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Im Rahmen ihres Mittelstandsberichts Thüringen stellen die Autoren fest, dass sich das Bruttoinlandsprodukt Thüringens seit dem Jahr 2015 ungünstiger entwickelt hat als das BIP in Deutschland insgesamt, während die Arbeitslosenquote in Thüringen stark zurückging und im Jahr 2021 unter dem Bundesdurchschnitt lag. Anlass zur Sorge bereitet aus ihrer Sicht die geringe Gründungsdynamik. Als Herausforderungen für die mittelständische Wirtschaft sehen sie vor allem den Rückgang der Erwerbsbevölkerung und den Fachkräftemangel, den digitalen Wandel, die Notwendigkeit der Dekarbonisierung sowie die Bewältigung der Corona-Pandemie an. Zur Bewältigung des Fachkräftemangels empfehlen sie, die Attraktivität des Wirtschaftsstandortes Thüringens für Fachkräfte und Hochqualifizierte zu erhöhen. Auch bedarf es nach Ansicht der Autoren einer stärkeren Priorisierung in der Förderpolitik. Vornehmlich gefördert werden sollten Investitionen, die den Strukturwandel voranbringen und zu einer nachhaltigen Steigerung der Produktivität der Unternehmen beitragen, etwa durch arbeitssparende (digitale) Technologien. As part of their SME Report Thuringia, the authors note that Thuringia's gross domestic product has developed less favorably than GDP in Germany as a whole since 2015, while the unemployment rate in Thuringia has fallen sharply and was below the national average in 2021. In their view, the low start-up momentum is a cause for concern. They see the decline in the workforce and the shortage of skilled workers, the digital transformation, the need for decarbonization and coping with the Corona pandemic as the main challenges facing SMEs. To address the shortage of skilled workers, they recommend increasing the attractiveness of Thuringia as a business location for skilled workers and the highly qualified. The authors also believe that there is a need for greater prioritization in funding policy. Priority should be given to investments that promote structural change and contribute to a sustainable increase in the productivity of companies, for example through labor-saving (digital) technologies.

Die Analyse der Auswirkungen des technologischen Wandels auf den deutschen Arbeitsmarkt zeigt, dass sich seit Mitte der 2000er Jahre der vormals dynamische Wandel der Tätigkeitsprofile deutlich verlangsamt hat. Routinetätigkeiten sind kaum noch zurückgegangen und Nicht-Routinetätigkeiten deutlich langsamer gewachsen. Zudem fand der Wandel der Tätigkeitsprofile nicht mehr in erster Linie innerhalb von Berufen, sondern - nicht zuletzt aufgrund verstärkten Einsatzes von Industrierobotern in einigen Berufsfeldern - vor allem zwischen Berufen statt. Mit der Verlangsamung des Wandels der Tätigkeitsprofile hat auch der berufliche Bedarf an höheren Kompetenzen vor allem bei formaler Bildung, kognitiven Kompetenzen und Offenheit für Neues weniger stark zugenommen. Zudem hat sich dessen Einfluss auf Beschäftigung und Löhne stark abgeschwächt, und Auswirkungen auf die Berufswahl und die Teilnahme an Weiterbildung sind insgesamt sehr gering. Festzustellen ist lediglich ein Zusammenhang mit teilweise komplementären Teilnahmen an speziellen Weiterbildungsmaßnahmen.

Unter dem Schlagwort Big Data werden neue und in Abgrenzung zur üblichen Wirtschaftsstatistik unkonventionelle Datenquellen zusammengefasst. Sie sind sehr umfangreich und sehr zeitnah sowie in hoher Frequenz verfügbar. Allerdings weisen diese neuen Daten eine hohe Bandbreite und Komplexität auf, weil sie nicht für die Analyse von ökonomischen Fragestellungen erhoben werden, sondern vielmehr als Nebenprodukt unterschiedlicher Anwendungen anfallen. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellen die Autoren die Anwendungsfelder und Potenziale verschiedener Datenquellen aus dem Bereich Big Data in einem vergleichbaren Rahmen vor. Sie zeigen zudem mögliche zukünftige Potenziale von Big Data auf, die derzeit noch nicht nutzbar sind, weil beispielsweise die dafür notwendigen Daten noch nicht systematisch gesammelt oder erfasst werden. Sie schlussfolgern, dass Big Data in vielen Anwendungsfeldern vor allem komplementär zu den Daten der konventionellen Wirtschaftsstatistik zum Einsatz kommen werden. The buzzword "big data" is used to describe new and unconventional data sources that differ from standard business statistics. They are very extensive and available very promptly and at high frequency. However, these new data have a high bandwidth and complexity because they are not collected for the analysis of economic issues, but rather arise as a byproduct of various applications. Against this background, the authors present the application fields and potentials of different data sources from the field of Big Data in a comparable framework. They also highlight possible future potentials of Big Data that are currently not yet usable because, for example, the data required for this purpose is not yet systematically collected or recorded. They conclude that Big Data will be used in many fields of application, primarily as a complement to data from conventional business statistics.

Die Bruttowertschöpfung im Verarbeitenden Gewerbe ist bereits seit fünf Quartalen rückläufig und in diesem Zeitraum um knapp 5 Prozent gesunken. Damit ging die konjunkturelle Abkühlung in Deutschland zu einem Gutteil vom Verarbeitenden Gewerbe aus. Freilich hat sich in diesem Zeitraum auch die Dynamik in den Dienstleistungsbranchen abgeschwächt: Insgesamt haben sie deutlich geringere Beiträge zum Zuwachs des Bruttoinlandsprodukts als zuvor geleistet. Eine Ausnahme stellt lediglich das erste Quartal des laufenden Jahres dar, in dem hohe Einkommenszuwächse die Wertschöpfung in den Bereichen Handel, Verkehr und Gastgewerbe stimuliert hatten. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit die Abschwächung im Verarbeitenden Gewerbe auf die Dienstleistungsbranchen ausgestrahlt hat und angesichts des deutlichen und persistenten Rückgangs der Bruttowertschöpfung dort noch mit weiteren dämpfenden Effekten in den kommenden Quartalen zu rechnen ist.

This study investigates how the digital revolution, which is characterized by artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and mobile robotics, will affect gender equality in G20 countries, and how governments and non-governmental initiatives may exploit the new digital technologies to narrow these gender gaps in the future. The study focuses on four areas to derive its policy recommendations. First, it assesses if digital technologies will affect gender equality in the foreseeable future by replacing women’s jobs to a different extent than men’s jobs. Second, it determines the state of the art in gender equality and gender-oriented policies in labor markets, financial inclusion and entrepreneurship in the G20 countries. Third, it identifies deficits in women’s digital inclusion that may impair the effectiveness of digitally empowered gender policies. It also shows how digital technologies may empower women. And fourth, it provides three detailed case studies. Two case studies, coauthored by Urvashi Aneja and Vidisha Mishra, zoom deeper into the options for digitally empowered gender policies in two selected countries, India and South Africa, while the third, coauthored by Susan Coleman and Alicia Robb, highlights digitally empowered strategies for reducing the gender gap in angel investment, a promising tool for fostering female entrepreneurship... This study is a joint project by the Women20 and the Think Tank 20 initiatives under the German G20 presidency, supported financially by the Emerging Market Sustainability Dialogues (EMSD) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). This study is the final report. An executive summary has been published on occasion of the Women20 summit in Berlin.

Das über einen längeren Zeitraum rückläufige Wachstum der Arbeitsproduktivität in Deutschland ist durch die Abfolge mehrerer, jeweils temporär wirksamer Faktoren erklärbar. Die Autoren sehen den Produktivitätsrückgang dabei nicht als Ergebnis eines dauerhaften Trends an. Sie machen für den Zeitraum seit der Wiedervereinigung fünf Hauptgründe aus, die den Produktivitätsfortschritt in verschiedenen Phasen gedämpft haben. The trend decline of productivity growth in Germany is not due to a single cause but is the result of the interplay of multiple factors with time-varying relative importance. Notwithstanding severe measurement issues, the evidence is real and not a statistical artefact. As a major part of the explanation of the weak productivity performance in recent years is a temporary process of successful integration of relatively low qualified workers into the labour market, there is no reason to expect productivity growth in Germany to remain depressed in the longer term.

