freely-set manufacturer price is replaced by a price negotiated between the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds and the manufacturer. By February 2022, 30 DiGA had successfully completed the fast-track process. 73% make use of the trial phase and have not yet proven their benefit. Given this dynamic growth of the DiGA market and the low minimum evidence standards, fair pricing remains the central point of contention. The regulatory framework makes the patient-relevant benefits of a DiGA a pricing criterion to be considered in particular. Yet, it does not indicate how the benefits of a DiGA should be translated into a reasonable price. Our evidence-based approach to value-based DiGA pricing approximates the SHI's willingness to pay by the average cost-effectiveness of one or more established therapy in a field of indication and furthermore considers the positive healthcare effects of a DiGA. The proposed approach can be fitted into DiGA pricing processes under the given regulatory framework and can provide objective guidance for price negotiations. However, it is only one piece of the pricing puzzle, and numerous methodological and procedural issues related to DiGA pricing are still open. Thus, it remains to be seen to what extent DiGA prices will follow the premise of value-based pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to learn more about sectoral differences of knowledge networking in a regional development context, we apply the knowledge base concept, distinguishing the analytical (science based) and synthetic (engineering based) knowledge base. We aim at comparing knowledge networking with the help of network analyses in two knowledge bases in Germany: the analytical knowledge base with the help of the biotechnology industry in the Aachen Technology Region and the synthetic knowledge base with the help of the automotive industry in Southwest Saxony. The paper concludes that there are some main differences found in the characteristics of knowledge networking between the two different knowledge bases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine differences in access to finance and business value by gender. Using recent data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, instrumented linear probability models show that an increase in personal wealth substantially affects the probability of being a business owner only among females. This is indicative of differential access to finance by gender. Among business owners, fixed-effects regressions reveal that obtaining a bank loan increases mean total business value more for females than for males. Thus, possession of a bank loan appears to be a critical factor in explaining the business value gender gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the paper "Waiting and the Period of Production," by Robert Dofman in the August 1959 issue of the "Quarterly Journal of Economics." Just as postwar West Germany has been a leading example of a comparatively unregulated economy, so it has been a principal source of academic literature extolling the virtues of competitive markets and economic co-ordination via unregulated prices. A flood of crusading books, pamphlets and papers attests to the numbers and energies of economists whose social theories and policy recommendations differ radically from those for which their homeland was earlier famous. Neoliberal teachings do not constitute a completely standardized product; disagreement on matters of detail is common and that on more important questions is not rare. But, on the whole, agreement--and repetition--is impressive. The West German crusade is perhaps the outstanding example of non-socialist academicians banding together to fight for and against economic programs.

Background: The growing demand for LTC (Long-term care) services for disabled elderly has become a daunting task for countries worldwide, especially China, where population aging is particularly severe. According to CSY (China Statistical Yearbook,2019), the elderly aged 65 or above has reached 167 million in 2018, and the number of disabled elderly is as high as 54%. Germany and other countries have alleviated the crisis by promoting the public LTCI (Long-Term Care Insurance) system since the 1990s, while China's public LTCI system formal pilot only started in 2016. Therefore, the development of the public LTCI system has gradually become a hot topic for scholars in various countries, including China.Methods: This review has been systematically sorted the existing related literature to discuss the development of public LTCI (Long-Term Care Insurance)system form four aspects, namely, the comparison of public LTCI systems in different countries, the influence of public LTCI, challenge of public LTCI, and the relationship between public LTCI and private LTCI. We searched some databases including Web of Science Core Collection, Medline, SCOPUS, EBSCO, EMBASE, ProQuest and PubMed from January 2008 to September 2020. The quality of 38 quantitative and 21 qualitative articles was evaluated using the CASP(Critical Appraisal Skills Programme) critical evaluation checklist.Results: The review systematically examines the development of public LTCI system from four aspects, namely, the comparison of public LTCI systems in different countries, the influence of public LTCI, the challenge of public LTCI, and the relationship between public LTCI and private LTCI. For example, LTCI has a positive effect on the health and life quality of the disabled elderly. However, the role of LTCI in alleviating the financial burden on families with the disabled elderly may be limited.Conclusion: Some policy implications on the future development of China's LTCI system can be obtained. For example, the government should fully consider the constraints such as price rise, the elderly disability rate, and the substantial economic burden. It also can strengthen the effective combination of public LTCI and private LTCI. It does not only help to expand the space for its theoretical research but also to learn the experiences in the practice of the LTCI system in various countries around the world. It will significantly help the smooth development and further promote the in-depth reform of the LTCI system in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical investigation of recent trends and changes in companies' production relocation and backshoring behaviour against the background of the global economic crisis. