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This paper studies monetary policy in an optimizing two-country model. We suppose a two-step production process that is associated with vertical trade. Prices of final consumption goods are sticky and pass-through can be incomplete. Monetary authorities should respond to both home and foreign shocks in this set-up.Which simple, i.e. non-optimal, targeting rule best supports the welfare maximizing policy hinges critically on the degree of the cross-country interdependence in production and the relative importance of productivity and cost-push shocks. We argue that the relative volatility of productivity and cost-push shocks determines whether the monetary authority should follow a price targeting rulewhereas the degree of vertical integration determines which simple price targeting rule (producer or consumer price index targeting) is best.
Effektivität und Effizienz von (makroökonomischer) Wirtschaftspolitik auf globalisierten Märkten
(2012)
Optimal Monetary Policy and Sectoral Shocks: Is International Monetary Cooperation Beneficial?
(2007)
The Choice between Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rates: Which is Best for a Small Open Economy?
(2006)
In this article, we study fiscal decentralization and inequality as driving forces of the shadow economy in advanced economies. Our empirical analysis suggests that a reduction in income inequality will contain the shadow economy, whereas expenditure and tax decentralization do not significantly impact it. As decentralization is generally believed to increase government efficiency, this result is indicative of already highly efficient public administrations. Our results further indicate that redistributive policies positively affect the size of the shadow economy, whereas the tax burden does not have any discernible effect on the shadow economy in our sample.
We examine the efficiency of banking regulation in a federation with two tiers of government and highly integrated banking systems. We assume that policy makers have incomplete information about banks’ true health, and banking sector turmoil can generate cross-border spill-over effects. We show that, in such an environment, the decentralisation of policy responsibilities for the regulation of banks can achieve the first-best allocation and ensure financial stability. While national governments design banking regulations, the federal policy maker authorises inter-regional income redistribution payments throughout the federation. Our results suggest that strengthening national responsibilities in banking regulation and supervision in the course of the further development of the European banking union may be advisable.
We investigate an inhomogeneous Ising model in the context of tax evasion dynamics where different types of agents are parametrised via local temperatures and magnetic fields. Our work focuses on the dynamic behavioural change of agents after an audit which either corresponds to a temporal reduction or enhancement of compliance and is also known under the terms 'bomb crater' and 'target effect', respectively. We analyse this effect for different types of agents: endogenously non-compliant types, agents that have the tendency to copy (non-)compliant behaviour from their social environment, ethical agents with strong endogenous morale attitudes and random types that show large uctuations between compliant and non-compliant behaviour. Each type in uences the overall tax evasion differently, and interestingly, our model predicts that increasing the audit probability can have the counterintuitive effect of increasing tax evasion under certain circumstances. We analyse audit strategies that can suppress this effect and thus contribute to the burgeoning literature on the actual impact of tax audits.
A model of packaging waste management is presented to explore the policy options available to governments to implement waste regulation in light of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Our model endogenizes the packaging design as an additional determinant for the overall amount of waste jointly with consumers’ sorting effort and producers output decisions. The model shows that the policies that yield the first-best allocation may not find public support. Furthermore, if the set of available policy instruments is limited, production and consumption of the good is likely to settle on a sub-optimal level even though the optimal allocation may be achievable. Finally, the model demonstrates that a landfill tax may actually increase landfill waste in the presence of tradable credits for recycling activities. The results shed light on some shortcomings of existing regulatory schemes such as the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations of the UK.
Die Studie beginnt mit einer überblicksartigen Bestandsaufnahme der aktuell vorliegenden Gutachten zur Lausitz und ihrem Strukturwandel (Teil A). Es folgt ein breiter und dabei, soweit es die Datenlage erlaubt, auch möglichste feinkörniger Überblick über die aktuelle Situationder Lausitz und ihrer Teilräume (Teil B). Dieser Überblick ist gegliedert in die Bereiche Wirtschaftsstruktur und Wertschöpfung (Teil B.I), Arbeitsmarkt (Teil B.II), sowie Infrastruktur und Lebensraum (Teil B.III). Es folgen eine Analyse der Integration und Kooperationsmöglichkeiten im Dreiländereck (Teil C) sowie der Erreichbarkeit der relevanten Märkte aus der Region und der regionsüberschreitenden Beziehungen (Teil D). Darauf aufbauend werden die endogenen Potentiale der Lausitz und ihrer Teilräume wiederum so feinkörnig wie möglich analysiert (Teil E). Eine Diskussion von Stärken und Schwächen der Strukturpolitik in einzelnen anderen deutschen Regionen soll auf Fallstricke hinweisen und das Lernen aus erfolgreichen struktur-und regionalpolitischen Ansätzen ermöglichen (Teil F). Die Studie schließt mit einer zusammenfassenden Darstellung von Handlungsempfehlungen, die sich aus den zuvor durchgeführten Analysen ergeben, sowie von Ansätzen für die weitere Forschung (Teil G).
Engpass Arbeitsmarkt? