Local Economic Structure and Urban Growth in Germany
Michael Schwartz, Christoph Hornych, Martin T. W. Rosenfeld, Annette Illy
Journal of Urban Economics,
2010
Abstract
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Agglomeration and FDI in East German Knowledge-intensive Business Services
Philipp Marek
Economia Politica,
Nr. 3,
2012
Abstract
The focus of this article is the empirical identification of factors influencing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) sector on the regional level of «Raumordnungsregionen» in East Germany. The analysis focuses on the impact of regional agglomeration and technological capability on the location decision of foreign investors and West German MNEs. It shows that localisation, patent activity and the share of employees with an R&D occupation affect significantly the location decision of FDI. This result provides an explanation for the strong concentration of KIBS in urban areas in a post-transition economy.
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A Federal Long-run Projection Model for Germany
Oliver Holtemöller, Maike Irrek, Birgit Schultz
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 11,
2012
Abstract
Many economic decisions implicitly or explicitly rely on a projection of the medium- or long-term economic development of a country or region. In this paper, we provide a federal long-run projection model for Germany and the German states. The model fea-tures a top-down approach and, as major contribution, uses error correction models to estimate the regional economic development dependent on the national projection. For the medium- and long-term projection of economic activity, we apply a production function approach. We provide a detailed robustness analysis by systematically varying assumptions of the model. Additionally, we explore the effects of different demographic trends on economic development.
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Federal grants for local development to stop economic decline? – Lessons from Germany
Peter Haug, Martin T. W. Rosenfeld
Consequences of the International Crisis for European SMEs – Vulnerability and resilience. Routledge Studies in the European Economy, Routledge,
2012
Abstract
Der Beitrag untersucht - theoretisch und empirisch - die Angebotseffekte der öffentlichen Investitionen, die im Rahmen des im Jahr 2009 gestarteten „Konjunkturpakets II“ (genauer: das darin enthaltene sog. „Zukunftsinvestitionsgesetz“) gefördert wurden. Im theoretischen Teil des Beitrags werden die verzerrenden Effekte von Investitionszuweisungen auf die Bereitstellung von öffentlichen Kapital und die örtliche Wirtschaftsentwicklung behandelt. Entsprechend der theoretischen Literatur zur effizienten Bereitstellung von öffentlichen Gütern, zu öffentlichen Vorleistungsgütern und Wachstum haben zweckgebundene Investitionszuweisungen diverse negative allokative Effekte: Erstens führen sie zu einer Verzerrung der relativen Faktorpreise für die Kommune, was wiederum übermäßig große Bestände an öffentlichem Kapital und eine Pareto-ineffiziente Bereitstellung von öffentlichen Gütern begünstigt. Zweitens können langfristig wachstumsfördernde Wirkungen durch schuldenfinanzierte öffentliche Investitionen nur für öffentliche Vorleistungsgüter erwartet werden, die entweder die Produktivität des privater Unternehmen direkt steigern oder indirekt über eine Steigerung der Faktorproduktivität wirken, vor allem über eine Erhöhung des Bestandes an Humankapital. Im empirischen Teil konnten trotz des jüngsten Anstiegs der kommunalen Investitionen mittels Regressionsanalyse kein Zusammenhang mit den gewährten KPII-Mitteln für Sachsen belegt werden. Weiterhin erwiesen sich die Finanzkraft der sächsischen Kommunen und die Höhe der erhaltenen KPII-Zuweisungen als voneinander unabhängig. Insgesamt können aufgrund der Konzentration der Fördermittel auf öffentliche Konsumgüter anstelle von öffentlichen Vorleistungsgütern nur marginale Wachstumseffekte von den geförderten Investitionen für die Zukunft erwartet werden.
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Local Economic Structure and Sectoral Employment Growth in German Cities
Annette Illy, Michael Schwartz, Christoph Hornych, Martin T. W. Rosenfeld
Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie,
Nr. 5,
2011
Abstract
This study systematically examines the impact of fundamental elements of urban economic structure on sectoral employment growth in German cities (“urban growth”). We test four elements simultaneously – sectoral specialisation, diversification of economic activities, urban size and the impact of local competition. To account for the effect of varying spatial delimitations in the analysis of urban growth, we further differentiate between cities and planning regions as geographical units. Our regression results show a U-shaped relationship between localisation economies and urban growth and positive effects of local competition on urban growth. With respect to diversification, we find positive effects on urban growth on the city level, but insignificant results on the level of the planning regions. The impact of urban size also differs between free cities and planning regions; in the former, a U-shaped relationship is found, whereas the effect is inversely U-shaped for the latter.
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Municipality Size and Efficiency of Local Public Services: Does Size Matter?
Peter Bönisch, Peter Haug, Annette Illy, L. Schreier
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 18,
2011
publiziert in: FinanzArchiv
Abstract
Similarly to western Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, the eastern part of Germany has experienced a still ongoing process of numerous amalgamations among counties, towns and municipalities since the mid-1990s. The evidence in the economic literature is mixed with regard to the claimed expenditure reductions and efficiency gains from municipal mergers. We therefore analyze the global efficiency of the municipalities in Saxony-Anhalt, for the first time in this context, using a double-bootstrap procedure combining DEA and truncated regression. This allows including environmental variables to control for exogenous determinants of municipal efficiency. Our focus thereby is on institutional and fiscal variables. Moreover, the scale efficiency is estimated to find out whether large units are necessary to benefit from scale economies. In contrast to previous studies, we chose the aggregate budget of municipal associations (“Verwaltungsgemeinschaften”) as the object of our analysis since important competences of the member municipalities are settled on a joint administrative level. Furthermore, we use a data set that has been carefully adjusted for bookkeeping items and transfers within the communal level. On the “eve” of a mayor municipal reform the majority of the municipalities were found to have an approximately scale-efficient size and centralized organizational forms (“Einheitsgemeinden”) showed no efficiency advantage over municipal associations.
