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Regional House Price Dynamics and Voting Behavior in the FOMC
Stefan Eichler, Tom Lähner
Economic Inquiry,
No. 2,
2014
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of house price gaps in Federal Reserve districts on the voting behavior in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) from 1978 to 2010. Applying a random effects ordered probit model, we find that a higher regional house price gap significantly increases (decreases) the probability that this district's representative in the FOMC casts interest rate votes in favor of tighter (easier) monetary policy. In addition, our results suggest that Bank presidents react more sensitively to regional house price developments than Board members do.
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Können altindustrielle Städte zu “Hot Spots“ der Kreativwirtschaft werden? Das Beispiel der Medienwirtschaft in Halle
Martin T. W. Rosenfeld
F. Amey und J. Ringel (Hrsg.), Hotspots der Stadtentwicklung. Methoden, Praxis und Perspektiven der gemanagten Stadt,
2014
Abstract
In recent years, creative industries are more and more regarded as important drivers for local economic development. Especially media industry is often seen as a branch with a high potential for those cities where traditional industries have collapsed. Also the city of Halle has tried to stimulate economic activities in the field of media industry. This had been rather successful in several sections of media industry. But the set of locational factors in Halle is not really in favor for media industry. Therefore the potentials for future development are probably limited.
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6. Konferenz „Von der Transformation zur europäischen Integration – Ostdeutschland und Mittelosteuropa in der Forschung des IWH“ – ein Bericht
Christian Müller, Gerhard Heimpold
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 1,
2013
Abstract
Am 19. September 2012 fand im IWH die Konferenz „Von der Transformation zur europäischen Integration – Ostdeutschland und Mittelosteuropa in der Forschung des IWH“ statt. Im Fokus der Veranstaltung, die dem Wissenstransfer und Austausch mit einem wirtschaftspolitisch interessierten Fachpublikum diente, standen Untersuchungsergebnisse zur wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung und institutionellen Anpassung in den mittel- und osteuropäischen Post-Transformationsökonomien, darunter in Ostdeutschland, im Zuge der europäischen Integration. Den Eröffnungsvortrag hielt die Ministerin für Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Prof. Dr. Birgitta Wolff, zum Thema „Sachsen-Anhalt in Europa: Wie weiter mit der EU-Strukturfonds-Förderung nach 2013?“. In den darauf folgenden Vorträgen von Wssenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern des IWH wurden makroökonomische Indikatoren und Schwellenwerte zur Vorhersage von Finanzkrisen vorgestellt, ökonomische Perspektiven für einen Beitritt mittel- und osteuropäischer Staaten zum Euroraum aufgezeigt und die verschiedenen Stadien der institutionellen Konvergenz in den europäischen Post Transformationsländern untersucht. Weiterhin wurden Wissensnetzwerke in Sachsen-Anhalt analysiert und die Effizienz der kommunalen Leistungserstellung in Abhängigkeit von Gemeindegröße und Verwaltungsform betrachtet.
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New Tendencies in Competition Between Cities and Regions: Empirical Results from Case Studies in Germany and Austria
Martin T. W. Rosenfeld
Economy and Geography,
2013
Abstract
It is often discussed that during the last decades, due to several new developments, locational competition at the local and regional scale has changed its appearance and has increased significantly, all over Europe. Modern economic theories are suggesting that some locational factors have become more important than in previous times and might have led to changing conditions for the competition between cities and regions. The intention of the paper is to bring more light into this discussion and to illustrate, with the help of case studies, whether locational competition has really become more intensive, and / or whether new categories of competition have evolved.
The paper is based on the work of an interdisciplinary research group which was initiated and partially financed by the German National Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung, ARL). The paper’s first part is reporting on a survey of recent theoretical and empirical literature on locational competition and has the task to classify the new tendencies systematically. The second part of the paper is presenting the results of case studies, which were carried out in order to find out about the importance of the expected changes in selected cities and regions in Germany and Austria. The main findings may be characterized as follows. For several cities and regions, we found out that the decrease of transportation and transaction costs had positive impacts on local and regional development, as within these cities and regions, industries are concentrated which benefit from technologies which are connected to transportation or transaction costs. Also for some regions, a positive impact of the downsizing of administrative borders was found – although especially in Eastern Germany, the process of catching up was restrained by agglomeration economies in the West. Although the impact of the new categories of locational competition on the economic development of the case cities and regions was, overall, limited, there was an important impact on the creation of new strategies by local and regional policymakers.
