We examine whether low-paid jobs have an effect on the occupational advancement probability of unemployed persons to obtain better-paid jobs in the future (stepping-stone effect). We make use of data from the German Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP) and apply a dynamic random-effects probit model. Our results suggest that low-wage jobs can act as stepping stones to better-paid work. The improvement of the chance to obtain a high-wage job by accepting low-paid work is particularly large for less-skilled persons and for individuals with longer unemployment experiences. Low-paid work is less beneficial if the job is also associated with a low social status.

Das Ziel des Forschungsvorhabens besteht zum einen darin, die Bedeutungskonstitution zu untersuchen. Zum anderen soll gezeigt werden, dass nationale und internationale monetäre Institutionen in ihren Kommunikationsformen nicht einem linear-kausalen Kommunikationsmodell folgen. Der neue methodische Ansatz versteht sich komplementär zu den formal analytischen Begriffskonstruktionen. Ökonomie als Erfahrungswissenschaft bedarf eines vielfältigen Methodenrepertoires. Die Unabdingbarkeit der Methodenvielfalt resultiert aus dem Mandat der Preisstabilität der Zentralbanken, das sie im Kontext von Unsicherheit über die Steuerung der Erwartungen der Finanzmarktakteure zu erfüllen versuchen. Die Erwartungssteuerung gelingt nicht als lineare Projektion gegebener Erwartungen oder Bedeutungen. Sie gelingt über die Sprachvermitteltheit, die Verwendung von Metaphern und Begriffen in ökonomischen Interaktionen. Bedeutungen sind nicht ex ante gegeben. Der innovative Ansatz soll anhand der Entwicklung der Amerikanischen und Europäischen Zentralbank sowie der Bank für Internationalen Zahlungsausgleich weiterentwickelt und überprüft werden. Das Projekt verbindet den Forschungsstand zu monetären Institutionen mit der Wissenschaftstheorie und Analytischen Philosophie.

Recently, integrating Transaction Cost Economic (TCE) and Resource Based View (RBV) arguments has become one of the most prominent theoretical approaches in research on business relationships. We question this dominance and strengthen an exclusive TCE perspective by recalling two of the core TCE constructs in order to achieve full exploitation of TCE reasoning. We discuss the transaction attributes “asset specificity” and “uncertainty” and identify conceptual gaps that lead to ambiguous results regarding the test of TCE guided hypotheses in prior relationship marketing and management research. To overcome these problems, we redefine both concepts and show that they are interconnected in more complex ways than past empirical research has accounted for. Hypotheses are derived and tested empirically in a cross-sectional online-survey setting by using means of structural equation modelling.

This paper investigates to what extent Chinese monetary policy is constrained by the dollar peg. To this end, we use a cointegration framework to examine whether Chinese interest rates are driven by the Fed’s policy. In a second step, we estimate a monetary model for China, in which we include also other monetary policy tools besides the central bank interest rate, namely reserve requirement ratios and open market operations. Our results suggest China has been relatively successful in isolating its monetary policy from the US policy and that the interest rate tool has not been effectively made use of. We therefore conclude that by employing capital controls and relying on other instruments than the interest rate China has been able to exert relatively autonomous monetary policy.

The amendment to the German Trade and Crafts Code in 2004 offers a natural experiment to asses the causal effects of this reform on the probabilities of being self-employed and transition into and out of self-employment, using cross-sections (2002-2006) of German microcensus data. This study applies the difference-in-differences technique in logit models for four occupational groups. Easing the educational entry requirement has fostered self-employment significantly for less qualified craftsmen, almost doubling the entry probability, even as exit rates remained unaffected. Weaker effects occur for other occupational groups. These findings have implications for the design of regulations with educational requirements.

Recent monetary search models emphasize that the real effects of inflation via its impact on price dispersion depend on the level of search costs and, thus, on the level of market integration. For less integrated markets, the inflation-price dispersion nexus is predicted to be asymmetrically V-shaped which implies an optimal inflation rate above zero. For highly integrated markets, however, theory suggests that the impact of inflation on price dispersion disappears. Employing price data of the European Union member states, this paper is the first that empirically tests these implications of monetary search theory.