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Industrial Associations as a Channel of Business-Government Interactions in an Imperfect Institutional Environment: The Russian Case
A. Yakovlev, A. Govorun
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 16,
2011
Abstract
International lessons from emerging economies suggest that business associations may provide an effective channel of communication between the government and the private sector. This function of business associations may become still more important in transition economies, where old mechanisms for coordinating enterprise activities have been destroyed, while the new ones have not been established yet. In this context, Russian experience is a matter of interest, because for a long time, Russia was regarded as a striking example of state failures and market failures. Consequently, the key point of our study was a description of the role and place of business associations in the presentday
Russian economy and their interaction with member companies and bodies of state
administration. Relying on the survey data of 957 manufacturing firms conducted in
2009, we found that business associations are more frequently joined by larger companies, firms located in regional capital cities, and firms active in investment and innovation. By contrast, business associations tend to be less frequently joined by business groups’ subsidiaries and firms that were non-responsive about their respective ownership structures. Our regression analysis has also confirmed that business associations are a component of what Frye (2002) calls an “elite exchange”– although only on regional and local levels. These “exchanges” imply that members of business associations, on the one hand, more actively assist regional and local authorities in social development of their regions, and on the other hand more often receive support from authorities. However, this effect is insignificant in terms of support from the federal government. In general, our results allow us to believe that at present, business associations (especially the
industry-wide and “leading” ones) consolidate the most active, advanced companies and act as collective representatives of their interests. For this reason, business associations can be regarded as interface units between the authorities and businesses and as a possible instrument for promotion of economic development.
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Stock Market Firm-Level Information and Real Economic Activity
Filippo di Mauro, Fabio Fornari, Dario Mannucci
ECB Working Paper,
Nr. 1366,
2011
Abstract
We provide evidence that changes in the equity price and volatility of individual firms (measures that approximate the definition of 'granular shock' given in Gabaix, 2010) are key to improve the predictability of aggregate business cycle fluctuations in a number of countries. Specifically, adding the return and the volatility of firm-level equity prices to aggregate financial information leads to a significant improvement in forecasting business cycle developments in four economic areas, at various horizons. Importantly, not only domestic firms but also foreign firms improve business cycle predictability for a given economic area. This is not immediately visible when one takes an unconditional standpoint (i.e. an average across the sample). However, conditioning on the business cycle position of the domestic economy, the relative importance of the two sets of firms - foreign and domestic - exhibits noticeable swings across time. Analogously, the sectoral classification of the firms that in a given month retain the highest predictive power for future IP changes also varies significantly over time as a function of the business cycle position of the domestic economy. Limited to the United States, predictive ability is found to be related to selected balance sheet items, suggesting that structural features differentiate the firms that can anticipate aggregate fluctuations from those that do not help to this aim. Beyond the purely forecasting application, this finding may enhance our understanding of the underlying origins of aggregate fluctuations. We also propose to use the cross sectional stock market information to macro-prudential aims through an economic Value at Risk.
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University Cities: Including Universities and Research Institutes into Strategies for Urban Growth
Peter Franz
International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development,
2011
Abstract
The topic of this special issue refers to the observation that many larger and middle-sized cities dispose of a considerable potential of institutions creating and disseminating knowledge. This kind of endowment seems to be especially valuable in an upcoming knowledge-based economy. Recent strategic concepts and inter-city competitions referring to ‘knowledge-based urban development’, ‘knowledge city’, ‘creative city’, ‘science city’ or ‘entrepreneurial university’ indicate that urban planners and politicians are beginning to search for strategies to take advantage and to make use of this potential. The papers in this special issue a) present case studies of cities trying to activate their knowledge resources for local economic growth, b) deal with regulatory barriers and problems for cities applying ‘knowledge city’ strategies, c) analyze the university support for entrepreneurial activities, and d) discuss some implications of ‘knowledge city’ strategies for architecture and urban planning.
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MNE’s Regional Location Choice - A Comparative Perspective on East Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland
Andrea Gauselmann, Philipp Marek, J. P. Angenendt
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 8,
2011
publiziert in: Empirica
Abstract
The focus of this article is the empirical identification of factors influencing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in transition economies on a regional level (NUTS 2). The analysis is designed as benchmark between three neighboring post-communist regions, i.e. East Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. Their different transition paths have not only resulted in economic differences. We can also observe today that the importance of pull factors for FDI varies significantly across the regions. This analysis shows that in comparison with Poland and the Czech Republic, East Germany’s major benefit is its purchasing power, its geographical proximity to West European markets, and its modern infrastructure. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that intra-industry linkages such as specialization and agglomeration economies are relevant factors for the location decision of foreign investors. This result can help to explain the regional divergence of FDI streams in transition economies.
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