Digital technologies will both create new jobs and replace existing ones. To cope with increasing labor market dynamics in the digital age, workers will have to become more mobile across jobs, occupations, and industries. The relative importance of their job-specific skills will decrease while that of their general skills applicable to various occupations will increase. The G20 should establish national adult training programs that focus on improving workers' general skills, specifically their theoretical, non-cognitive, and digital skills. These general skills will enable workers to work with technology instead of competing with it, thereby increasing their job mobility and employability.

We present empirical evidence suggesting that technological progress in the digital age will be biased not only with respect to skills acquired through education but also with respect to noncognitive skills (personality). We measure the direction of technological change by estimated future digitalization probabilities of occupations, and noncognitive skills by the Big Five personality traits from several German worker surveys. Even though we control extensively for education and experience, we find that workers characterized by strong openness and emotional stability tend to be less susceptible to digitalization. Traditional indicators of human capital thus measure workers' skill endowments only imperfectly.

This paper substantiates the debate following Richard Florida's suggestion to measure regional human capital by creative occupations rather than education. Consistent with Florida's notion of creativity, it suggests a microfoundation that relates creativity to workers' cognitive and noncognitive skills. It shows that this microfoundation is similar to that of human capital in recent labor economics, which has facilitated important new insights. It also shows that Florida's measure is too crude to make a difference. Nonethe-less, it is time to rethink regional human capital. Occupations may help project workers' cognitive and noncognitive skills from the micro to the regional level.

Deutschland weist seit mehreren Jahren einen anhaltenden Leistungsbilanzüberschuss auf. Im Vorfeld der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise stieg der Überschuss über mehrere Jahre deutlich an und hatte im Jahr 2007 über 7 Prozent des Bruttoinlandsprodukts (BIP) erreicht. Neben Deutschland wiesen auch weitere EU-Länder, z.B. Österreich, Schweden oder Finnland anhaltende und steigende Leistungsbilanzüberschüsse auf. Gleichzeitig hatten andere, vor allem südeuropäische, EU-Länder wachsende und anhaltende Leistungsbilanzdefizite. Seit 2007 haben sich zwar die Leistungsbilanzsalden fast aller europäischen Länder wieder verringert, Deutschland verzeichnet jedoch nach wie vor einen Überschuss von 6 bis 7 Prozent des BIP. Leistungsbilanzungleichgewichte sind oftmals Ausdruck unterschiedlicher Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Gerade Deutschland wird häufig vorgeworfen, seine Wettbewerbsfähigkeit mittels übermäßiger Lohnzurückhaltung gestärkt zu haben. Deutschlands Exporte seien dadurch relativ preiswert geworden und der Leistungsbilanzüberschuss gewachsen. Gleichzeitig hätten andere Länder an Wettbewerbsfähigkeit verloren (z.B. durch zu hohe Lohnabschlüsse). Ihre Exporte seien deshalb relativ teuer geworden und ihre Leistungsbilanzdefizite gewachsen. So hätten die Ungleichgewichte zugenommen. [...]

Night lights could be a valuable proxy of economic activity at the subnational level when GDP data are lacking or of poor quality. Supplementing Henderson et al.'s (2012) analysis at the national level, we assess the stability of the elasticity of GDP with regard to night lights across regions in Brazil, India, the United States, and Western Europe. The relationship between regional GDP and night lights proves to be unstable, not only where regional GDP data may be unreliable but also where such data are of high quality. This suggests that night lights tend to be a poor proxy of regional economic activity.

This paper presents descriptive evidence suggesting that there may be something to be learned about the future patterns of international offshoring from the recent patterns of 'domestic offshoring', the relocation of activities across regions within countries. Industries appear to offshore activities first within the same country and only later across the national border. Investigating the domestic and international offshoring patterns for West German manufacturing industries between 1992 and 2007, we find that, on the one hand, industries that offshored more extensively domestically offshored less extensively internationally, and vice versa. On the other hand, we find that those industries that offshored more extensively domestically were still in earlier stages of their life cycles while those that offshored more extensively internationally were already in later stages. International unbundling may consequently not be as unpredictable as it is currently believed to be.

We test a New Economic Geography (NEG) model for U.S. counties, employing a new strategy that allows us to bring the full NEG model to the data, and to assess selected elements of this model separately. We find no empirical support for the full NEG model. Regional wages in the U.S. do not respond to local wage shocks in the way predicted by the model. We show that the main reason for this is that the model does not predict either the migration patterns induced by local wage shocks or the repercussions of this migration for regional wages correctly.

