Soll die Höhe von Investitionszuschüssen an die Einführung von Umweltmanagementsystemen gekoppelt werden?
Mirko Titze
List Forum für Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik,
No. 1,
2009
Abstract
Economic policy has to reconcile a very complex set of objectives. Often, there is a trade-off between these policy targets. This paper focuses on objectives related to the improvement of the regional economic structure and the environmental protection. In Germany, regional policy is pursued among other things using investment grants within the Joint Task framework. At the federal state level, the Länder select and support sustainable investment projects. Some federal states have changed their investment support framework and aim for additional political targets such as environmental protection. Politicians in the Free State of Saxony discuss the option to offer an addition to the basic investment grant. This applies to plants that operate a certified environmental management system. Related to this current political debate this paper describes the effects of such regulatory measures. The article shows that under a particular set of circumstances the envisaged regulation actually could lower the overall level of supported investment and therefore would not stimulate the introduction of environmental management systems. Hence both political objectives would not be fully reconciled. The alternative way could be a direct support of environmental management systems as already introduced in selected other Länder.
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The Role of the Intellectual Property Rights Regime for Foreign Investors in Post-Socialist Economies
Benedikt Schnellbächer, Johannes Stephan
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 4,
2009
Abstract
We integrate international business theory on foreign direct investment (FDI) with institutional theory on intellectual property rights (IPR) to explain characteristics and behaviour of foreign investment subsidiaries in Central East Europe, a region with an IPR regime-gap vis-à-vis West European countries. We start from the premise that FDI may play a crucial role for technological catch-up development in Central East Europe via technology and knowledge transfer. By use of a unique dataset generated at the IWH in collaboration with a European consortium in the framework of an EU-project, we assess the role played by the IPR regimes in a selection of CEE countries as a factor for corporate governance and control of foreign invested subsidiaries, for their own technological activity, their trade relationships, and networking partners for technological activity. As a specific novelty to the literature, we assess the in influence of the strength of IPR regimes on corporate control of subsidiaries and conclude that IPR-sensitive foreign investments tend to have lower functional autonomy, tend to cooperate more intensively within their transnational network and yet are still technologically more active than less IPR-sensitive subsidiaries. In terms of economic policy, this leads to the conclusion that the FDI will have a larger developmental impact if the IPR regime in the host economy is sufficiently strict.
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Business Cycle Forecast 2009: World Financial Crisis Triggers Deep Recession in Germany
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 1,
2009
Abstract
At the beginning of 2009, the major industrialized economies are in recession. The financial turmoil has developed into a crisis of confidence to and solvency of the financial sector, raising financing costs and lowering the value of assets for firms and households. Monetary and fiscal policies have reacted strongly, but they will not succeed in ending the recession until the financial sectors in the US and in Western Europe have stabilized. This forecast is made under the assumption that stabilization will start in the second half of 2009 because the continued protection of important financial institutions by governments will restore confidence – albeit at a low level – and because at this time, the fall of US-house prices will start to fade off.
The German economy is hit particularly hard, because the financial crisis depresses worldwide investment demand and the sectors producing investment goods are at the heart of the German economy. The recession will not end before the second half of 2009, and capacity utilization will decrease throughout the year. We expect a tentative revival to begin in a recovery of exports. While private investment will shrink markedly, consumption of private households and the government as well as public investment will dampen the downturn. GDP will shrink by 1.9% in Germany and in East Germany by 1.5% because this region is less dependent on exports.
Economic policy has to help restoring confidence, and this can only be achieved if it behaves in a consistent and predictable way.
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Is There a Way for Old Industrial Districts to Become Attractive for Cultural Industry? The Case of Media Businesses in Halle (Saale), Germany
Martin T. W. Rosenfeld, Christoph Hornych
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 15,
2008
Abstract
manufacturing have collapsed are trying to stimulate entrepreneurial activities of businesses in the cultural industry. The question is whether this strategy could be successful. This article examines the strategy of supporting the sector of Media Industry (´MI´) by policy makers in the region of Halle in East Germany, where a strong de-industrialization has taken place after the German reunification. Stimulated by the policy makers’ support measures, there actually was a remarkable development of MI. However, the number of MI firms and their employees did not further increase in recent years, after having reached a certain level. This illustrates the limits of political measures for turning a city’s path of industrial development voluntarily.
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Crisis Contagion in Central and Eastern Europe
Hubert Gabrisch
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 12,
2008
Abstract
The global financial crisis reached the Central and Eastern European region. Fears of a recession are spreading among investors in Russia and the Ukraine due to the heavy decline of oil and steel prices and provoked a first wave of short-term capital withdrawals. The export sector of all countries in the region is affected by weakening global demand. Finally, the financial sector, which is dominated by international banks in almost all countries, appears as the contagion channel for risk adjustments of mother banks. The combined impact of all these causes and channels lead to a proliferation of restrictions in credit and money supply and an outflow of investment capital. A strong weakening of economic growth is on the way in the region, and a long-lasting recession seems possible in some countries, in first line in the Baltic countries. It becomes a superior task of governments to ease the length and depth of the approaching recession by a strong fiscal stimulus. A continuation of the present policy of fiscal consolidation or of nominal convergence toward a quick adoption of the Euro does not seem very advisable. If governments decided to support domestic demand, measures should be taken to strengthening of a genuinely domestic banking sector in order to maintain credit availability.
