Suchergebnisse

Alle
Datentyp
Thema
Jahr
Aktualisieren

Potential International Employment Effects of a Hard Brexit

Hans-Ulrich Brautzsch, Oliver Holtemöller
IWH Discussion Papers, Nr. 4, 2019
publiziert in: Journal of Economic Structures
Abstract
We use the World Input Output Database (WIOD) to estimate the potential employment effects of a hard Brexit in 43 countries. In line with other studies we assume that imports from the European Union (EU) to the UK will decline by 25% after a hard Brexit. The absolute effects are largest in big EU countries which have close trade relationships with the UK like Germany and France. However, there are also large countries outside the EU which are heavily affected via global value chains like China, for example. The relative effects (in percent of total employment) are largest in Malta and Ireland. UK employment will also be affected via intermediate input production. Within Germany, the motor vehicle industry and in particular the “Autostadt” Wolfsburg are most affected.
Artikel Lesen

EFN Report Winter 2018/19: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2019 and 2020

EFN Reports, Nr. 1, 2019
Abstract
• The cyclical upswing of the world economy comes to an end, since expansionary policies in the US are expected to peter out in 2019, and the protectionist course of the US government clouds the perspectives for world trade. • However, if a major trade conflict can be avoided, chances are good that world production growth will be close to the long-run average of a bit more than 3%, with trade expanding at a similar pace. • Slowing exports, in particular to China, can partly explain the setback, while domestic conditions still appear favourable: firms continued hiring, albeit by less than before, tight labour markets in many member countries have caused wages to rise more quickly, and house prices continue to increase markedly. • Since a trend to higher inflationary dynamics is still not detectable, the ECB is likely to either keep key interest rates unchanged in 2019 or raise them very carefully at the end of the year. • All in all, we expect the euro area growth rate to come down from 1.9% in 2018 to 1.5% in 2019 and 1.8% in 2020, and inflation to slightly slow down from 1.8% in 2018 to 1.6% in 2019 and 1.5% in 2020.
Artikel Lesen

EFN Report Autumn 2018: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2018 and 2019

EFN Reports, Nr. 3, 2018
Abstract
• Signs of a slowing world economy are piling up: Since the beginning of the year purchasing manager indices have been declining globally, in summer higher US interest rates led investors to withdraw capital from emerging markets, and as a consequence, capital costs rose and currencies depreciated in many emerging markets economies. In October stock prices decreased markedly worldwide including the US, despite the strong upswing in this country. • As a consequence of the turmoil on financial markets, monetary conditions in many emerging economies are no longer favorable. What ultimately counts for the prospects of the global economy, is, however, the performance of the US, the Euro area, China and Japan. The upswing in the US appears stable enough to continue well into 2019. While at present the rest of the group appears to lose momentum, there is a good chance that production in each of these economies will still expand at rates that are close to their potential growth. Further protectionist rounds are the most important risk to this scenario. • In the first half of the current year the euro area economy expanded at a markedly slower rate than in 2017, about 0.4% per quarter, but still substantial. Rising risk premia on Italian assets will probably force banks in this large country to tighten credit conditions, and a slowing world trade will dent export growth. All in all, we expect GDP growth in the euro area to go down from 2.4% in 2017 to 2.0% in 2018 and to 1.7% in 2019. • Employment continues to expand and vacancy rates are at present higher than in 2017. As a consequence, wages rise more quickly: nominal compensations per employee started accelerating early in 2017, and negotiated wages followed at the beginning of 2018. Wage inflation of slightly below 2.5% and healthy growth in employment raise real labor incomes markedly. • Our forecasts are based on the assumption that rating agencies will continue as-signing investment grade to the Italian government debt, and that the Italian government and the European Commission will find a compromise about the draft budget of the country in the coming weeks. Another assumption is that the UK will not exit the EU in an unorderly way in March 2019.
Artikel Lesen

The Efficiency of Local Public-service Production: The Effect of Political Institutions

Peter Bönisch, Peter Haug
FinanzArchiv, Nr. 2, 2018
Abstract
Reforms replacing municipal cooperations by centralized municipalities often aim at increasing municipal efficiency. Empirical evidence supporting this aim, however, is ambiguous. Our paper analyzes the effect of institutions on municipal efficiency. In particular, we distinguish two archetypal institutional settings, a centralized and a confederal one, and argue that bureaucrats in a centralized setting are able to increase the fiscal residual. Our empirical test case is the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. We test the effect of the institutional setup using the bootstrap approach suggested by Simar and Wilson (2007), concluding that a decentralized institutional setting improves the efficiency of municipal production.
Artikel Lesen

EFN Report Spring 2018: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2018 and 2019

EFN Reports, Nr. 2, 2018
Abstract
• The world economy is booming. The global upswing is investment-driven, and since investment goods usually have a large import content, it is no surprise that world trade has been buoyant during winter. The very expansionary US fiscal policy (tax reform and lifting of spending caps) could give an additional shortterm stimulus for the world economy. • However, we forecast world trade to slow down during 2018. The US administration’s announcement of high tariffs on steel and aluminium comes close to triggering a spiral into a broader trade conflict. Moreover, the globalization of value chains has been slowing down since the financial crisis due to the industrial upgrading in China and in other emerging economies that has declined processing trade. In addition, some types of manufacturing jobs have returned to source countries (reshoring) in response to technology innovation and lower labour costs differentials. • The euro area is in the middle of a broad based cyclical upswing. Higher exports and improved expectations have induced firms to invest more into equipment, as capacity utilization has been above average for some time now and is still increasing, and financing costs are very low. However, recent soft indicators, but also industrial production have been surprisingly downbeat, and there was some turbulence in financial markets, which suggests some caution. • The ECB will probably stop its asset purchase program at the end of 2018, but only later in 2019 start raising interest rates. Fiscal policy in the euro area is slightly expansionary this year, and a notable fiscal stimulus in France and in Germany is to be expected for 2019. • Overall, we forecast euro area GDP to expand by 2.2% in 2018 and by 1.6% in 2019. Accelerating wage dynamics will, together with higher price setting powers of firms and the recent increase in oil prices, cause consumer price inflation rising to nearly to 2% in 2019. Uncertainty, is however substantial, as a slight slowdown cannot be ruled out, which would also impact inflation dynamics.
Artikel Lesen

