Einflüsse des Lebensumfelds auf politische Einstellungen und Wahlverhalten - Eine vergleichende Analyse der Landtagswahlen 2019 in drei ostdeutschen Bundesländern
Matthias Brachert, Everhard Holtmann, Tobias Jaeck
Empirische Sozialforschung 12. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Berlin,
2020
Abstract
Die vorliegende Studie analysiert die Landtagswahlen 2019 in den Bundesländern Brandenburg, Sachsen und Thüringen und testet die These eines »doppelten Transformationsschocks« für die ostdeutschen Länder auf der Kreisstufe. Die These besagt, dass in »Schockregionen«, die bestimmte prekäre Strukturmerkmale aufweisen, die Entfremdung von der Demokratie höher und das Protestwahlverhalten stärker ausgeprägt sind als in strukturell besser aufgestellten »Gewinnerregionen«. Die Autoren weisen in einer zweistufigen Analyse nahräumliche Kontexteffekte auf politische Einstellungen und auf das Wahlverhalten nach. Generell lockern traditionelle Parteibindungen auf und Präferenzen für Protest und Themenparteien (Zuwanderung, nationale Identität, Klimawandel) werden zunehmend stabiler. Daneben gibt es im regionalen Feld eine besondere Nebenströmung, welche jene Menschen mitnimmt, die ihre politische Weltsicht und ihr Wahlverhalten auch an den Arbeits- und Lebensbedingungen des näheren Umfelds ausrichten.
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Aktuelle Trends: Ostdeutschland macht im Jahr 2019 im Ost-West-Vergleich in puncto Produktivität einen weiteren Schritt nach vorn
Gerhard Heimpold, Mirko Titze
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 2,
2020
Abstract
Ostdeutschland konnte laut Daten des Arbeitskreises „Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnungen der Länder“, die Ende März 2020 veröffentlicht wurden, im Jahr 2019 in puncto Produktivität im Vergleich zu Westdeutschland einen weiteren Schritt nach vorn gehen.
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What’s slowing down the European Banking Union?
Simon Grothe, Michael Koetter, Thomas Krause, Lena Tonzer
LSE Business Review,
2020
Abstract
Differences in national bank regulation and supervision hamper the process; political factors play a minor role, write Simon Grothe, Michael Koetter, Thomas Krause, and Lena Tonzer
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IWH-Transfertagung „Europas Finanzmarkt: Zwangsehe oder lose Bekanntschaft?“
Sithara Thies
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 1,
2020
Abstract
Ein Jahrzehnt nach der weltweiten Finanzkrise steht das Finanzsystem noch immer vor enormen Herausforderungen. Wie diese in Europa gemeistert werden können, war Thema einer hochkarätig besetzten Tagung, die am 26. Februar 2020 am Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH) stattfand.
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Entry into Self-employment and Individuals’ Risk-taking Propensities
Matthias Brachert, Walter Hyll, Abdolkarim Sadrieh
Small Business Economics,
No. 4,
2020
Abstract
Most of the existing empirical literature on self-employment decisions assumes that individuals’ risk-taking propensities are stable over time. We allow for endogeneity on both sides when examining the relationship between individual risk-taking propensities and entry into self-employment. We confirm that a greater risk-taking propensity is associated with a higher probability of entering self-employment. However, we also find evidence that entering self-employment is associated with a significant and substantial increase in an individual’s propensity to take risks. Our findings add to the growing evidence that risk-taking propensities are not only inborn, but also determined by environmental factors.
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Energy Markets and Global Economic Conditions
Christiane Baumeister, Dimitris Korobilis, Thomas K. Lee
Abstract
This paper evaluates alternative indicators of global economic activity and other market fundamentals in terms of their usefulness for forecasting real oil prices and global petroleum consumption. We find that world industrial production is one of the most useful indicators that has been proposed in the literature. However, by combining measures from a number of different sources we can do even better. Our analysis results in a new index of global economic conditions and new measures for assessing future tightness of energy demand and expected oil price pressures.
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Why Life Insurers are Key to Economic Dynamism in Germany
Reint E. Gropp, William McShane
IWH Online,
No. 6,
2020
Abstract
Young entrepreneurial firms are of critical importance for innovation. But to bring their new ideas to the market, these startups depend on investors who understand and are willing to accept the risk associated with a new firm. Perhaps the key reason as to why the US has succeeded in producing nearly all the most successful new firms of the 21st century is the economy’s ability to supply vast sums of capital to promising startups. The volume of venture capital (VC) invested in the US is more than 60 times that of Germany. In this policy note, we argue that differences in the regulatory and structural context of institutional investors, in particular life insurance companies, is a central driver of the relative lack of VC - and thereby successful startups - in Germany.
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Competition, Cost Structure, and Labour Leverage: Evidence from the U.S. Airline Industry
Konstantin Wagner
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 21,
2020
Abstract
I study the effect of increasing competition on financial performance through labour leverage. To capture competition, I exploit variation in product market contestability in the U.S. airline industry. First, I find that increasing competitive pressure leads to increasing labour leverage, proxied by labour share. This explains the decrease in operating profitability through labour rigidities. Second, by exploiting variation in human capital specificity, I show that contestability of product markets induces labour market contestability. Whereas affected firms might experience more stress through higher wages or loss of skilled human capital, more mobile employee groups benefit from competitions through higher labour shares.
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Marginal Returns to Talent for Material Risk Takers in Banking
Moritz Stieglitz, Konstantin Wagner
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 20,
2020
Abstract
Economies of scale can explain compensation differentials over time, across firms of different size, different hierarchy-levels, and different industries. Consequently, the most talented individuals tend to match with the largest firms in industries where marginal returns to their talent are greatest. We explore a new dimension of this size-pay nexus by showing that marginal returns also differ across activities within firms and industries. Using hand-collected data on managers in European banks well below the level of executive directors, we find that the size-pay nexus is strongest for investment banking business units and for banks with a market-based business model. Thus, managerial compensation is most sensitive to size increases for activities that can easily be scaled up.
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Banks’ Funding Stress, Lending Supply, and Consumption Expenditure
H. Evren Damar, Reint E. Gropp, Adi Mordel
Journal of Money, Credit and Banking,
No. 4,
2020
Abstract
We employ a unique identification strategy linking survey data on household consumption expenditure to bank‐level data to estimate the effects of bank funding stress on consumer credit and consumption expenditures. We show that households whose banks were more exposed to funding shocks report lower levels of nonmortgage liabilities. This, however, only translates into lower levels of consumption for low‐income households. Hence, adverse credit supply shocks are associated with significant heterogeneous effects.
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