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EFN Report Summer 2016: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2016 and 2017

EFN Reports, No. 3, 2016
Abstract
Short run consequences of Brexit for the euro area economy mainly depend on the effects on confidence in the stability of the European Union and the currency area in particular. Anti-European (or indeed anti-globalization) movements are certainly encouraged by the British vote. More important, however, might be a reverse effect: from the perspective of the British turmoil, the euro area might in the near future appear as a zone of relative stability and calm. Against the background of a sluggish world economy, the euro area economy recently performed reasonably well: dynamics have been slowly increasing since 2013, and the rate of expansion in the first quarter of 2016 was one of the highest of the past couple of years. Looking forward, the drivers of the recovery should continue supporting growth in the second half of 2016 and for much of 2017. Our forecast is that euro area GDP will expand by 1.7% in 2016 and by 1.6% in 2017, with only a minor effect from Brexit. This year, like in 2015, average oil prices will probably be markedly lower than they were a year ago, supporting real incomes of private households and lowering production costs of firms, and monetary policy will still be supportive. Labour markets appear to continue improving slowly. Associated with the improved economic conditions, we expect a slight increase in euro area inflation during 2016, 0.3%, with a more marked increase in 2017, 1,3%.
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EFN Report Spring 2016: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2016 and 2017

EFN Reports, No. 2, 2016
Abstract
Global growth will stay rather moderate this year. The peak of the upswing in the US appears to be over. For Japan, after three years of “Abenomics”, a prolonged upswing is still elusive. In China low profitability and high debt levels of many government-owned industrial firms continue to drag growth down. The low prices for commodities heighten uncertainty and volatility on financial markets since they increase the risks of financial crises in economies that are dependent on commodity exports. In the euro area, chances for the recovery to continue are good, as this year, like in 2015, oil prices will probably be markedly lower than they were a year ago, supporting real income of private households and lowering production costs of firms. In this context, our forecast is that euro area GDP will expand by 1.6% in 2016 and by 1.7% in 2017. These rates are higher than the rate of potential growth, but they are arguably low given the expansive monetary policy and the strong stimulus from decreased commodity prices. We do not expect an increase in euro area inflation during 2016, but prices will grow by around 1% in 2017, because the dampening effects of decreasing energy prices slowly fade off and the euro remains rather weak. However, risks for this cautiously optimistic forecast are substantial. New shadows on the financial sector, the uncertainty about whether or not the British will vote in favour of membership in the European Union and the lack of a viable political solution for the refugee crisis are some of the main uncertainties behind these forecasts.
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Spinoffs in Germany: Characteristics, Survival, and the Role of their Parents

Daniel Fackler, A. Schmucker, Claus Schnabel
Small Business Economics, No. 1, 2016
Abstract
Using a 50 % sample of all private sector establishments in Germany, we report that spinoffs are larger, initially employ more skilled and more experienced workers, and pay higher wages than other startups. We investigate whether spinoffs are more likely to survive than other startups, and whether spinoff survival depends on the quality and size of their parent companies, as suggested in some of the theoretical and empirical literature. Our estimated survival models confirm that spinoffs are generally less likely to exit than other startups. We also distinguish between pulled spinoffs, where the parent company continues after they are founded, and pushed spinoffs, where the parent company stops operations. Our results indicate that in western and eastern Germany and in all sectors investigated, pulled spinoffs have a higher probability of survival than pushed spinoffs. Concerning the parent connection, we find that intra-industry spinoffs and spinoffs emerging from better-performing or smaller parent companies are generally less likely to exit.
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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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Bank Market Power, Factor Reallocation, and Aggregate Growth

R. Inklaar, Michael Koetter, Felix Noth
Journal of Financial Stability, 2015
Abstract
Using a unique firm-level sample of approximately 700,000 firm-year observations of German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), this study seeks to identify the effect of bank market power on aggregate growth components. We test for a pre-crisis sample whether bank market power spurs or hinders the reallocation of resources across informationally opaque firms. Identification relies on the dependence on external finance in each industry and the regional demarcation of regional banking markets in Germany. The results show that bank markups spur aggregate SME growth, primarily through technical change and the reallocation of resources. Banks seem to need sufficient markups to generate the necessary private information to allocate financial funds efficiently.
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Does Going Public Affect Innovation?

