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Transferability of Skills across Sectors and Heterogeneous Displacement Costs

Moises Yi, Steffen Müller, Jens Stegmaier
American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, Nr. 5, 2017
Abstract
We use rich German administrative data to estimate new measures of skill transferability between manufacturing and other sectors. These measures capture the value of workers' human capital when applied in different sectors and are directly related to workers' displacement costs. We estimate these transferability measures using a selection correction model, which addresses workers' endogenous mobility, and a novel selection instrument based on the social network of workers. Our results indicate substantial heterogeneity in how workers can transfer their skills when they move across sectors, which implies heterogeneous displacement costs that depend on the sector to which workers reallocate.
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The Effects of Local Elections on National Military Spending: A Cross-country Study

Liuchun Deng, Yufeng Sun
Defence and Peace Economics, Nr. 3, 2017
Abstract
In this paper, we study the domestic political determinants of military spending. Our conceptual framework suggests that power distribution over local and central governments influences the government provision of national public goods, in our context, military expenditure. Drawing on a large cross-country panel, we demonstrate that having local elections will decrease a country’s military expenditure markedly, controlling for other political and economic variables. According to our preferred estimates, a country’s military expenditure is on average 20% lower if its state government officials are locally elected, which is consistent with our theoretical prediction.
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Immigration and the Rise of American Ingenuity

Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby, Tom Nicholas
American Economic Review, Nr. 5, 2017
Abstract
We build on the analysis in Akcigit, Grigsby, and Nicholas (2017) by using US patent and census data to examine the relationship between immigration and innovation. We construct a measure of foreign born expertise and show that technology areas where immigrant inventors were prevalent between 1880 and 1940 experienced more patenting and citations between 1940 and 2000. The contribution of immigrant inventors to US innovation was substantial. We also show that immigrant inventors were more productive than native born inventors; however, they received significantly lower levels of labor income. The immigrant inventor wage-gap cannot be explained by differentials in productivity.
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Plant-based Bioeconomy in Central Germany – A Mapping of Actors, Industries and Places

Wilfried Ehrenfeld, Frieder Kropfhäußer
Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Nr. 5, 2017
Abstract
The bioeconomy links industrial and agricultural research and production and is expected to provide growth, particularly in rural areas. However, it is still unclear which companies, research institutes and universities make up the bioeconomy. This makes it difficult to evaluate the policy measures that support the bioeconomy. The aim of this article is to provide an inventory of relevant actors in the three Central German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. First we take an in-depth look at the different sectors, outline the industries involved, note the location and age of the enterprises and examine the distribution of important European industrial activity classification (NACE) codes. Our results underline the fact that established industry classifications are insufficient in identifying the plant-based bioeconomy population. We also question the overly optimistic statements regarding growth potentials in rural areas and employment potentials in general.
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Joint R&D Subsidies, Related Variety, and Regional Innovation

T. Broekel, Matthias Brachert, M. Duschl, T. Brenner
International Regional Science Review, Nr. 3, 2017
Abstract
Subsidies for research and development (R&D) are an important tool of public R&D policy, which motivates extensive scientific analyses and evaluations. This article adds to this literature by arguing that the effects of R&D subsidies go beyond the extension of organizations’ monetary resources invested into R&D. It is argued that collaboration induced by subsidized joint R&D projects yield significant effects that are missed in traditional analyses. An empirical study on the level of German labor market regions substantiates this claim, showing that collaborative R&D subsidies impact regions’ innovation growth when providing access to related variety and embedding regions into central positions in cross-regional knowledge networks.
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Complex-task Biased Technological Change and the Labor Market

Colin Caines, Florian Hoffmann, Gueorgui Kambourov
Review of Economic Dynamics, April 2017
Abstract
In this paper we study the relationship between task complexity and the occupational wage- and employment structure. Complex tasks are defined as those requiring higher-order skills, such as the ability to abstract, solve problems, make decisions, or communicate effectively. We measure the task complexity of an occupation by performing Principal Component Analysis on a broad set of occupational descriptors in the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) data. We establish four main empirical facts for the U.S. over the 1980–2005 time period that are robust to the inclusion of a detailed set of controls, subsamples, and levels of aggregation: (1) There is a positive relationship across occupations between task complexity and wages and wage growth; (2) Conditional on task complexity, routine-intensity of an occupation is not a significant predictor of wage growth and wage levels; (3) Labor has reallocated from less complex to more complex occupations over time; (4) Within groups of occupations with similar task complexity labor has reallocated to non-routine occupations over time. We then formulate a model of Complex-Task Biased Technological Change with heterogeneous skills and show analytically that it can rationalize these facts. We conclude that workers in non-routine occupations with low ability of solving complex tasks are not shielded from the labor market effects of automatization.
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On the Simultaneity Bias in the Relationship Between Risk Attitudes, Entry into Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Survival

Matthias Brachert, Walter Hyll, Mirko Titze
Applied Economics Letters, Nr. 7, 2017
Abstract
We consider the simultaneity bias when examining the effect of individual risk attitudes on entrepreneurship. We demonstrate that entry into self-employment is related to changes in risk attitudes. We further show that these changes are correlated with the probability to remain in entrepreneurship.
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Paternal Unemployment During Childhood: Causal Effects on Youth Worklessness and Educational Attainment

Steffen Müller, Regina T. Riphahn, Caroline Schwientek
Oxford Economic Papers, Nr. 1, 2017
Abstract
Using long-running data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984–2012), we investigate the impact of paternal unemployment on child labour market and education outcomes. We first describe correlation patterns and then use sibling fixed effects and the Gottschalk (1996) method to identify the causal effects of paternal unemployment. We find different patterns for sons and daughters. Paternal unemployment does not seem to causally affect the outcomes of sons. In contrast, it increases both daughters’ worklessness and educational attainment. We test the robustness of the results and explore potential explanations.
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Creative Destruction and Subjective Well-being

Philippe Aghion, Ufuk Akcigit, Angus Deaton, Alexandra Roulet
American Economic Review, Nr. 12, 2016
Abstract
In this paper we analyze the relationship between turnover-driven growth and subjective well-being. Our model of innovation-led growth and unemployment predicts that: (i) the effect of creative destruction on expected individual welfare should be unambiguously positive if we control for unemployment, less so if we do not; (ii) job creation has a positive and job destruction has a negative impact on well-being; (iii) job destruction has a less negative impact in areas with more generous unemployment insurance policies; and (iv) job creation has a more positive effect on individuals that are more forward-looking. The empirical analysis using cross sectional MSA (metropolitan statistical area)-level and individual-level data provide empirical support to these predictions.
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Support for Public Research Spin-offs by the Parent Organizations and the Speed of Commercialization

Viktor Slavtchev, D. Göktepe-Hultén
The Journal of Technology Transfer, Nr. 6, 2016
Abstract
We empirically analyze whether support by the parent organization in the early (nascent and seed) stage speeds up the process of commercialization and helps spin-offs from public research organizations generate first revenues sooner. To identify the impact of support by the parent organization, we apply multivariate regression techniques as well as an instrumental variable approach. Our results show that support in the early stage by the parent organization can speed up commercialization. Moreover, we identify two distinct channels—the help in developing a business plan and in acquiring external capital—through which support by the parent organization can enable spin-offs to generate first revenues sooner.
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