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Is the 'Central German Metropolitan Region' Spatially Integrated? An Empirical Assessment of Commuting Relations
Albrecht Kauffmann
Urban Studies,
No. 9,
2016
Abstract
The 'Central German Metropolitan Region' is a network of cities and their surroundings, located in the three East-German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. It was founded to bring the bundled strengths of these cities into an inter-municipal cooperation, for making use of the possible advantages of a polycentric region. As theory claims, a precondition for gains from polycentricity is spatial integration of the region. In particular, markets for high skilled labour should be integrated. To assess how this precondition is fulfilled in Central Germany, in the framework of a doubly constrained gravity model the commuting relations between the functional regions of the (until 2013) 11 core cities of the network are analysed. In particular for higher educated employees, the results display that commuting relations are determined not only by distance, but also by the state borders that cross the area.
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Why Do Banks Provide Leasing?
D. Bülbül, Felix Noth, M. Tyrell
Journal of Financial Services Research,
No. 2,
2014
Abstract
Banks are engaging in leasing activities at an increasing rate, which is demonstrated by aggregated data for both European and U.S. banking companies. However, little is known about leasing activities at the bank level. The contribution of this paper is the introduction of the nexus of leasing in banking. Beginning from an institutional basis, this paper describes the key features of banks’ leasing activities using the example of German regional banks. The banks in this sample can choose from different types of leasing contracts, providing the banks with a degree of leeway in conducting business with their clients. We find a robust and significant positive impact of banks’ leasing activities on their profitability. Specifically, the beneficial effect of leasing stems from commission business in which the bank acts as a middleman and is not affected by the potential defaults of customers.
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Foreign Bank Entry, Credit Allocation and Lending Rates in Emerging Markets: Empirical Evidence from Poland
Hans Degryse, Olena Havrylchyk, Emilia Jurzyk, Sylwester Kozak
Journal of Banking & Finance,
No. 11,
2012
Abstract
Earlier studies have documented that foreign banks charge lower lending rates and interest spreads than domestic banks. We hypothesize that this may stem from the superior efficiency of foreign entrants that they decide to pass onto borrowers (“performance hypothesis”), but could also reflect a different loan allocation with respect to borrower transparency, loan maturity and currency (“portfolio composition hypothesis”). We are able to differentiate between the above hypotheses thanks to a novel dataset containing detailed bank-specific information for the Polish banking industry. Our findings demonstrate that banks differ significantly in terms of portfolio composition and we attest to the “portfolio composition hypothesis” by showing that, having controlled for portfolio composition, there are no differences in lending rates between banks.
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Regionale Unterschiede der Kooperationsmuster der deutschen Photovoltaik-Industrie
Christoph Hornych
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 12,
2011
Abstract
Der Beitrag analysiert das Kooperationsgeschehen in der deutschen Photovoltaik-Industrie. Ausgehend von den theoretischen Vorteilen, die Kooperationen in stadt- und regionalökonomischen Ansätzen zugeschrieben werden, wird geprüft, inwieweit die tatsächlich bestehenden Kooperationsmuster in den verschiedenen Bundesländern den aus theoretischer Sicht günstigen Kooperationsmustern entsprechen. Hierzu erfolgt eine vergleichende Beschreibung der Kooperationsstrukturen der Industrie in und zwischen den einzelnen Bundesländern. Die Untersuchung basiert auf der „IWH-Unternehmensdatenbank Photovoltaik“, die u. a. Informationen zu den Kooperationsbeziehungen zwischen den in der Datenbank enthaltenen Unternehmen und öffentlichen Forschungseinrichtungen enthält. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich die Kooperationsintensitäten in und zwischen den Bundesländern deutlich voneinander unterscheiden. Dabei sind insbesondere die mitteldeutschen Bundesländer Sachsen, Sachsen- Anhalt und Thüringen durch eine starke gegenseitige und deutschlandweite Vernetzung gekennzeichnet. Hingegen sind die Akteure in der Region Berlin-Brandenburg, die ähnlich wie Mitteldeutschland durch eine hohe
Konzentration an Photovoltaikunternehmen gekennzeichnet ist, deutlich weniger in Netzwerkstrukturen eingebunden.
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Municipality Size and Efficiency of Local Public Services: Does Size Matter?
Peter Bönisch, Peter Haug, Annette Illy, L. Schreier
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 18,
2011
published in: FinanzArchiv
Abstract
Similarly to western Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, the eastern part of Germany has experienced a still ongoing process of numerous amalgamations among counties, towns and municipalities since the mid-1990s. The evidence in the economic literature is mixed with regard to the claimed expenditure reductions and efficiency gains from municipal mergers. We therefore analyze the global efficiency of the municipalities in Saxony-Anhalt, for the first time in this context, using a double-bootstrap procedure combining DEA and truncated regression. This allows including environmental variables to control for exogenous determinants of municipal efficiency. Our focus thereby is on institutional and fiscal variables. Moreover, the scale efficiency is estimated to find out whether large units are necessary to benefit from scale economies. In contrast to previous studies, we chose the aggregate budget of municipal associations (“Verwaltungsgemeinschaften”) as the object of our analysis since important competences of the member municipalities are settled on a joint administrative level. Furthermore, we use a data set that has been carefully adjusted for bookkeeping items and transfers within the communal level. On the “eve” of a mayor municipal reform the majority of the municipalities were found to have an approximately scale-efficient size and centralized organizational forms (“Einheitsgemeinden”) showed no efficiency advantage over municipal associations.
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What are the benefits of cooperation and networking for the economic development of cities and metropolitan regions? Conference proceeding of the third “Halle Forum on Urban Economic Growth”
Christoph Hornych, Albrecht Kauffmann, M. Mühlberg, Martin T. W. Rosenfeld
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 1,
2011
Abstract
The Department of Urban Economics of the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) held on 2 and 3 December 2010 the third “Halle Forum on Urban Economic Growth“. The biennial “Halle Forum” focuses on the determinants of urban growth. This year's conference addressed the forms and benefits of cooperation and networking for the economic development of cities and metropolitan regions. The presentations and discussions focused on the one hand on the effects and determinants of inter-and intra-regional cooperation between firms, and on the other hand on cooperation between neighboring municipalities, especially through the establishment of metropolitan regions.
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On the Determinants of the Cooperative Behavior of Firms in the German Photovoltaic Industry
Christoph Hornych, Matthias Brachert
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 20,
2010
Abstract
The article examines the determinants of the number of cooperation partners and the share of regional cooperations of firms in the German photovoltaic industry. Based on an overview about possible effects of the cooperation of firms with partners inside and outside their region, we derive hypotheses on the relationship between both firm-specific and region-specific variables and the cooperative behavior of firms. The hypotheses are tested with regression models using a data set of 178 firms of the German photovoltaic industry. The results show that in particular large firms and firms with a high absorptive capacity have significantly more co-operation partners. Furthermore, firms cooperate within their region especially when a large number of potential partners are located in the same region. Regarding foreign-owned firms, the results show that these firms tend to cooperate in particular with partners, inside the region where they are located.
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