Competitiveness of West German industry considerably improved
Jacqueline Rothfels
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 14,
1998
Abstract
Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, Industrie, Westdeutschland, Außenhandel, Produktivität
Es wird die Entwicklung der Arbeitsproduktiviät der westdeutschen Industrieunternehmen in den 80er und 90er Jahren als eine Determinante der internationalen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit untersucht. Der Vergleich mit der Entwicklung in den wichtigsten Konkurrenzländern im Außenhandel zeigt eine in den meisten Branchen verbesserte Leistungsfähigkeit westdeutscher Unternehmen.
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East Germany's economic structure and the productivity gap
Jacqueline Rothfels
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 13,
1997
Abstract
Es wird untersucht, inwieweit der Rückstand der Arbeitsproduktivität der ostdeutschen gegenüber der westdeutschen Wirtschaft auf die unterschiedlichen Wirtschaftsstrukturen zurückzuführen ist. Eine Komponentenzerlegung zeigt, dass von der Wirtschaftsstruktur nur ein geringer Einfluss ausgeht.
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International competitiveness of West German industry - No uniform picture
Jacqueline Rothfels
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 4,
1996
Abstract
Anhand von Welthandelsanteilen und dem RCA-Index wird die Entwicklung der Wettbewerbsposition der westdeutschen Industrieunternehmen untersucht. Dabei ergibt sich auf Ebene der verschiedenen Branchen des Verarbeitenden Gewerbes eine differenzierte Entwicklung.
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Determinants of the productivity gap in East Germany – Part II
Gerald Müller, Anita Wölfl, Jacqueline Rothfels
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 2,
1998
Abstract
In dieser Artikelserie werden die Ergebnisse einer interdisziplinären Tagung beim IWH im November 1997 zu den Determinanten der Produktivitätslücke zusammengefasst. Behandelt werden in diesem zweiten Teil die Themen Absatzwirtschaftliche Schwachpunkte (Vortrag von Klaus-Dieter Schmidt, IfW Kiel), Preisposition ostdeutscher Unternehmen (Gerald Müller, IWH), Innovationsanstrengungen (Johannes Felder, Alfred Spielkamp, ZEW), Kooperation und Innovationserfolg (Rolf Lukas, TU Bergakademie Freiberg).
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Determinants of the productivity gap in East Germany – Results of an IWH conference – Part I
Joachim Ragnitz, Anita Wölfl, Jacqueline Rothfels
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 1,
1998
Abstract
In dieser Artikelserie werden die Ergebnisse einer interdisziplinären Tagung beim IWH im November 1997 zu den Determinanten der Produktivitätslücke zusammengefasst. Behandelt werden in diesem ersten Teil die Themen Kapitalstock und Produktivität (Vortrag von Bernd Görzig, DIW), Technikausstattung und Technologiemanagement (Gunter Lay, Carsten Dreher, ISIFhG), Arbeitsorientierung und Betriebsorganisation (Rudi Schmidt, Universität Jena), Führungskräfte in ostdeutschen Betrieben (Rainhart Lang, TU Chemnitz).
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The Identification of Technology Regimes in Banking: Implications for the Market Power-Fragility Nexus
Michael Koetter, Tigran Poghosyan
Journal of Banking and Finance,
No. 8,
2009
Abstract
Neglecting the existence of different technologies in banking can contaminate efficiency, market power, and other performance measures. By simultaneously estimating (i) technology regimes conditional on exogenous factors, (ii) efficiency conditional on risk management, and (iii) Lerner indices of German banks, we identify three distinct technology regimes: Public & Retail, Small & Specialized, and Universal & Relationship. System estimation at the regional level reveals that greater bank market power increases bank profitability but also fosters corporate defaults. Corporate defaults, in turn, lead to higher probabilities of bank distress, which supports the market power-fragility hypothesis.
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Regional Growth and Finance in Europe: Is there a Quality Effect of Bank Efficiency?
Iftekhar Hasan, Michael Koetter, Michael Wedow
Journal of Banking and Finance,
No. 8,
2009
Abstract
In this study, we test whether regional growth in 11 European countries depends on financial development and suggest the use of cost- and profit-efficiency estimates as quality measures of financial institutions. Contrary to the usual quantitative proxies of financial development, the quality of financial institutions is measured in this study as the relative ability of banks to intermediate funds. An improvement in bank efficiency spurs five times more regional growth then an identical increase in credit does. More credit provided by efficient banks exerts an independent growth effect in addition to direct quantity and quality channel effects.
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Slippery Slopes of Stress: Ordered Failure Events in German Banking
Thomas Kick, Michael Koetter
Journal of Financial Stability,
No. 2,
2007
Abstract
Outright bank failures without prior indication of financial instability are very rare. In fact, banks can be regarded as troubled to varying degrees before outright closure. But failure studies usually neglect the ordinal nature of bank distress. We distinguish four different kinds of increasingly severe events on the basis of the distress database of the Deutsche Bundesbank. Only the worst distress event entails a bank to exit the market. Since the four categories of hazard functions are not proportional, we specify a generalized ordered logit model to estimate respective probabilities of distress simultaneously. We find that the likelihood of ordered distress events changes differently in response to given changes in the financial profiles of banks. Consequently, bank failure studies should account more explicitly for the different shades of distress. This allows an assessment of the relative importance of financial profile components for different degrees of bank distress.
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Accounting for Distress in Bank Mergers
Michael Koetter, J. W. B. Bos, Frank Heid, James W. Kolari, Clemens J. M. Kool, Daniel Porath
Journal of Banking and Finance,
No. 10,
2007
Abstract
Most bank merger studies do not control for hidden bailouts, which may lead to biased results. In this study we employ a unique data set of approximately 1000 mergers to analyze the determinants of bank mergers. We use undisclosed information on banks’ regulatory intervention history to distinguish between distressed and non-distressed mergers. Among merging banks, we find that improving financial profiles lower the likelihood of distressed mergers more than the likelihood of non-distressed mergers. The likelihood to acquire a bank is also reduced but less than the probability to be acquired. Both distressed and non-distressed mergers have worse CAMEL profiles than non-merging banks. Hence, non-distressed mergers may be motivated by the desire to forestall serious future financial distress and prevent regulatory intervention.
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An Assessment of Bank Merger Success in Germany
Michael Koetter
German Economic Review,
No. 2,
2008
Abstract
German banks have experienced a merger wave since the early 1990s. However, the success of bank mergers remains a continuous matter of debate.This paper suggests a taxonomy to evaluate post-merger performance on the basis of cost and profit efficiency (CE and PE). I identify successful mergers as those that fulfill simultaneously two criteria. First, merged institutes must exhibit efficiency levels above the average of non-merging banks. Second, banks must exhibit efficiency changes between merger and evaluation year above efficiency changes of non-merging banks. I assess the post-merger performance up to 11 years after the mergers and relate it to the transfer of skills, the adequacy to merge distressed banks and the role of geographical distance. Roughly every second merger is a success in terms of either CE or PE. The margin of success in terms of CE is narrow, as efficiency differentials between merging and non-merging banks are around 1 and 2 percentage points. PE performance is slightly larger. More importantly, mergers boost in particular the change in PE, thus indicating persistent improvements of merging banks to improve the ability to generate profits.
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