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Incubator Age and Incubation Time: Determinants of Firm Survival after Graduation?
Michael Schwartz
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 14,
2008
Abstract
On the basis of a sample of 149 graduate firms from five German technology oriented business incubators, this article contributes to incubator/incubation literature by investigating the effects of the age of the business incubators and the firms’ incubation time in securing long-term survival of the firms after leaving the incubator facilities. The empirical findings from Cox-proportional hazards regression and parametric accelerated failure time models reveal a statistically negative impact for both variables incubator age and incubation time on post-graduation firm survival. One possible explanation for these results is that, when incubator managers become increasingly involved in various regional development activities (e.g. coaching of regional network initiatives), this may reduce the effectiveness of incubator support and therefore the survival chances of firms.
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Foreign Subsidiaries in the East German Innovation System – Evidence from manufacturing industries
Jutta Günther, Johannes Stephan, Björn Jindra
Applied Economics Quarterly Supplement,
No. 59,
2008
Abstract
This paper analyses the extent of technological capability of foreign subsidiaries located in East Germany, and looks at the determinants of foreign subsidiaries’ technological sourcing behaviour. The theory of international production underlines the importance of strategic and regional level variables. However, existing empirical approaches omit by and large regional level factors. We employ survey evidence from the “FDI micro database” of the IWH, that was only recently made available, to conduct our analyses. We find that foreign subsidiaries are above average technologically active in comparison to the whole East German manufacturing. This can be partially explained by the industrial structure of foreign direct investment. However, only a limited share of foreign subsidiaries with R&D and/or innovation activity source technological knowledge from the East German innovation system. If a subsidiary follows a competence augmenting strategy or does local trade, it is more likely to source technological knowledge locally. The endowment of a region with human capital and a scientific infrastructure has a positive effect too. The findings suggest that foreign subsidiaries in East Germany are only partially linked with the regional innovation system. Policy implications are discussed.
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Economic Effects of the Halle Institute for Economic Research
Ulrich Blum
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 10,
2008
Abstract
The most important approach to assess the scholarly performance of an institute is to evaluate its academic output. Economic research institutes such as the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) furthermore are targeted at providing policy advice to public authorities. This adds an additional criterion, the ability to impact policy discussions in Germany and beyond.
A rarely discussed issue is the effect of an institute on the local economy. The IWH is located in a region of East Germany that is still catching up economically. Transformation problems are still very visible. In such an economic environment, the expenditures of an institute play an important role in stabilizing local demand. The analysis shows, by using input-output-methods, that the most important factor for the local economy is the demand stemming from wages earned by the employees of the institute. Especially the local area, where most of the staff lives, heavily benefits from this effect. Expenditures of about 4.6 million Euros which include the salaries of the staff of about 70 persons generates sufficient demand in the area to guarantee employment for another 35 persons. In addition, as crowding out of activities by additional demand is presently not an issue in East Germany, the taxes generated account for a considerable part of the budget.
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Spatially Concentrated Industries as Innovation Driver? – Empirical Evidence from East Germany
Christoph Hornych, Michael Schwartz
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 9,
2008
Abstract
A positive relation between the spatial concentration of sectors and their capacity of innovation is frequently assumed in regional science as well as in regional development policy. Therefore, with the support of sectoral agglomeration, effects on the regional technological performance are expected. However, previous empirical work is inconsistent in supporting this interdependency.
This study aims to examine the effects of sectoral agglomeration on innovative activities in East-German regions. For this purpose, spatially concentrated industries are identified and included in the estimation of regional ‘knowledge-production-functions’. Contrary to expectations, the spatial concentration seems to inhibit the amount of patent-activities of the sector in the specific region. In contrast, positive effects are generated from research facilities. Moreover, we find evidence for intersectoral spillovers.
The results show that for innovative activities, urbanization effects have a higher relevance as localization effects. So far, spatially concentrated industries are not an innovation driver in East Germany.
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Beseitigung struktureller Defizite mit der Gemeinschaftsaufgabe „Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur“ – Ein Vergleich der Strategien in den neuen Bundesländern
Mirko Titze
Raumforschung und Raumordnung,
2008
Abstract
The Joint Task “For the Improvement of the Regional Economic Structure” is one of the most important instruments for the “Reconstruction East”. Herein the federal states have an extensive flexibility to define their own kind of industrial policy. Due to their structural deficits this paper is focused on the federal states in East-Germany. A decrease in the budget constrains the governments to improve efficiency of subsidies. However, there is one way to solve this problem: change unselective government aid to regional as well as sectoral government aid. This paper shows that there is no federal state, which has applied this kind of policy forcefully.
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