C:\inmedialo\oko\heft_223-56\titelei\contents.dvi

Jahrbücher f. Nationalökonomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 Inhalt / Contents
Abhandlungen / Original Papers
Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
Barnett, William A., Getting it Wrong. How Faulty Monetary Statistics Undermine the Fed, the Financial System and the Economy . . . . . . . . . . .
Heckman, James J., Giving Kids a Fair Chance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pies, Ingo, Martin Leschke (Hrsg.), Edmund Phelps’ strukturalistische Ökonomik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jahrbücher f. Nationalökonomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 The Politics of Surprise Devaluations:
Modelling Motives for Giving Up a Peg
Frank Bohn
Radboud University Nijmegen
Grand corruption; political instability; exchange rate regime; monetary policy; fiscal policy; rent-seeking.
Planned ‘‘surprise’’ devaluations are often spurred by non-economic circumstances: a rent-seeking government; political instability; or the opportunity to put the blame on a predecessorgovernment. In this paper, these aspects are incorporated in the monetary and fiscal policyframework first suggested by Alesina and Tabellini (1987). It is shown that reneging on a fixedexchange rate promise unambiguously produces short term benefits, but long run losses. Thisleads to a non-straightforward trade-off between greediness (propensity for expropriation) andpolitical stability (which implies a low time preference). The findings are empirically relevantand theoretically robust to extensions.
Jahrbu¨cher f. Nationalo¨konomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 Technologiestandort Deutschland und internationaleWissensspilloverWelchen Einfluss nehmen ausla¨ndische MNU auf deutsche Exporte? Technology Site Germany and International KnowledgeSpilloversWhat Effect do Foreign MNCs have on German Exports? Elmar Lukas und Christian HeimannOtto-von-Guericke-Universita¨t Magdeburg Innovationen; Exporte; F&E-Spillover; FDI; Patente; Gravitationsmodell.
The inherent technical capability of a domestic economy has a significant effect upon trade. Inaddition, the innovation achievement potential of foreign countries and their companies mayalso enhance a given situation. International trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) provideknowledge transmission channels for innovation and research and development spillovers. Ap-plying a Panel Analysis for the period 1990 to 2008, this study examines the bilateral exportflows of Germany with the remaining 31 OECD countries. Using an extended gravity modelthe study investigates which influence the trade partners’ innovation potential, as well as theresearch intensity of foreign multinational companies (MNCs) has upon German exports.
The novel aspect of this study is the introduction of a direct measure for knowledge spillover.
The findings show, that the trade partners’ innovation potential as well as their FDI has asignificant positive influence upon trade. In particular, the more innovative a foreign MNClocated in Germany is, the greater the amount of German exports.
Jahrbu¨cher f. Nationalo¨konomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 Identifying Free-riding in Home Renovation ProgramsUsing Revealed Preference Data Christoph M. SchmidtRheinisch-Westfa¨lisches Institut fu¨r Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI)and Ruhr-University Bochum Colin VanceRheinisch-Westfa¨lisches Institut fu¨r Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI),and Jacobs University Bremen Energy efficiency; residential sector; random utility model; discrete choice simulation.
Identifying free-ridership is significant to several issues relevant to program evaluation, includ-ing the calculation of net program benefits and assessments of political acceptability. Despitethe potential of free-ridership to seriously undermine the economic efficiency of a programintervention, for instance to foster energy efficiency, the issue remains largely absent from con-temporary environmental and energy policy discussions in Europe. One reason for this neglectis the inherent difficulty of assessing which households would have undertaken the energy-conservation activity even without the program. This paper proposes a procedure to calculatethe free-rider share using revealed preference data on home renovations from Germany’sresidential sector. We employ a discrete-choice model to analyze the effect of grants on renova-tion choices, the output from which is used to assess the extent of free-ridership under a subsidyprogram very akin to an implemented grants program in Germany. Our empirical resultssuggest only very moderate energy savings induced by the program, making free-riding aproblem of outstanding importance.
Jahrbu¨cher f. Nationalo¨konomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 Trust and Control at the WorkplaceEvidence from Representative Samples of Employees in Europe Christian Grund and Christine HarbringRWTH Aachen University Autonomy; control; monitoring; performance appraisal; regulation of working time; trust.
