Von der Transformation zur europäischen Integration:
Wachstumsfaktor Bildung besser nutzen – ein Tagungsbericht
Gerhard Heimpold
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 2,
2017
Abstract
Unter dem Titel „Von der Transformation zur europäischen Integration: Wachstumsfaktor Bildung besser nutzen“ hat das Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH) gemeinsam mit Partnern aus Forschungseinrichtungen und Universitäten in Deutschland am 22. Februar 2017 Forschungsergebnisse zur besseren Nutzung von Bildung als Wachstumsfaktor vorgestellt und diskutiert. Der Präsident des IWH, Professor Reint E. Gropp, Ph.D., unterstrich, dass es Investitionen in Humankapital seien, die langfristig das Wirtschaftswachstum treiben. Andere Länder investierten deutlich mehr in Humankapital als Deutschland. Dies sollte zu denken geben.
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Does Social Capital Matter in Corporate Decisions? Evidence from Corporate Tax Avoidance
Iftekhar Hasan, Chun-Keung (Stan) Hoi, Qiang Wu, Hao Zhang
Journal of Accounting Research,
No. 3,
2017
Abstract
We investigate whether the levels of social capital in U.S. counties, as captured by strength of civic norms and density of social networks in the counties, are systematically related to tax avoidance activities of corporations with headquarters located in the counties. We find strong negative associations between social capital and corporate tax avoidance, as captured by effective tax rates and book-tax differences. These results are incremental to the effects of local religiosity and firm culture toward socially irresponsible activities. They are robust to using organ donation as an alternative social capital proxy and fixed effect regressions. They extend to aggressive tax avoidance practices. Additionally, we provide corroborating evidence using firms with headquarters relocation that changes the exposure to social capital. We conclude that social capital surrounding corporate headquarters provides environmental influences constraining corporate tax avoidance.
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Social Capital and Debt Contracting: Evidence from Bank Loans and Public Bonds
Iftekhar Hasan, Chun-Keung (Stan) Hoi, Qiang Wu, Hao Zhang
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis,
No. 3,
2017
Abstract
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Declining Dynamism, Allocative Efficiency, and the Productivity Slowdown
Ryan A. Decker, John Haltiwanger, Ron S. Jarmin, Javier Miranda
American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings,
No. 5,
2017
Abstract
A large literature documents declining measures of business dynamism including high-growth young firm activity and job reallocation. A distinct literature describes a slowdown in the pace of aggregate labor productivity growth. We relate these patterns by studying changes in productivity growth from the late 1990s to the mid 2000s using firm-level data. We find that diminished allocative efficiency gains can account for the productivity slowdown in a manner that interacts with the within-firm productivity growth distribution. The evidence suggests that the decline in dynamism is reason for concern and sheds light on debates about the causes of slowing productivity growth.
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The Political Determinants of Government Bond Holdings
Stefan Eichler, Timo Plaga
Journal of International Money and Finance,
No. 5,
2017
Abstract
This paper analyzes the link between political factors and sovereign bond holdings of US investors in 60 countries over the 2003–2013 period. We find that, in general, US investors hold more bonds in countries with few political constraints on the government. Moreover, US investors respond to increased uncertainty around major elections by reducing government bond holdings. These effects are particularly significant in democratic regimes and countries with sound institutions, which enable effective implementation of fiscal consolidation measures or economic reforms. In countries characterized by high current default risk or a sovereign default history, US investors show a tendency towards favoring higher political constraints as this makes sovereign default more difficult for the government. Political instability, characterized by the fluctuation in political veto players, reduces US investment in government bonds. This effect is more pronounced in countries with low sovereign solvency.
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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,
No. 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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Skills, Earnings, and Employment: Exploring Causality in the Estimation of Returns to Skills
Franziska Hampf, Simon Wiederhold, Ludger Woessmann
Large-scale Assessments in Education,
No. 12,
2017
Abstract
Ample evidence indicates that a person’s human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the estimated returns can be causally interpreted. Using the PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills, this paper explores several approaches that aim to address potential threats to causal identification of returns to skills, in terms of both higher wages and better employment chances. We address measurement error by exploiting the fact that PIAAC measures skills in several domains. Furthermore, we estimate instrumental-variable models that use skill variation stemming from school attainment and parental education to circumvent reverse causation. Results show a strikingly similar pattern across the diverse set of countries in our sample. In fact, the instrumental-variable estimates are consistently larger than those found in standard least-squares estimations. The same is true in two “natural experiments,” one of which exploits variation in skills from changes in compulsory-schooling laws across U.S. states. The other one identifies technologically induced variation in broadband Internet availability that gives rise to variation in ICT skills across German municipalities. Together, the results suggest that least-squares estimates may provide a lower bound of the true returns to skills in the labor market.
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24.04.2017 • 22/2017
Higher capital requirements: It’s the firms that end up suffering
61 European banks were scheduled to increase their capital cover by 2012 to provide a sufficient buffer for future crises. As the study by the research group chaired by Reint E. Gropp at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association shows, the banks did implement these requirements – not by raising their levels of equity, but by reducing their credit supply. This resulted in lower firm, investment, and sales growth for firms which obtained a larger share of their bank credit from these banks.
Reint E. Gropp
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