Gemeindegröße, Verwaltungsform und Effizienz der kommunalen Leistungserstellung – Das Beispiel Sachsen-Anhalt
Peter Haug
Raumforschung und Raumordnung,
No. 4,
2013
Abstract
Municipality Size, Institutions and Efficiency of Municipal Service Provision: The Case of Saxony-Anhalt: In this contribution we analyze the determinants of the efficiency of municipal service production using the example of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The focus lies on the effects of municipality size, institutional setting and spatial or demographic factors. We perform a robust non-parametric frontier estimation (Convex order-m).The results reveal e.g. no efficiency deficits of municipal associations and a significant impact of demographic factors and settlement structures.
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Skill Content of Intra-european Trade Flows
Götz Zeddies
European Journal of Comparative Economics,
No. 1,
2013
Abstract
In recent decades, the international division of labor has expanded rapidly in the wake of European integration. In this context, especially Western European high-wage countries should have specialized on (human-)capital intensively manufactured goods and should have increasingly sourced labor-intensively manufactured goods, especially parts and components, from Eastern European low wage countries. Since this should be beneficial for the high-skilled and harmful to the lower-qualified workforce in high-wage countries, the opening up of Eastern Europe is often considered as a vital reason for increasing unemployment of the lower-qualified in Western Europe. This paper addresses this issue by analyzing the skill content of Western European countries’ bilateral trade using input-output techniques in order to evaluate possible effects of international trade on labor demand. Thereby, differences in factor inputs and production technologies have been considered, allowing for vertical product differentiation. In this case, skill content of bilateral exports and imports partially differs substantially, especially in bilateral trade between Western and Eastern European countries. According to the results, East-West trade should be harmful particularly to the medium-skilled in Western European countries.
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German Economy Recovering – Long-Term Approach Needed to Economic Policy: Joint Economic Forecast Spring 2013
Dienstleistungsauftrag des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Technologie,
2013
Abstract
An upwards tendency re-emerged in the German economy in spring 2013. The situation in the financial markets has eased thanks to subsiding uncertainty regarding the future of the European Monetary Union. The headwind in the world economy has also tailed off somewhat. The institutes expect gross domestic product in Germany to increase by 0.8% this year (68%-projection interval: 0.1% to 1.5%) and by 1.9% next year. The number of unemployed should continue to fall to an annual average of 2.9 million this year and 2.7 million in 2014. The inflation rate is expected to drop to 1.7% this year and edge up to 2.0% next year on the back of rising capacity utilisation. The public budget will be almost balanced in 2013 and should show a surplus of 0.5% in relation to gross domestic product in 2014 thanks to more favourable economic conditions. It is now time to readopt a longer-term approach to economic policy. Although structural adjustment processes implemented in the crisis-afflicted countries have started to deal with institutional problems in the euro area, they are far from resolved. The German public budget also faces massive long-term burdens related to demographic factors.
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Towards a Theory of Climate Innovation - A Model Framework for Analyzing Drivers and Determinants
Wilfried Ehrenfeld
Journal of Evolutionary Economics,
2013
Abstract
In this article, we describe the results of a multiple case study on the indirect corporate innovation impact of climate change in the Central German chemical industry. We investigate the demands imposed on enterprises in this context as well as the sources, outcomes and determining factors in the innovative process at the corporate level. We argue that climate change drives corporate innovations through various channels. A main finding is that rising energy prices were a key driver for incremental energy efficiency innovations in the enterprises’ production processes. For product innovation, customer requests were a main driver, though often these requests are not directly related to climate issues. The introduction or extension of environmental and energy management systems as well as the certification of these are the most common forms of organizational innovations. For marketing purposes, the topic of climate change was hardly utilized so far. As the most important determinants for corporate climate innovations, corporate structure and flexibility of the product portfolio, political asymmetry regarding environmental regulation and governmental funding were identified.
