40 hits:
CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 March 2021

Manpower Constraints and Corporate Policies

Well-equipped firms with growth potential in particular suffer from manpower constraints. This constraint varies significantly across time and industries, a novel insight of this data analysis. To reduce obstacles to a country's growth, in the short term, immigration policies can target the inflow of specialized labor; in the long term, more should be invested in educating the low-skilled segment of the population.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 February 2021

Risk Exposure and Acquisition of Macroeconomic Information

Many people are uncertain about their own exposure to risks such as recessions (e.g., unemployment). This might lead them to obtain information in the wrong places and make poor economic decisions. Policymakers can provide individuals with information on their exposure to such risks, which may help to direct people’s attention to relevant pieces of news, such as economic forecasts.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 December 2020

Competitive Gerrymandering and the Popular Vote

When siblings argue about how to divide a cake, one of them should cut it and the other sibling should be the first to choose his/her own piece. Under the ruling system in the United States, the voter map is divided up by the ruling party for its own benefit (“gerrymandering”). The new game theory system presented here involves both parties in order to create a fair voter map.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 16 November 2020

Give Me Your Tired and Your Poor: Impact of a Large-Scale Amnesty Program for Undocumented Refugees

Large-scale amnesty programs are a politically sensitive issue, as countries make it difficult for refugees to gain access to the labor market through regulation. The data analysis conducted here encourages governments to facilitate refugees’ path into the formal labor market. In the case of Colombia, this integration had no or negligible effects on the local workforce.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 October 2020

Public Discourse and Socially Responsible Market Behavior

Problems such as climate change and environmental pollution can be traced back to markets where not all costs of production and consumption can be taken into account. The usual measures of taxation or regulation can be ineffective due to their complexity and political inertia. An effective measure, on the other hand, is the participation of all market participants in a public debate that changes market behavior towards greater overall welfare.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 September 2020

Trade, Education, and Income Inequality

New trade relations can aggravate income inequality in a country. Less educated workers are not mobile enough to move to the more lucrative commercial sector in the short term. A high standard of education and long-term trade relations reduce this income inequality.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 17 August 2020

Oil Wealth and Property Rights

In countries with significant oil wealth, economic and political power lies disproportionately with the oil elites. This has the effect of keeping property rights weak, which results in lower economic performance overall. The opposition is too weak to lead the way out of this “resource curse.” It is possible that international shocks, such as a pandemic, will tip the economic and political balance toward stronger property rights.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 July 2020

Cloud Computing and Firm Growth

Cloud technology makes IT equipment more accessible to firms and facilitates a remote and mobile workforce. The authors analyze newly available data at the company level for the United Kingdom. They find that the use of cloud technology enables companies to grow faster, particularly those in the start-up phase. Cloud also allows older established companies to reorganize and allocate employment away from the headquarters. High-speed fiber broadband is an important prerequisite for both new and established companies to successfully implement cloud solutions.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 June 2020

Are Economists Getting Climate Dynamics Right and Does It Matter?

The assumptions of important economic climate models do not correspond to the actual dynamics of climate change. Because some of their forecasts overestimate warming, they give the false impression that there is no way the goals of the Paris Agreement could be met. For climate policy decisions to be correct, these economic models must be brought into line with the state of the art in climate science.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 May 2020

Going Back to School Takes Time: Evidence from a Negative Trade Shock

Economic shock events have long-lasting effects. A person who loses their job due to a crisis takes three to four years to decide to go back to school to obtain a higher qualification. This is the result of a study that evaluated the behavior of Canadian forest workers in the wake of the US subprime mortgage crisis. Another result of the study was a call for politicians to simplify the process for re-enrolling in school.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 April 2020

Positive Spillovers from Negative Campaigning

In a field experiment, the authors analyze the spillover of a candidate vilifying his opponents in an election campaign. Resulting positive spillover effects are observed for the third, idle candidate. The candidate running the negative ad is perceived as less cooperative, less likely to lead a successful government, and politically more extreme.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 25 March 2020

The Coronavirus and the Great Influenza Epidemic - Lessons from the "Spanish Flu" for the Coronavirus's Potential Effects on Mortality and Economic Activity

A typical country saw potential economic declines in both GDP and consumption of 6 and 8 percent. And there is some evidence that higher flu death rates decreased realized real returns on stocks and, especially, on short-term government bills. Analyzing the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918–1920 provides plausible upper bounds for economic impacts under the coronavirus.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 25 March 2020

Smart-Working: Work Flexibility without Constraints

In the light of Covid-19 working at home is a mandatory reaction. In the public discussion, it is therefore more important than ever to know how home office working can be used beneficiary. The analysis shows how SMART working increases productivity of workers and improves their well-being and work-life balance. The observed effects are stronger for women and there are no significant spillover effects within workers of a team. The results are based on a randomized experiment on a sample of workers in a large Italian company divided into two groups: a traditional working group and a smart working group that engages in flexible space and time.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 16 March 2020

Climate Policy, Stranded Assets, and Investors’ Expectations

Transitioning to a climate-friendly economy inevitably entails decommissioning fossil-fuel assets. The share prices of these investments will depreciate. The authors show that investors expect compensation for this. Policymakers should provide clear signals about their plans for decarbonization and financial compensation. This is important because shocks to investors’ expectations about the stringency and consequences of climate policies constitute a risk for financial markets.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 December 2019

Partisan Bias in Inflation Expectations

The authors find that inflation expectations in Republican-dominated US states were higher than in Democrat-dominated US states when Barack Obama was US president. Republican voters may well have expected government spending to increase, which is likely to give rise to higher inflation. Political parties should consider voters’ misperceptions about economic conditions. 

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 November 2019

Exclusive Data, Price Manipulation, and Market Leadership

Whether the collection of data on customer behavior by companies like Amazon, Tesco, or Starbucks can entail pro- or anti-competitive effects is largely debated. The authors find that both directions are possible, depending on the size of a company’s exclusive customer list. Mandatory data sharing can be an effective tool to restore market competition, but it should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 October 2019

Do Immigrants Affect Crime? Evidence from Panel Data for Germany

Countries that accept large numbers of immigrants in a short space of time will see increased rates of criminality – so goes the frequent argument. A recent CESifo Working Paper focuses on the effect the number of immigrants has on the crime rate. The study found that no positive correlation can be established and the authors appeal for a more rational debate on large influxes of refugees.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 September 2019

The Congestion Relief Benefit of Public Transit: Evidence from Rome

In a recent CESifo Working Paper, Martin W. Adler, Federica Liberini, Antonio Russo, and Jos N. van Ommeren analyze traffic in Rome, Italy based on new data. They find out how travel time can be reduced for both private and public transport participants. A summary and the full version of this interesting working paper are available on our website.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 July 2019

The Turnaround of the Swedish Economy: Lessons from Large Business Sector Reforms

In a recent CESifo Working Paper, Fredrik Heyman, Pehr-Johan Norbäck, and Lars Persson study how a country can improve productivity growth in its business sector and reach its growth potential.

CESifo Working Paper Detailed Summary — 15 June 2019

Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars

In a recent CESifo Working Paper, Thiemo Fetzer and Carlo Schwarz studied how countries designing a retaliation response face a trade-off between maximizing political targeting and mitigating domestic economic harm. To quantify the degree of political targeting and to shed more light on underlying trade-offs, the authors developed a novel simulation approach that constructs a host of alternative retaliation baskets that the EU, China, and other countries could have chosen.