This paper establishes eight stylized facts on the evolution of the localization of economic activity across industries and regions in the EU-15 since 1980. Localization, which nests concentration and specialization, is measured by a Theil index. The stylized facts reveal a broad aggregate trend towards structural convergence in the EU-15. The by far most important drivers of this convergence have been the sectoral structural change from highly concentrated agriculture and manufacturing industries towards dispersed services, and a continuing dispersion of services. The manufacturing sector, by contrast, worked against this structural convergence as it has become spatially more concentrated. The stylized facts also reveal that virtually all countries and most of their regions participated in this structural convergence. The speed of aggregate structural cohesion slowed down considerably in the early 1990s, however.

This paper solves one of the puzzles in the analysis of regional and industrial distributions of economic activity, the discrepancy between absolute and relative measures. It shows that the difference between an absolute and a relative Theil index of localization can be expressed in terms of absolute and relative concentration and specialization measures. This helps understand and explore why absolute and relative measures frequently evolve in opposite directions. The paper shows for the EU-15 and for UK manufacturing that this divergence originates mainly from the industrial dimension and is largely a statistical artifact inherited from the characteristics of industry classifications.

This paper estimates annual data on educational attainment for 3,076 mainland U.S. counties 1991-2005. Being estimated without resorting to ancillary information, this data is suited particular well for panel regression analyses. Several plausibility checks indicate that the data is fairly reliable and yields plausible parameter estimates in a panel regression.

This paper argues for an ambitious but realistic approach to defining the future role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF is the only international institution with the analytical capacity and political standing to hold all national governments accountable to the same standards for macroeconomic policies and financial sector regulation. By focusing on this task, the IMF will make a crucial contribution to the international coordination of macroeconomic and financial market policies and to preventing future financial crises. This paper makes specific proposals for empowering the IMF for this role. The IMF's independence from individual member state governments should be strengthened and its governance structure should be reformed to enhance ownership by all stakeholders.

This paper estimates the aggregate productivity effects of Marshallian externalities generated by foreign direct investments (FDI) in the US. In contrast to earlier work, this paper puts special emphasis on controlling for Marshallian externalities and other intra- and inter-regional spillovers generated by domestic firms. The productivity effects of these externalities may, if not accounted for appropriately, be falsely attributed to FDI. This paper also deals with the potential endogeneity of FDI and the presence of spatial lags by employing a system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. We use a regional production function framework that models Marshallian externalities and other intra- and inter-regional spillovers explicitly as determinants of total factor productivity, and tests several empirical specifications of this model, using data for US states from 19772003. The results indicate that FDI does, in fact, generate positive externalities, while those from domestic firms are negative.

This paper investigates the effects of inward FDI on per-capita income and growth of the US states since the mid-1970s. Using a Markov chain approach, it shows that both quantitative and qualitative characteristics of FDI affect per-capita income and growth. Employment-intensive FDI, concentrated in richer states, has been conducive to income growth, while capital-intensive FDI, concentrated in poorer states, has not. FDI has consequently tended to slow down rather than foster income convergence among US states. It appears to be less important whether FDI has been undertaken in the manufacturing sector of US states or in other sectors.

The paper proposes an econometric approach for quantifying jointly the geographical scope of commuting as well as the various forms of agglomeration economies originating from metropolitan centers. Adopting an urban economics perspective, and using land prices to measure their aggregate effects, the approach estimates the geographical reach of commuting and urban externalities from a hierarchical system of gradient functions. The results for West German NUTS3 regions indicate that metropolitan areas may be larger than suggested by MSA classifications based on commuting only. Metropolitan subcenters are found to enlarge metropolitan areas significantly.

The paper extends the methodological toolbox of measures of industrial concentration and regional specialization. First, a taxonomy is proposed which gives rise to a modular construction system for disproportionality measures based on three characteristic features: the projection function, the reference distribution, and the weighting scheme. The taxonomy helps reduce the mismatch between research purpose, data and statistical measure which has been one of the major obstacles to reliable inferences in the literature. Second, the taxonomy is extended (i) to measures of polarization which evaluate specialization and concentration simultaneously and allow for a nested analysis at different spatial and industrial scales, and (ii) to spatial concentration measures which deal with the checkerboard problem and MAUP by taking into account information from neighboring regions.