We analyze the distributive justice of the combined burden of taxes, social security contributions and public transfers on employee households. In order to investigate whether the treatment of families by the aggregate tax-benefit system can be regarded as “fair”, we compare the equivalent incomes of eight different household types. Using the concepts of system-inherent equivalence scales and horizontal equity we find evidence for a structural discrimination of low income families, while families in the high income brackets tend to be privileged. The equity in the treatment of a household type is not only affected by the amount but also by the distribution of income between the household members. Based on these results we can state a significant contradiction of value judgments within the German tax-benefit system. From the perspective of our paper, there is no convincing justification for this inconsistency.

Overnight money market rates are the predominant operational target of monetary policy. As a consequence, central banks have re- designed the implementation of monetary policy to keep the deviations of the overnight rate from the key policy rate small and short-lived. This paper uses fractional integration techniques to explore how the operational framework of four major central banks affects the persis- tence of overnight rates. Our results suggest that a well-communicated and transparent interest rate target of the central bank is a particu- larly important condition for a low degree of overnight rate persistence.

Governmental activities in welfare states influence private charitable giving predominantly in two ways: (1) government spending on the provision of public goods may cause crowding out of private charitable contributions; and (2) tax incentives may boost private charitable giving. For a rich sample of German income tax returns, we estimate elasticities of charitable giving regarding tax incentives, income and governmental spending. Using censored quantile regression, we are able to derive results for different points of the underlying distribution of charitable giving. Assuming a world with impure altruism (Andreoni 1990), we find evidence for impurely altruistic giving behaviour. Taking crowding out into account, tax deductibility of charitable giving suffices to foster private giving to offset foregone tax revenues.

This paper studies the market microstructure of pre-industrial Europe. In particu- lar we investigate the institution of the broker in markets and fairs, and develop a unique data set of approximately 1100 sets of brokerage rules in 42 merchant towns in Central and Western Europe from the late 13th to the end of the 17th century. We show that towns implemented brokerage as an e¢ cient matchmaking institution in a two-sided market problem. Furthermore, towns di¤erentiated seller-friendly from buyer-friendlier matching mechanisms. We show that the decision to implement matchmaking mechanisms, and whether these mechanisms would be buyer- or seller friendly, depends on the products in question and the stated policy goals of the town, as well as time and geographic variables.

In der Wissensmanagementforschung wird dem Wissenstransferprozess besondere Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt: Wissenstransfer sichert die Lernfähigkeit und das Innovationspotential und trägt damit zur Wettbewerbs- und Überlebensfähigkeit von Organisationen bei. Obwohl der Wissenstransfer von den Mitarbeitern in Organisationen getragen und geleistet wird, findet ein Großteil der Forschung auf der Organisationsebene statt. An diesem Kritikpunkt setzen wir an. Im theoretischen Teil des Aufsatzes werfen wir vier Forschungsfragen auf, die wir anschließend mit einem Individualdatensatz aus einer Mitarbeiterbefragung aufgreifen. Dabei identifizieren und schätzen wir individuelle Wahrnehmungsmuster von Wissensmanagement und beziehen diese auf zwei in der Literatur viel diskutierte Wissenstransferprozesse: Sozialisation und Kombination. Abschließend wird der (forschungs)praktische Nutzen der Ergebnisse diskutiert.

Deploying data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) we analyze the variability of individual earnings and equivalent household income. Permanent and transitory variances of male income over the period 1984-2008 are estimated for Old German Laender in order to determine their importance to income dynamics. To uncover the role of the welfare state in smoothening earnings shocks we compute different income concepts reaching from gross earnings to net equivalent household income. We find evidence that the overall inequality of earnings in Germany has been rising throughout the period due to both higher permanent inequality and higher volatility. However, taking the welfare state and its institutions into account, we find that net household income has remained fairly stable.

Strategy tools are widely used in the practice of strategic management to yield a good solution with an acceptable problem-solving effort. This paper presents results of an experimental research project that assesses the practical effectiveness of a theory-based decision-making tool, the VRIO- Framework, in predicting the stock-market performance of different companies. The VRIO’s predictive power is compared to the predictions derived from Analyst Ratings that are a widespread and commonly used tool in the decision- making context of this study. Our results suggest that the VRIO-Framework is a particularly effective forecasting tool whereas the power of Analyst Ratings is disputable. The results also provide support for the practical usefulness of resource-based theory.