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Methods and Problems of Regional Economic Projections
Maike Irrek, Oliver Holtemöller
Flächennutzungsmonitoring IV. Genauere Daten – informierte Akteure – praktisches Handeln. IÖR-Schriften 60,
2012
Abstract
Regional economic projections are fundamental for political decision-making in several fields, including land use. Residential as well as commercial land use is affected by regional economic growth. This article describes the methodology and problems of regional economic projections using the example of a medium and long-term projection model for the economic development in Germany and the German states. The model utilizes the production function approach and updates the factors of production, labor and capital, as well as productivity via time series econometric methods. The results for Germany as a whole show that gross domestic product will continue increasing during the time period of 2011 to 2025 despite the demographically caused decline of hours worked. However, the varying forms of demographic change in the German states will lead to regional growth differentials. This is exemplified by a comparison between Saxony and Baden-Württemberg.
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Federal grants for local development to stop economic decline? – Lessons from Germany
Peter Haug, Martin T. W. Rosenfeld
Consequences of the International Crisis for European SMEs – Vulnerability and resilience. Routledge Studies in the European Economy, Routledge,
2012
Abstract
The chapter analyses theoretically and empirically the supply-side effects of the public investments funded by the German „Economic Stimulus Package II“(Konjunkturpaket II), which was implemented in 2009. In the theoretical part, we address the distortionary effects of investment grants on public capital provision and local economic development. According to the theoretical literature on the efficient provision of public goods, public inputs and economic growth, conditional investment grants have several negative allocation effects: First, they distort the relative factor prices for the local government stimulating excess public capital stocks and Pareto-inefficient provision of public goods. Second, long-term growth-enhancing effects of debt-financed public investment could only be expected for public inputs, which either directly increase the productivity of the private sector or increase factor productivity, especially by increasing the stock of human capital. In the empirical part, we find that despite of the recent increase in municipal investments in the German state of Saxony our regression results do not confirm a connection with the ESPII funds. Furthermore, no relationship between the municipal fiscal strength and the amount of ESPII grants received could be found. All in all, due to the focus of the grants on public consumption goods rather than public inputs only marginal future growth effects can be expected from the subsidized investments.
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Climate Innovation - The Case of the Central German Chemical Industry
Wilfried Ehrenfeld
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 2,
2012
Abstract
In this article, we describe the results of a multiple case study on the indirect
corporate innovation impact of climate change in the Central German chemical
industry. We investigate the demands imposed on enterprises in this context as well as the sources, outcomes and determining factors in the innovative process at the corporate level. We argue that climate change drives corporate innovations through various channels. A main finding is that rising energy prices were a key driver for incremental energy efficiency innovations in the enterprises’ production processes. For product innovation, customer requests were a main driver, though often these requests are not directly related to climate issues. The introduction or extension of environmental and energy management systems as well as the certification of these are the most common forms of organizational innovations. For marketing purposes, the topic of climate change was hardly utilized so far. As the most important determinants for corporate climate innovations, corporate structure and flexibility of the product portfolio, political asymmetry regarding environmental regulation and governmental funding were identified.
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Labor Demand During the Crisis: What Happened in Germany?
Claudia M. Buch
IZA. Discussion Paper No. 6074,
2011
Abstract
In Germany, the employment response to the post-2007 crisis has been muted compared to other industrialized countries. Despite a large drop in output, employment has hardly changed. In this paper, we analyze the determinants of German firms’ labor demand during the crisis using a firm-level panel dataset. Our analysis proceeds in two steps. First, we estimate a dynamic labor demand function for the years 2000-2009 accounting for the degree of working time flexibility and the presence of works councils. Second, on the basis of these
estimates, we use the difference between predicted and actual employment as a measure of labor hoarding as the dependent variable in a cross-sectional regression for 2009. Apart from total labor hoarding, we also look at the determinants of subsidized labor hoarding through short-time work. The structural characteristics of firms using these channels of adjustment differ. Product market competition has a negative impact on total labor hoarding but a positive effect on the use of short-time work. Firm covered by collective agreements hoard less labor overall; firms without financial frictions use short-time work less intensively.
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