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical research is based on a large data set of 1,484 German manufacturing companies as part of the European Manufacturing Survey (EMS). The paper employs a structured set of probit analyses to identify the differences of production relocation and backshoring determinants before and within the crisis. Findings – Against common belief the paper finds that not only the relocation of production to emerging countries, but also the backshoring of once offshored manufacturing capacities to the home base is a relevant phenomenon. Since the emergence of the global economic crisis, relocation activities declined significantly, whereas the level of backshoring activities has remained stable. Far-shore destinations in Asia gain in attractiveness over near-shore locations in Eastern Europe. Particularly export-intensive companies tended recently towards (re-)concentrating of their production capacities, trying to exploit the benefits of higher capacity utilisation and a superior relation of variable costs to fix costs at their existing locations. Research limitations/implications – Although covering a significant range of industrial sectors in Germany, more empirical evidence is needed from other branches and countries. Looking forward it is proposed to systemically integrate scenarios on the future development of the most influential environmental factors in future research frameworks for global production decisions and value chains. Practical implications – The findings strongly recommend a revision of established decision-making schemes for production relocations based on pure cost efficiency considerations. Decision-making should integrate qualitative environmental factors and dynamic considerations using scenario-based tools. Companies need to understand and prepare for dynamic developments at different locations which can strategically necessitate backshoring after a certain time. Originality/value – The research considerably widens the empirical knowledge on recent trends in relocation activities and their inherent risks, which in a dynamic perspective are sometimes forcing backshoring activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at explaining whether R&D subsidies, the engagement in collaboration networks and the location influence the patent activities of biotech firms in Germany! We demonstrate that R&D subsidies focusing on single firms do not increase patent intensity, while subsidies which are granted to joint R&D projects do so to a certain extent. The number of knowledge links firms have is not influencing performance, but the type of network partners has an effect. We found strong evidence that some but not too much cognitive distance between collaboration partners and being located in a cluster have a positive effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Opioids are one of the most important and effective drug classes in pain medicine with a key role in most medical fields. The increase of opioid prescription over time has led to higher numbers of prescription opioid misuse, abuse and opioid-related deaths in most developed OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries around the world. Whilst reliable data on the prevalence of opioid treatment is accessible for many countries, data on Germany specifically is still scarce. Considering Germany being the largest country in the European Union, the lack of evidence-based strategies from long-term studies is crucial. The aim of this work is to review and summarise relevant published literature on the prevalence of opioid prescription in Germany to adequately inform health policy strategies. Methods: A systematic review of the epidemiology of opioid prescription in Germany was conducted, searching PubMed and Web of Science. Eligibility criteria were defined prior to conducting the search. Literature concerning Germany, published in English and German was included and the search was replicated by three independent researchers. Two levels of screening were employed. Disagreement was resolved by face-to-face discussion, leading to a consensus judgement. Results: Our electronic search yielded 735 articles. Reviewing titles and abstracts yielded 19 relevant articles. Three authors examined each article’s full text more closely and determined that twelve papers should be included. Of the twelve identified studies—with publication dates ranging from 1985 to 2016—six were retrospective cross-sectional studies and six were retrospective repeated-measures cross-sectional studies. Sample sizes ranged from 92,842 to ≈ 11,000,000 participants. Data sources of included studies showed vast heterogeneity. The reviewed literature suggested an increase in the number of patients with opioid prescriptions and defined daily doses of opioids per recipient in Germany over time. The majority of opioid prescriptions was used for patients with non-cancer pain. Opioid use was more common in older people, women and in the north of Germany. Fentanyl was shown to be the most prescribed strong opioid in outpatient settings in Germany, despite not being the first-line choice for chronic pain conditions. All data published before 2000—but none of the more recent studies—suggested an insufficient treatment of pain using opioids. There were no signs for a current opioid epidemic in Germany. Conclusions: Despite some limitations of the review and the heterogeneity of studies, it can be stated that the number of opioid prescriptions overall as well as the number of people receiving opioid treatment have increased over time. Most prescriptions were found to be for strong opioids and patients with non-cancer pain. Even though patterns of opioid prescription follow trends observed in other developed countries, there are no signs of an opioid epidemic in Germany. Therefore, this review could currently not find a need for urgent health policy interventions regarding opioid