Interpersonal relations are shaped by the judgements associated with the social cate- gories that individuals perceive in their social contacts. I develop a model of how those judgments form based on a theory of symbolic values. The model depicts the interac- tion between two values, one associated with an inherited ethnic trait ("nationality") and one with an endogenous achievement trait ("income"). Individuals with lower cognitive ability are predicted to invest more value on nationalism and to have hostile relations with immigrants. Multiple equilibria are possible and better schooling may eliminate equilibria with xenophobia. Econometric ndings based on data from three large surveys corroborate the predictions derived from the theoretical model.

Die Konsolidierung der Staatsfinanzen nach der gegenwärtigen Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise wird eines der zentralen wirtschaftspolitischen Themen der nächsten Jahre sein: Die Regelungen zur „Schuldenbremse“ sehen für den Bundeshaushalt bis 2016 einen annähernd ausgeglichenen Haushalt vor, und auch die Länderhaushalte sollen bis 2020 weitgehend konsolidiert werden. Dadurch ergibt sich ein erheblicher Konsolidierungsbedarf der öffentlichen Haushalte, der sich bei realistischen Annahmen über das strukturelle Defizit im Ausgangsjahr 2010 und die zu erwartende langfristige gesamtwirtschaftliche Wachstumsrate bis 2016 auf knapp 80 Mrd. Euro summiert. Bei einem Ausgleich der kalten Progression durch eine Tarifanpassung bei der Einkommensteuer, wie in der Koalitionsvereinbarung der Regierungsparteien vorgesehen, würde der Konsolidierungsbedarf bis 2016 auf deutlich über 100 Mrd. Euro zunehmen. Damit verbunden wäre ein erheblicher Anstieg der Staatsverschuldung auf deutlich über 80% des BIP. Aber auch bei einer erfolgreichen Konsolidierung würde die Staatsverschuldung in 2016 noch ca. 75% des BIP betragen. Vor dem Hintergrund der demografischen Entwicklung, die längerfristig mit einem erheblichen Anstieg der Staatsausgaben verbunden sein wird, erscheint die Konsolidierung der Staatsfinanzen geboten. Der Konsolidierungsbedarf sollte nach der Krise vor allem über die Ausgabenseite realisiert werden. Wahrscheinlich werden aber die politisch realisierbaren Ausgabenkürzungen alleine nicht ausreichen, Steuer- und Abgabenerhöhungen werden ergänzend erforderlich sein. Erhöhungen der indirekten und vermögensbezogenen Steuern sind ökonomisch weniger schädlich als die der direkten Steuern und der Sozialabgaben. Die Spielräume für Steuerentlastungen sind gering; der Ausgleich der kalten Progression bei der Einkommensteuer ist wünschenswert, müsste aber gegenfinanziert werden.

In view of rising wage and income inequality, the introduction of a legal minimum wage has recently become an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of a nationwide legal minimum wage of 7.50 € per hour on the basis of a microsimulation model which accounts for the complex interactions between individual wages, the tax-benefit system and net household incomes, also taking into account potential employment effects as well as indirect effects on consumption. Simulation results show that the minimum wage would be rather ineffective in raising net household incomes and reducing income inequality, even if it led to a substantial increase in hourly wages at the bottom of the wage distribution. The ineffectiveness of a minimum wage in Germany is mainly due to the existing system of means-tested income support and the position of minimum wage earners in the income distribution.

The relation between the ECB’s main refinancing (MRO) rates and the money market is key for the monetary transmission process in the euro area. This paper investigates how money market rates respond to the new information revealed by MRO auctions. Our results confirm a stabilizing level relationship between the overnight rate Eonia and MRO rates before the financial crisis. Since the start of the financial crisis, however, we find that MRO auction outcomes even exacerbated the disconnection of money market rates from the policy-intended interest rate level. These findings support the fixed rate full allotment policy introduced by the ECB as an unconventionalmeasure to re- stabilize banks’ refinancing conditions.

This paper examines whether monetary expansion is a beggar- thyself or beggar- thy-neighbour policy. Obstfeld and Rogo¤ (1995) show that monetary expansion under producer currency pricing in- creases domestic and foreign overall welfare, in cases where the cross- country substitutability is high. If the cross-country substitutability is low, then monetary expansion is a beggar- thyself policy that re- duces domestic welfare and increases foreign welfare (Corsetti & Pe- senti 2001; Tille 2001). In this paper, we will show that regardless of whether the cross-country substitutability is high or low, monetary expansion is always a beggar-thyself policy in the short run.