Shai B. Bernstein
Journal of Finance, No. 4, 2015
Abstract
This paper investigates the effects of going public on innovation by comparing the innovation activity of firms that go public with firms that withdraw their initial public offering (IPO) filing and remain private. NASDAQ fluctuations during the book-building phase are used as an instrument for IPO completion. Using patent-based metrics, I find that the quality of internal innovation declines following the IPO, and firms experience both an exodus of skilled inventors and a decline in the productivity of the remaining inventors. However, public firms attract new human capital and acquire external innovation. The analysis reveals that going public changes firms' strategies in pursuing innovation.
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EFN Report Spring 2015: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2015 and 2016

EFN Reports, No. 2, 2015
Abstract
Recent movements on world markets for commodities, currencies and capital stimulate the world economy, but they entail also considerable risks: income losses of energy exporting countries might trigger financial crises with worldwide repercussions; crises might also emerge from financial distress of emerging market debtors with liabilities denominated in US dollars. Extremely low interest rates might not only trigger stock and bond price booms, but also more volatility if investors become fearful of financial bubbles. Quite a few conditions are highly beneficial for a recovery of the euro area economy: governments and large corporations benefit from ultra-low bond yields, banks’ composite costs of debt financing have been converging during the past two years to very low levels, and borrowing costs for non-financial corporations have come down markedly. Prices for stocks, bonds and (on average) houses have gone up. Real disposable incomes of private households have risen due to oil prices. The real effective exchange rate is about 10% lower in March 2015 than it was a year ago, strengthening the price competitiveness of firms in the euro area. According to our forecasts, the euro area GDP will grow by 1.6% in 2015 and by 2.1% in 2016. Structural impediments, however, 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, and confidence will not fully come back in France and Italy, as long as reform processes are inconclusive in both countries and as long as unemployment is not coming down markedly. Our inflation forecast for 2015 is 0.1%, with the possibility of a mild deflation not excluded. In 2016 inflation will increase up to 1.3%, still clearly below the 2% ECB’s target. This calls for continued monetary expansion, though its effects could be limited in the absence of a complementary fiscal stimulus, in particular in those countries where the implementation of structural reforms brings long term gains but short term losses.
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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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EFN Report Winter 2014/15: Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2015 and 2016

EFN Reports, No. 1, 2015
Abstract
At the beginning of the year 2015 crude oil is, with little more than 50 dollars per barrel (Brent), about 50% cheaper than in the summer 2014. The oil price hike is a stimulus for the whole world economy, even though the gains of energy users are matched by losses of the suppliers: oil producing countries frequently run high current account surpluses vis-à-vis the rest of the world. It is therefore plausible to assume that, reacting to the redistribution of incomes, the oil user countries will increase their spending by more than what will be lost in spending by producers. Investment activity in the euro area has recently been particularly weak. Remarkably, investment in Greece, Portugal, and Spain, i.e. in countries that had to accept international support during the euro crisis, has strengthened. The setback took place in the so-called core countries, including Germany. Consumption growth was also subdued. Lower oil prices, by increasing real incomes of consumers and lowering production costs for firms, should increase private consumption and, in particular, investment. Moreover, the depreciation of the euro will favour exports. Overall, according to our forecasts, the euro area GDP will grow by 1.3% in 2015 and by 1.6% in 2016. GDP growth is about 0.3 percentage points higher due to the impact of lower oil prices in 2015. However, these forecasts are subject to substantial uncertainty, and we do not see any significant reduction of the unemployment rate during the forecasting horizon. Our inflation forecast for 2015 is 0.3%, with the possibility of a mild deflation not excluded. In 2016 inflation will increase up to 1.1%, still clearly below the 2% ECB’s target. This calls for further monetary expansion, though its effects could be limited in the absence of a complementary fiscal stimulus. The expansionary cyclical policies should be combined with more structural reforms to enhance the competitiveness of the euro area and its growth potential, which in our forecasts remains quite limited. In fact, we expect potential output to grow by only 0.4% both in 2015 and 2016.
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Private Equity, Jobs, and Productivity

Steven J. Davis, John Haltiwanger, Kyle Handley, Ron S. Jarmin, Josh Lerner, Javier Miranda
American Economic Review, No. 12, 2014
Abstract
Private equity critics claim that leveraged buyouts bring huge job losses and few gains in operating performance. To evaluate these claims, we construct and analyze a new dataset that covers US buyouts from 1980 to 2005. We track 3,200 target firms and their 150,000 establishments before and after acquisition, comparing to controls defined by industry, size, age, and prior growth. Buyouts lead to modest net job losses but large increases in gross job creation and destruction. Buyouts also bring TFP gains at target firms, mainly through accelerated exit of less productive establishments and greater entry of highly productive ones.
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