prescription practices. However, critical gaps in the literature remain and more research is needed to make more reliable judgements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a dataset of 3540 economists working in 2007 in 125 of the best academic centers in 22 countries, this paper presents some evidence on spatial mobility patterns in Spain and other countries conditional on some personal, department, and country characteristics. There are productivity and other reasons for designing a scientific policy with the aims of attracting foreign talent (brain gain), minimizing the elite brain drain, and recovering nationals who have earned a Ph.D. or have spent some time abroad (brain circulation). Our main result is that Spain has more brain gain, more brain circulation and less brain drain than comparable large, continental European countries, i.e., Germany, France, and Italy, where economists have similar opportunities for publishing their research in English or in their own languages. We suggest that these results can be mostly explained by the governance changes introduced in a number of Spanish institutions in 1975–1990 by a sizable contingent of Spanish economists coming back home after attending graduate school abroad. These initiatives were also favored by the availability of resources to finance certain research-related activities, including international Ph.D. programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermal-based power stations rely on water for cooling purposes. These water sources may be subject to incidents of scarcity, environmental regulations, and competing economic concerns. This paper analyzes the effect of water scarcity and increased river temperatures on German electricity prices from 2002 to 2009. Having controlled for demand effects, the results indicate that the electricity price is significantly impacted by both a change in river temperatures and the relative abundance of river water. An implication is that future climate change will affect electricity prices not only through changes in demand, but also via increased water temperatures and scarcity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The topic of this paper is related to equity in health within a country. In public health care sectors of many countries decisions on priority setting with respect to treatment of different types of diseases or patient groups are implicitly or explicitly made. Priorities are realized by allocation decisions for medical resources where moral judgments play an important role with respect to goals and measures that should be applied. The aim of this study is to explore the moral intuitions held in the German society related to priorities in medical treatment. Methods: We use an experimental questionnaire method established in the Empirical Social Choice literature. Participants are asked to make decisions in a sequence of distributive problems where a limited amount of treatment time has to be allocated to hypothetically described patients. The decision problems serve as an intuition pump. Situations are systematically varied with respect to patients' initial health levels, their ability to benefit from treatment time, and the amount of treatment time available. Subjects are also asked to describe their deliberations. We focus on the acceptance of different allocation principles including equity concepts and utilitarian properties. We investigate rule characteristics like order preservation or monotonicity with respect to resources, severity, or effectiveness. We check the consistency of individual choices with stated reasoning. Results: The goals and allocation principles revealed show that the moral intuitions held by our experimental subjects are much more complex than the principles commonly applied in health economic theory. Especially, cost-utility principles are rarely applied, whereas the goal of equality of health gain is observed more often. The principle not to leave any patient untreated is very dominant. We also observe the degrees to which extent certain monotonicity principles, known from welfare economics, are followed. Subjects were able to describe their moral judgments in written statements. We also find evidence that they followed their respective intuitions very consistently in their decisions. Conclusions: Findings of the kind presented in this paper may serve as an important input for the public and political discussion when decisions on priorities in the public health care sector are formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the assumption of strict exogeneity, which is usually invoked in estimating models of state dependence with unobserved heterogeneity, is violated in the poverty context as important variables determining contemporaneous poverty status, in particular employment status and household composition, are likely to be influenced by past poverty outcomes. Therefore, a model of state dependence is developed that explicitly allows for possible feedback effects from past poverty to future employment and household composition outcomes. Empirical results based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) suggest that there are indeed such feedback effects and that failure to take them into account may lead to biased estimates of the state dependence effect. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how fiscal adjustment comes about when both central and sub-national governments are involved in consolidation. We test sustainability of public debt with a fiscal rule for both federal and regional government. Results for the German Länder show that lower tier governments bear a relatively smaller part of the burden of debt consolidation, if they consolidate at all. Most of the fiscal adjustment occurs via central government debt. In contrast, both the US federal and state levels contribute to consolidation of public finances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to map some of the diversity in employee relations in Germany that is overlooked, first, within assessments of the German labour market that focus on the national level and second, within separate studies in this ares that emphasize attempts by employers to circumvent important institutions. Design/methodology/approach - The research adopts a quantitative approach to examine data for German manufacturing and service sectors on both the spread of industry-wide collective agreements and the extent to which workers are paid wage rates that are higher than those set out in those agreements. It also assesses the prevalence of profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes. Findings - Industry-wide collective agreements are not the burden that they are often portrayed. Actual wage rates and the prevalence of profit sharing and ESOSs make German workplaces more heterogeneous than critics and advocates of the German economic model posit. Research limitations/implications - The data are limited to Germany; however, Germany occupies a prominent position, not just within much of the employment relations literature, but also in terms of economic output. The research is also limited by an inability to provide evidence on workplaces that undercut sectoral collective agreements and to disaggregate the data further by sector and firm size/location. Originality/value - The paper provides a counterpoint to the portrayals of employee relations in Germany that often present a homogeneous picture of those relations. For the first time, data on the spread of profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes in German workplaces at the sectoral level are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the seminal contribution of McCallum (1995) economists have tried to estimate the border effect for other countries than the United States and Canada, but have been confronted with a key data problem: data on regional trade flows are extremely rare. The different approaches put forward to overcome this lack of information have been shown to hinge crucially on certain distance measures. The main purpose of this paper is to develop a method that allows us determining border effects with a high degree of accuracy in the absence of intra-national trade data. We show how to improve the estimation of border effects with the example of France and Germany using data on regional transportation flows. Our results indicate that France trades about eight times more and Germany about three times more with itself than with other EU countries, respectively, compared to the predictions of the gravity equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many recent attempts to find evidence on downward nominal wage rigidity in micro data have suffered from problems such as composition bias and the effects of measurement error. In this paper, a model of proportional downward nominal wage rigidity is developed which avoids these problems by taking into account the determinants of wage changes and the measurement process that leads to observable earnings changes. We find a high degree of downward nominal wage rigidity in German micro data. Its real implications for individual expected wage growth, the aggregate wage level and equilibrium unemployment have marked effects for rates of inflation lower than 3 percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current criticism of higher education is that the education offered does not match the needs of practice. In terms of competitiveness, Germany is about the forefront in Europe, and logically the question of whether higher education is the source from which leads to this result. The objective of this paper is to compare the corresponding study programs of Czech and German universities in the area of Economics by identifying the relevant differences and to confirm or dismiss the validity of the research hypothesis „Business Economics programs at German universities differ in ways that can boost competitiveness“. In order to compare the study programs between Czech and German universities, the eight faculties of Economics geared towards Business and Economics and Bachelor degree program were selected. As an introductory information, the structure of the programs was compared in terms of course load and which courses being compulsory, elective, and various forms of actual work practice and Bachelor thesis. The portfolio analysis of compulsory courses was organized into more general course groups and the percentage share of the total extent of compulsory courses was evaluated and the percentage of the active part. The analysis of Bachelor’s degree programs justifies the validity of the research hypothesis such that German study programs are more focused on practical application in a work environment. To that, contribute significantly the German specific institutions, the universities of applied sciences, which are strongly geared towards the needs of actual practice. The reflection of findings may apply in the context of the forthcoming implementation of amendment to the Higher Education Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents information and updates related to the economics profession as of March 1988. The Electoral College on March 18, 1988, chose Gerard Debreu as nominee for President-elect of the American Economic Association in the balloting to be held in the autumn of 1988. Other nominees (chosen by the 1988 Nominating Committee) are; Vice-President (two to be elected) Alan S. Blinder, Andrew F. Brimmer, Christopher A. Sims, and Oliver E. Williamson; for members of the Executive Committee (two to be elected) William A. Darity Jr., Stanley Fischer, John B. Shoven, and Lawrence H. Summers. The Southern Economic Association will hold its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, November 20-22, 1988. The second annual meeting of the European Society for Population Economics will be held at the University of Mannheim, Federal Republic of Germany in June 1988. The Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago has received authorization to grant a Ph.D. in Business Economics. The new doctoral degree program is intended to prepare students for research careers in the business community or research/teaching careers in business colleges. Applicants with or without an MBA degree are welcome to apply. The new program complements the department's existing Ph.D. program which emphasizes public policy analysis.

