Endogenous Institution Formation in Public Good Games: The Effect of Economic Education
Martin Altemeyer-Bartscher, Dmitri Bershadskyy, Philipp Schreck, Florian Timme
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 29,
2017
Abstract
In a public good experiment, the paper analyses to which extent individuals with economic education behave differently in a second-order dilemma. Second-order dilemmas may arise, when individuals endogenously build up costly institutions that help to overcome a public good problem (first-order dilemma). The specific institution used in the experiment is a communication platform allowing for group communication before the first-order public good game takes place. The experimental results confirm the finding of the literature that economists tend to free ride more intensively in public good games than non-economists. The difference is the strongest in the end-game phase, yielding in the conclusion that the magnitude of the end-game effect depends on the share of economists in the pool of participants. When it comes to the building-up of institutions, the individual efficiency gain of the institution and its inherent cost function constitute the driving forces for the contribution behaviour. Providing an investment friendly environment yields in economists contributing more to the institution than non-economists. Therefore, we make clear that first-order results of a simple public good game cannot be simply applied for second-order incentive problems.
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EFN Report Autumn 2015: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2015 and 2016
European Forecasting Network Reports,
No. 4,
2015
Abstract
For the end of this year and for 2016, chances are good that production in advanced economies will continue to expand a bit faster than at trend rates, while growth dynamics in emerging markets economies will not strengthen or even continue to decrease.
Since autumn 2014, production in the euro area expands at an annualized rate of about 1.5%. The recovery appears to be broad based, with contributions from private consumption, exports, and investment into fixed capital, although it fell back in the second quarter after a strong increase at the beginning of the year. From a regional perspective, the recovery is as well quite broad based: production is expanding in almost every country, surprisingly and according to official data, including Greece.
Structural impediments still limit the ability of the euro area economy to grow strongly: firms and, in particular, private households are only slowly reducing their heavy debt burdens.
According to our forecasts, the euro area GDP will grow by 1.6% in 2015 and by 1.9% in 2016. The high increase in the number of refugees in 2015 will, in principle, positively affect private as well as public consumption, but the effect should be below 0.1 percentage points relative to GDP.
Our inflation forecast for 2015 is 0.1%. For 2016, we expect that inflation will increase to 1.3%, which is still below the ECB’s target of 2%.
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Understanding the Great Recession
Mathias Trabandt, Lawrence J. Christiano, Martin S. Eichenbaum
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics,
No. 1,
2015
Abstract
We argue that the vast bulk of movements in aggregate real economic activity during the Great Recession were due to financial frictions. We reach this conclusion by looking through the lens of an estimated New Keynesian model in which firms face moderate degrees of price rigidities, no nominal rigidities in wages, and a binding zero lower bound constraint on the nominal interest rate. Our model does a good job of accounting for the joint behavior of labor and goods markets, as well as inflation, during the Great Recession. According to the model the observed fall in total factor productivity and the rise in the cost of working capital played critical roles in accounting for the small drop in inflation that occurred during the Great Recession.
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The Skills Balance in Germany’s Import Intensity of Exports: An Input-Output Analysis
Udo Ludwig, Hans-Ulrich Brautzsch
Intereconomics,
No. 2,
2014
Abstract
In the decade prior to the economic and financial crisis, Germany’s net exports increased in absolute terms as well as relative to the growing level of import intensity of domestically produced export goods and services. This article analyses the direct and indirect employment effects induced both by exports as well as by of the import intensity of the production process of export goods and services on the skills used. It shows that Germany’s export surpluses led to positive net employment effects. Although the volume of imports of intermediate goods increased and was augmented by the rise in exports, it could not undermine the overall positive employment effect.
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The Impact of Institutional and Social Characteristics on Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Japan
Stefan Eichler, Alexander Karmann, N. Lucke
Annals of Financial Economics,
No. 2,
2013
Abstract
We examine the determinants of Japanese foreign direct investment (FDI) focusing on institutional and social factors. Using panel data on 59 countries from 1995 to 2008, we find that host countries with free and open markets and greater cultural distance from Japan attract Japanese FDI. Good institutions, such as a well-developed legal framework and an effective government, are important in promoting Japanese FDI to emerging economies, whereas fewer regulatory restrictions, lower tax burden, and more religious diversity attract Japanese FDI to developed countries. We find that corruption stimulates Japanese FDI to developed countries, which is contrary to most previous research.
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Skill Content of Intra-european Trade Flows
Götz Zeddies
European Journal of Comparative Economics,
No. 1,
2013
Abstract
In recent decades, the international division of labor has expanded rapidly in the wake of European integration. In this context, especially Western European high-wage countries should have specialized on (human-)capital intensively manufactured goods and should have increasingly sourced labor-intensively manufactured goods, especially parts and components, from Eastern European low wage countries. Since this should be beneficial for the high-skilled and harmful to the lower-qualified workforce in high-wage countries, the opening up of Eastern Europe is often considered as a vital reason for increasing unemployment of the lower-qualified in Western Europe. This paper addresses this issue by analyzing the skill content of Western European countries’ bilateral trade using input-output techniques in order to evaluate possible effects of international trade on labor demand. Thereby, differences in factor inputs and production technologies have been considered, allowing for vertical product differentiation. In this case, skill content of bilateral exports and imports partially differs substantially, especially in bilateral trade between Western and Eastern European countries. According to the results, East-West trade should be harmful particularly to the medium-skilled in Western European countries.
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