Wirtschaft im Wandel
Wirtschaft im Wandel Die Zeitschrift „Wirtschaft im Wandel“ unterrichtet die breite Öffentlichkeit über aktuelle Themen der Wirtschaftsforschung. Sie stellt wirtschaftspolitisch…
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Economic Outlook
Joint Economic Forecast Autumn 2024 German economy in transition ‒ weak momentum, low potential growth September 26, 2024 The Joint Economic Forecast Project Group forecasts a…
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East Germany
The Nasty Gap 30 years after unification: Why East Germany is still 20% poorer than the West Dossier In a nutshell The East German economic convergence process is hardly…
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IWH FDI Micro Database
IWH FDI Micro Database The IWH FDI Micro Database (FDI = Foreign Direct Investment) comprises a total population of affiliates of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in selected…
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Brown Bag Seminar
Brown Bag Seminar Financial Markets Department The seminar series "Brown Bag Seminar" was offered on a regular basis by members of the Financial Markets department and their…
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21.06.2022 • 14/2022
War drives up energy prices ‒ High inflation weighs on economy
While the lifting of nationwide coronavirus regulations boosts many service sectors such as the hospitality industry, supply bottlenecks are likely to weigh on the manufacturing sector throughout the summer and high inflation will dampen private consumption. Gross domestic product (GDP) in Germany is expected to decline slightly in the second quarter of 2022. The situation in the manufacturing sector is expected to ease towards the end of the year. The Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) forecasts that GDP will increase by 1.5% in 2022, following an increase by 2.9% in 2021. In East Germany, GDP will increase by 1%.
Oliver Holtemöller
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What Drives the Commodity-Sovereign Risk Dependence in Emerging Market Economies?
Hannes Böhm, Stefan Eichler, Stefan Gießler
Journal of International Money and Finance,
March
2021
Abstract
Using daily data for 34 emerging markets in the period 1994–2016, we find robust evidence that higher export commodity prices are associated with lower sovereign default risk, as measured by lower EMBI spreads. The economic effect is especially pronounced for heavy commodity exporters. Examining the drivers, we find that, first, commodity dependence is higher for countries that export large volumes of commodities, whereas other portfolio characteristics like volatility or concentration are less important. Second, commodity-sovereign risk dependence increases in times of recessions and expansionary U.S. monetary policy. Third, the importance of raw material prices for sovereign financing can likely be mitigated if a country improves institutions and tax systems, attracts FDI inflows, invests in manufacturing, machinery and infrastructure, builds up reserve assets and opens capital and trade accounts. Fourth, the country’s government indebtedness or amount of received development assistance appear to be only of secondary importance for commodity dependence.
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16.12.2020 • 26/2020
New wave of infections delays economic recovery in Germany
The lockdown is causing production in Germany to decline at the end of the year. When restrictions will be relaxed again, the recovery is likely to pick up pace only slowly, partly because the temporary reduction in value-added taxes is expiring. In spring, milder temperatures and an increasing portion of the population being vaccinated are likely to support the German economy to expand more strongly. The Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) forecasts that gross domestic product will increase by 4.4% in 2021, following a 5% decline in 2020. In East Germany, both the decline and the recovery will be significantly less pronounced.
Oliver Holtemöller
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Robot Adoption at German Plants
Liuchun Deng, Verena Plümpe, Jens Stegmaier
Abstract
Using a newly collected dataset of robot use at the plant level from 2014 to 2018, we provide the first microscopic portrait of robotisation in Germany and study the potential determinants of robot adoption. Our descriptive analysis uncovers five stylised facts concerning both extensive and, perhaps more importantly, intensive margin of plant-level robot use: (1) Robot use is relatively rare with only 1.55% German plants using robots in 2018. (2) The distribution of robots is highly skewed. (3) New robot adopters contribute substantially to the recent robotisation. (4) Robot users are exceptional along several dimensions of plant-level characteristics. (5) Heterogeneity in robot types matters. Our regression results further suggest plant size, low-skilled labour share, and exporter status to have strong and positive effect on future probability of robot adoption. Manufacturing plants impacted by the introduction of minimum wage in 2015 are also more likely to adopt robots. However, controlling for plant size, we find that plant-level productivity has no, if not negative, impact on robot adoption.
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Trade Effects of Silver Price Fluctuations in 19th-Century China: A Macro Approach
Makram El-Shagi, Lin Zhang
China Economic Journal,
2020
Abstract
We assess the role of silver price fluctuations in Chinese trade and GDP during the late Qing dynasty, when China still had a bimetallic (silver/copper) monetary system, in which silver was mostly used for international trade. Using a structural VAR (SVAR) with blockwise recursive identification, we identify the impact of silver price shocks on the Chinese economy from 1867, when trade data became available, to 1910, one year before the Qing dynasty collapsed. We find that silver price shocks had a sizable impact on both imports and exports but only a very minor effect on the trade balance, only a marginal impact on growth, and almost no effect on domestic prices. Stronger effects were partly mitigated by inelastic export quantities. Generally, the effect of silver price shocks, while considerable, was only short-lived, displaying no persistence in either direction. We find that the bimetallic system in Qing China might have mitigated a potential positive effect of silver depreciation but did not reverse the effect, which – contrary to claims made in the previous literature – was responsible for neither the worsening trade balance nor the inflation and the quickly increasing imports that occurred during our sample period.
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