In the context of climate change mitigation and sustainable energy infrastructure development, this paper focuses on the successful implementation of microgrids supplied by renewable energies in very diverse environments. Taking into account the challenges of reaching economies of scale, this paper is targeted at identifying success factors for microgrid implementation. The success factors are derived from case study analyses of microgrids implemented in the Global South and in communities of Germany. The goal of the research is to develop a mutual understanding of common values and so support future developments. The analysis covers the categories of ownership and participation; technology and system design; and policy and financing. The results show that microgrids in the Global South and renewable-energy-based communities in Germany share a number of success factors. The results demonstrate that a high share of ownership by users and the flexibility to expand the microgrid with user needs are particularly promising features. To verify the application of the identified success factors, the latter are applied to analyze the microgrid concept of “swarm electrification”. The analysis concludes that the concept of swarm electrification is consistent with the success factors, making it a high-potential approach for renewable-energy-based electrification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Migration Letters is the property of Transnational Press London Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Population aging is an inevitable global demographic process. Most of the literature on the consequences of demographic change focuses on the economic and societal challenges that we will face as people live longer and have fewer children. In this paper, we (a) briefly describe key trends and projections of the magnitude and speed of population aging; (b) discuss the economic, social, and environmental consequences of population aging; and (c) investigate some of the opportunities that aging societies create. We use Germany as a case study. However, the general insights that we obtain can be generalized to other developed countries. We argue that there may be positive unintended side effects of population aging that can be leveraged to address pressing environmental problems and issues of gender inequality and intergenerational ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that the existence of deposit and lending facilities combined with an averaging provision for the reserve requirement are powerful tools to stabilize the overnight rate. We reach this conclusion by comparing the behavior of this rate in Germany before and after the start of the EMU. The analysis of the German experience allows us to isolate the effects on the overnight rate of these particular instruments of monetary policy. To illustrate that this outcome is a general conclusion and not a particular result of the German market, we develop a theoretical model of reserve management, which is able to reproduce our empirical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early modern Brandenburg-Prussia, feudal lords (Gutsherren) were primarily the owners of both large estates that required peasant labor and large forests from which they were obligated to supply their peasants with life's necessities. This paper examines the practice of timber granting to peasants in the sovereign demesnes of the Kurmark Brandenburg from 1650 to 1850. To challenge the general understanding that peasants both remained dependent on timber grants and abused them until approximately 1800, this paper investigates the increases in peasants' share of the building costs for their farmsteads and the positive effects of timber regulations in the eighteenth century, including self-regulation by peasants. In addition, while previous studies have accentuated the peasants' thefts of wood after losing their entitlements to the lords' forests due to the reform legislation of the early nineteenth century, this paper presents cases in which peasants successfully retained their entitlements, gained payment for timber grants, or afforested their own land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on the 30th International Exhibition Congress on Chemical Engineering, Environmental Protection and Biotechnology (Achema 2012) held in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in June is presented. Topics discussed include the role of the chemical process industries (CPI) in promoting sustainability, the economic aspects of renewable biomass fuels, and the link between renewable energy, biomass development, and sustainability.