Based on two representative samples of employees, the German Socio Economic Panel and theEuropean Social Survey, we explore the relation between certain measures of control in em-ployment relationships (i. e. working time regulations, use of performance appraisal systems,monitoring by supervisors, autonomy to organize the work) and individuals’ inclination totrust others. Trust is measured by the general trust question like in most other economic studiesbased on surveys. We find that strict working time regulations, monitoring and lack ofautonomy – all indicators for control at the workplace – are negatively associated with trust.
Monitoring also moderates the relation between the existence of a formal performance apprai-sal system and individuals’ trust. Moreover, we contribute to the literature on trust by gatheringhints to other potential correlates of trust.
Jahrbu¨cher f. Nationalo¨konomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 Ein nutzungskostenbasierter Ansatz zur Messung desFaktors Kapital in aggregierten Produktionsfunktionen A User Cost Approach to Capital Measurement in AggregateProduction Functions Thomas A. KnetschDeutsche Bundesbank Frankfurt Capital measurement; aggregation; production function; TFP.
A method is proposed to measure capital services in production. This means that productiveassets are weighted according to their user costs. The user costs of the individual asset classesare estimated based on data from the national accounts and other sources. The results showthat, in the observation period between 1991 and 2011, enterprises’ capital services expandfaster than the officially published capital stock. For the economy as a whole, this applies onlyto phases of cyclical expansion. As the capital stock is aggregated using asset prices, the differ-ences can be explained by the different weighting methods in conjunction with the varyingspeeds at which the individual asset types have accumulated over time. In growth accounting,different estimates of total factor productivity emerge. The methodological difference, how-ever, does not significantly affect the estimates of parametric production function specifications.
Jahrbücher f. Nationalökonomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 Dating Business Cycles in Historical Perspective:
Evidence for Switzerland
Boriss Siliverstovs
KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich
Classical business cycle; turning points; GDP revisions; Switzerland.
In this study we suggest a chronology of the classical business cycle in Switzerland based ondating algorithms suggested in Artis et al. (2004) and Harding and Pagan (2002). A furthercontribution of our study is that we determine the sensitivity of the chronology with respect tothe particular GDP vintage used. For this purpose we employ a real-time database that contains59 vintages of GDP data starting from 1997Q4 and ending in 2012Q2. We show that majorchanges in identified phases of the classical business cycle in Switzerland can be well traced toseveral benchmark revisions to the national accounts. In the absence of benchmark revisionsthe vintage-to-vintage variation exerts a comparatively minor effect on identified phases of theclassical business cycle.
Jahrbücher f. Nationalökonomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 Modified Scheffé’s Prediction Bands
Anna Staszewska-Bystrova
University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland
Prediction band; Scheffé’s band; path-forecast; vector autoregression.
The formula for the Scheffé prediction bands proposed by Jordà and Marcellino (2010) is recon-sidered. It is demonstrated, that in many cases of practical interest, the bands fail to satisfacto-rily approximate the uncertainty associated with a path-forecast. A modification of the Scheffémethod is proposed which improves the coverage properties of the bands.
Jahrbücher f. Nationalökonomie u. Statistik (Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 2013) Bd. (Vol.) 233/5+6 Knowledge Protection Practices in Innovating SMEs
Jörg Thomä
ifh Göttingen, Institute of small business economics at University of Göttingen
Volker Zimmermann
KfW Bankengruppe, Frankfurt a.M.
Appropriability; innovation protection mechanisms; patents; employee retention; SMEs.
This paper examines the use of innovation protection mechanisms in small and medium enter-prises (SMEs). By starting from a knowledge-based view the aim is to achieve a better under-standing of how the role perceived by innovating SMEs of patent protection and the long-termretention of qualified personnel relates to different company-specific factors. Moreover, theinterplay between patents and employee retention and their mutual interdependencies with otherappropriation methods such as secrecy or lead time advantages are explored. This is becausedifferent knowledge protection practices must not only separately provide barriers to imitation,but may also reinforce each other as complements. In several ways, the results provide insightsinto some of the appropriation strategies taken by smaller firms. For example, a staff-relatedappropriation strategy seems to be essential for many SMEs because of their informal modeof learning and innovation characterized by experience-based know-how with strong tacit ele-ments. A relatively strong complementary relationship has been observed between employeeretention and the use of lead time advantages. The paper concludes with a discussion of theimplications for policy and research.

Source: http://www.jbnst.de/download/inh_abst_jahrb5_6_13.pdf