Vocational Training
Vocational Training at IWH At the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) the state-approved professions specialist in media and information services (m/f/x) [library] ,…
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Population and labour market
Population and labour market Inhabitants are all people (Germans and foreigners) with permanent residence in federal territory (or in a Land). That does not include members of…
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Preferred Field of Study and Academic Performance
Francesco Berlingieri, André Diegmann, Maresa Sprietsma
Economics of Education Review,
August
2023
Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability, we provide evidence that students who are not enrolled in their preferred field of study are more likely to change their field, delay graduation and drop out of university. The estimated impact on dropout is particularly strong among students of low socio-economic status and is likely to be driven by lower effort and motivation.
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Exposure to Conflict, Migrations and Long-run Education and Income Inequality: Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina
Adnan Efendic, Dejan Kovač, Jacob N. Shapiro
Defence and Peace Economics,
No. 8,
2023
Abstract
We investigate the long-term relationship between conflict-related migration and individual socioeconomic inequality. Looking at the post-conflict environment of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), a former Yugoslav state most heavily impacted by the wars of the early 1990s, the paper focuses on differences in educational performance and income between four groups: migrants, internally displaced persons, former external migrants, and those who did not move. The analysis leverages a municipality-representative survey (n ≈ 6,000) that captured self-reported education and income outcomes as well as migration histories. We find that individuals with greater exposure to conflict had systematically worse educational performance and lower earnings two decades after the war. Former external migrants now living in BiH have better educational and economic outcomes than those who did not migrate, but these advantages are smaller for external migrants who were forced to move. We recommend that policies intended to address migration-related discrepancies should be targeted on the basis of individual and family experiences caused by conflict.
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Market-implied Ratings and Their Divergence from Credit Ratings
Iftekhar Hasan, Winnie P. H. Poon, Jianfu Shen, Gaiyan Zhang
Journal of Financial Research,
No. 2,
2023
Abstract
In this article, we investigate the divergence between credit ratings (CRs) and Moody's market-implied ratings (MIRs). Our evidence shows that rating gaps provide incremental information to the market regarding issuers' default risk over CRs alone in the short horizon and outperform CRs over extended horizons. The predictive ability of rating gaps is greater for more opaque and volatile issuers. Such predictability was more pronounced during the 2008 financial crisis but weakened in the post-Dodd-Frank Act period. This finding is consistent with credit rating agencies' efforts to improve their performance when facing regulatory pressure. Moreover, our analysis identifies rating-gap signals that do (do not) lead to subsequent Moody's actions to place issuers on negative outlook and watchlists. We find that negative signals from MIR gaps have a real economic impact on issuers' fundamentals such as profitability, leverage, investment, and default risk, thus supporting the recovery-efforts hypothesis.
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Department Profiles
Research Profiles of the IWH Departments All doctoral students are allocated to one of the four research departments (Financial Markets – Laws, Regulations and Factor Markets –…
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Vocational Training
Vocational Training at IWH At the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) the state-approved professions specialist in media and information services (m/f/x) [library] ,…
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Internships
Internship at Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) Interested in gaining an authentic insight in the interesting daily business and the variable tasks of an institute for…
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Cross-country Evidence on the Allocation of COVID-19 Government Subsidies and Consequences for Productivity
Tommaso Bighelli, Tibor Lalinsky, Juuso Vanhala
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies,
June
2023
Abstract
We study the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and related policy support on productivity. We employ an extensive micro-distributed exercise to access otherwise unavailable individual data on firm performance and government subsidies. Our cross-country evidence for five EU countries shows that the pandemic led to a significant short-term decline in aggregate productivity and the direct support to firms had only a limited positive effect on productivity developments. A thorough comparative analysis of the distribution of employment and overall direct subsidies, considering separately also relative firm-level size of support and the probability of being supported, reveals ambiguous cross-country results related to the firm-level productivity and points to the decisive role of other firm characteristics.
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IWH EXplore Scholarship
IWH EXplore Scholarship Guidelines for the Awarding of IWH EXplore Scholarships (PDF, 290 kB) The IWH awards scholarships for the performance of a research task within an IWH…
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