The paper examines the combination of the German Aging Survey (Deutscher Alters survey - DEAS) with the Sample of Active Pension Accounts (Versicherungskontenstichprobe - VSKT), as an example of how survey results may be linked together with administrative data using statistical matching. Statistical matching is a technique increasingly being applied in order to combine information from different data sources where no linkage can be made between records based on any unique identifier. This might be due to confidentiality restrictions or attempts to avoid the high attrition rates connected with informed consent requirements. The aim of this matching is to provide a combined dataset that contains more information than the data sources would on their own. In our paper, we detail some preparatory steps for making this match, such as the definition and adjustment of matching variables. The steps we describe may well be worth challenging on the basis of the divergent characteristics of the two sets of data. We also outline the procedure we used to combine the data sources, based on the Mahalanobis distance vector. Finally, we assess the quality of the matching by comparing the individual pension amounts that we can extract from each of the two matching sources as our external criterion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Collected Papers of Zagreb Law Faculty / Zbornik Pravnog Fakulteta u Zagrebu is the property of Sveuciliste u Zagrebu, Pravni Fakultet and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At first glance, present tourism in the southern Baltic Sea region could most likely be described as 'beach tourism'. Given that the beach is the main point of interest for the majority of coastal tourists, destinations largely rely on the potential of natural beaches. With more than 33 million overnight stays along the German Baltic coast in 2009 of which 70% refer to the beach as the main reason for choosing the destination, an effective management of beaches already today plays a decisive role for success. At present, predominant concerns of coastal communities are losses of sand caused by erosion and storm surges, and summery accumulations of beach wrack. They threaten the recreational use of beaches and are therefore driving elements in stakeholder discussions. In future, global influences such as climate change could be of additional influence. Impacts on a regional level are still being analyzed. Prospective favorable weather conditions in summer might further increase the number of visitors, and thus bring among new challenges also new economic possibilities. Based on these premises, ongoing national as well as European funded projects are conducting research on present and future influences on coastal tourism within the region. Parallel to identifying crucial issues for coastal destinations, relevant stakeholders are brought together in workshops and topical symposiums. Project work aims at initiating a participatory regional stakeholder network and enabling it to develop successful adaptation strategies to a variety of future challenges. In addition, studies on the perception of tourists are carried out and information brochures on climate change and other beach related aspects are devised. The paper summarizes recent results of the RADOST and BaltCICA projects and gives an overview on how current and future changes might affect coastal tourism at the German Baltic coast in the next decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how subjects extrapolate simple patterns in financial time series in order to develop a descriptive model of actual agent behavior. The laboratory experiment for this analysis was conducted in Germany and Japan. Statistical analyses indicate considerable similarity in expectations formation across cultures and document that agents' expectations are at variance with the notion of standard trend extrapolation. The paper then proposes a method for computing expectations for any economic time series based on the experimental data. Such pattern-based expectations are shown to explain stock prices and the dynamics of the forward discount on the foreign exchange market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central prediction of a large class of theoretical models is that industry location is not uniquely determined by fundamentals. Despite the theoretical prominence of this idea, there is little systematic evidence in support of its empirical relevance. This paper exploits the division of Germany after World War II and the reunification of East and West Germany as an exogenous shock to industry location. Focusing on a particular economic activity, an air hub, we develop a body of evidence that the relocation of Germany's air hub from Berlin to Frankfurt in response to division is a shift between multiple steady states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Anxiety disorders are widespread in patients with chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This paper targets the cost-effectiveness analysis of a cognitive-behavioral group therapy (CBT) in comparison to a client-centered, supportive-experiential group therapy (SET) in arthritis patients with dysfunctional fear of progression. Methods From the societal perspective, direct costs were compared with the reduction of fear of progression over time. Means, their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), the incremental cost-effectiveness graphic and the acceptability curve were obtained using 1000 non-parametric bootstrap replications. Results A total of 174 RA patients were included in the economic evaluation. The estimated means (95% CI) of direct costs and reduction of fear of progression were, respectively, €7945.34 (5075.59; 11335.08) and 0.25 (−0.48; 0.99) for patients in the SET and 5619.25 € (3950.67; 7708.52) and 0.94 (0.29; 1.62) for patients in the CBT. As the majority of the cost-effect pairs after bootstrap analysis were located in the southeast quadrant of the cost-effectiveness plane, the CBT can be considered a dominant intervention. Conclusion The main result of our study is the higher cost-effectiveness of CBT in comparison to SET in RA patients with dysfunctional fear of progression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)