Bottom-up or Direct? Forecasting German GDP in a Data-rich Environment

Katja Heinisch, Rolf Scheufele
Empirical Economics, Nr. 2, 2018
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate whether there are benefits in disaggregating GDP into its components when nowcasting GDP. To answer this question, we conduct a realistic out-of-sample experiment that deals with the most prominent problems in short-term forecasting: mixed frequencies, ragged-edge data, asynchronous data releases and a large set of potential information. We compare a direct leading indicator-based GDP forecast with two bottom-up procedures—that is, forecasting GDP components from the production side or from the demand side. Generally, we find that the direct forecast performs relatively well. Among the disaggregated procedures, the production side seems to be better suited than the demand side to form a disaggregated GDP nowcast.
Artikel Lesen

Does Intermunicipal Cooperation Increase Efficiency? A Conditional Metafrontier Approach for the Hessian Wastewater Sector

F. Blaeschke, Peter Haug
Local Government Studies, Nr. 1, 2018
Abstract
This paper analyses the relationship between intermunicipal cooperation and efficiency of public service provision. Organisational arrangements of public service production, including self-provision, joint provision or contracting, affect incentives and internal transaction costs. Hence, cooperation gains from scale effects need to be balanced against technical inefficiencies. We analyse relative efficiency of wastewater disposal for German municipalities. We employ a conditional analysis in conjunction with a metafrontier approach to calculate relative efficiency measures and technology gap ratios controlling for organisational arrangements and further environmental variables. Jointly providing municipalities and contractor municipalities exhibit lower technical efficiency than self-providing and contracting municipalities. As confirmed by previous research, scale effects from cooperation and contracting apply to small municipalities primarily.
Artikel Lesen

EFN Report Autumn 2017: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2017 and 2018

EFN Reports, Nr. 4, 2017
Abstract
In 2017 the world economy is in an upswing, but consumer price inflation is still surprisingly low in advanced economies, and central banks will therefore keep key interest rates very low and financial conditions favorable for the rest of the year and, probably, for 2018. Global growth, though, will moderate a bit, since expansive policy measures in China have been reduced. As an early consequence, imports of emerging Asia were no more than stagnant during summer. The upswing in the euro area is broad based, both regionally and with respect to the different components of aggregate demand, as investment has recently picked up markedly, partly due to construction of dwellings. From the production side, the level of capacity utilization in the manufacturing sector is clearly above its long-term average and rising further. Inflation will not have reached the ECB’s target rate of below but close to 2% at the end of 2018. The trend of a growing participation rate in labour markets and the amount of part-time and low quality jobs are some reasons why overall wage and price dynamics are still very moderate; the appreciation of the euro, the incorporation of technical innovations and a possible change in the consumer preferences for low-cost products could be other reasons. We forecast a GDP growth rate of 2.3% for 2017 and 1.9% for 2018. This year’s strong pickup of world trade means that net exports will, in spite of rather strong domestic demand, contribute positively to GDP growth in 2017, while the opposite holds for 2018, due to the significant appreciation of the Euro.
Artikel Lesen

EFN Report Summer 2017: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2017 and 2018

EFN Reports, Nr. 3, 2017
Abstract
• Worldwide economic activity is vivid in summer 2017. Data on production for the first quarter of the year were only mixed: in the euro area quarterly growth was accelerating, but it went down in the US, Japan, and China. Other basic indicators, however, suggest that these economies continue expanding healthily. • Risks concerning the international economic policy framework remain, in particular since the economic agenda of the US government is still unclear, and no one knows whether the Brexit negotiations will lead the way to an orderly separation of Britain from the EU. • Production in the euro area has been expanding by more that 1 ½ % per year for almost three years now; since summer 2016, this expansion has even gained a bit of pace, mainly due to a expansion in France and, to a lesser extent, in Italy. • The ECB’s cautious hints at a coming normalization of monetary policy were enough to have a discernible effect on financial conditions at the end of June: yields for long term bonds rose, and the euro appreciated. That said, the common currency is still relatively cheap, and borrowing costs for non-financial firms and private households are still low. • Overall, we raise our GDP forecast for 2017 from 1.7% (spring report) to 2.1% and for 2018 to 1.8% (spring: 1.7%). We expect HICP inflation to remain well below the ECB target both in 2017 and 2018. • A major risk for the continuation of the current upswing in 2018 comes from the normalization of monetary policy: it is not clear by how much long term interests will rise and whether higher borrowing costs will jeopardize the confidence of financial markets in the solvency of some public debtors in the euro area.
Artikel Lesen

Plant-based Bioeconomy in Central Germany – A Mapping of Actors, Industries and Places

Wilfried Ehrenfeld, Frieder Kropfhäußer
Technology Analysis and 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.
Artikel Lesen
Mitglied der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft LogoTotal-Equality-LogoGefördert durch das BMWK