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Delineation of City Regions Based on Commuting Interrelations: The Example of Large Cities in Germany
Albrecht Kauffmann
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 4,
2012
Abstract
The comparison of cities with regard to their economic or demographic development may yield misleading results, if solely the cities in their administrative borders are the object of consideration. Frequently, historical borders of cities neither conform to the contemporary settlement structures, nor do they consider the mutual dependencies between cities and parts of their hinterland. Therefore, it is often claimed to use city regions as objects of comparison or for the sake of urban planning. Commonly, the delineation of functional regions is based on commuting flows from the municipalities in the hinterland of the core cities directed to the cores. A municipality is regarded as belonging to a certain city region if the share of out-commuters from this municipality to the respective core in the total mass of those employees who reside in that municipality is the largest one, and if this share exceeds a certain threshold value. However, commuting flows in the opposite direction are not considered. The method presented here delineates city regions on the base of bidirectional commuting flows. Hereby, various modifications regarding the characteristics of the employment base, the possibility of overlaps of regions, the formation of polycentric city regions, and of the minimum threshold value of mutual connectivity are applied to the sample of 81 German cities with more than 100 000 inhabitants. Finally, the effects of different kinds of regionalisation on the coefficients of regional specialisation of these cities and city regions are demonstrated.
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Hausärztliche Versorgung ohne Einfluss auf das Wanderungsverhalten
Lutz Schneider, Walter Hyll, Marie Ebert
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 5,
2012
Abstract
Gemeinden in demographischen Notlagen stehen vor besonderen Herausforderungen. Einerseits zwingt die Verringerung der Bevölkerungszahlen zu einer Verschlankung von Infrastruktur im technischen wie im sozialen Bereich. Andererseits kann eine weitere Ausdünnung derartiger Angebote – zu denken ist vornehmlich an die Bereiche Bildung, Kultur und Sport, Versorgung, Verkehr oder aber Gesundheit – den demographischen Abwärtstrend weiter verstärken. Steht ein Rückbau dieser Angebote doch im Verdacht, die Attraktivität der Gemeinden
als Wohnstandort auszuhöhlen und Abwanderungsprozesse zu beschleunigen bzw. Zuwanderung zu verhindern. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird im Beitrag untersucht, wie der kommunale Versorgungsgrad mit Hausärzten auf die Wanderungsbewegungen in den Gemeinden Sachsen-Anhalts in der Periode von 1996 bis 2008 wirkte. In diesem Zeitraum ist zum einen ein deutlicher Rückgang der Zahl der Hausärzte zu beobachten. Zum anderen verloren viele Gemeinden an Einwohnern, nicht zuletzt aufgrund erheblicher Wanderungsdefizite. Weder die
Querschnittsanalyse noch die Panelregressionen können jedoch signifikante Wanderungseffekte der Hausarztausstattung belegen. Gemeinden mit schlechter bzw. verschlechterter hausärztlicher Versorgungslage scheinen in der Nettobetrachtung nicht ungünstiger abzuschneiden als die übrigen Gemeinden.
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Political Institutionalisation and Governance of the German Metropolitan Regions: A Comparative Study
Peter Franz
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 11,
2011
Abstract
In Germany, some cities and districts try to react to the challenges of global location competition by the constitution of metropolitan regions. Thus new forms of intermunicipal co-operation on a regional scale emerge. Within the context of a national policy for spatial development eleven such metropolitan regions have been defined in Germany, and local activities supporting their constitution were encouraged. In spite of differing results and success in the eleven regions this process of political institutionalisation has led to partially similar institutional forms. This study compares the institutionalisaton process in the German metropolitan regions with the help of an idealtype model of institutionalisation steps. In addition, the design of the comparative study also allows testing potential effects of intervening factors as the regions’ monocentricity / polycentricity and the existence of Laender borders in a region on cooperative success. The study comes to the result that so far only few metropolitan regions have reached the stage of advanced institutionalisation and co-operation. The diversity of the institutionalisation paths prevents a „best practice“ recommendation at the present state of knowledge. As the constitution process in the regions still proceeds in a highly dynamic way, this study should be repeated within a five years’ period.
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Cluster Policies in the Federal States of Bavaria and Thuringia: Discrepancies between Practice and Theory
Gerhard Heimpold
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 10,
2011
Abstract
The contribution analyzes cluster policies pursued in the Federal States of Bavaria and Thuringia. The investigation is based on the exploration of government documents. In both countries cluster policy is target at strengthening competitiveness. The documents explored do not reveal an economic justification for cluster policy in the sense of eliminating market failures, e. g. externalities, information asymmetries and coordination failures. Therefore, it is unclear whether the support schemes under consideration really tie in with factors that hamper cluster evolution. Policies in both states support state-wider clusters and networks. The state-wide focus, however, might undervalue advantages of spatial proximity. As another critical point the ex-ante selection of industries or technologies eligible under cluster policy can be regarded. Despite readiness of considering new technologies etc., public administration generally suffers from a lack of information about the future development perspectives of industries and technologies. A way to mitigate the limited capability of public administration in terms of forecasting might be favoring economic support based on competition for the best concepts/projects instead of focusing on certain industries. Several support schemes offered by the Federal government in Germany are already competition-based. In Thuringia cluster policy is strongly motivated by several structural shortcomings, e. g. by the fragmented firm landscape mainly consisting of small units. Therefore, beyond cluster policy, the necessity will remain to abolish directly the structural shortcomings mentioned, especially by providing an economic environment that enhances firm growth.
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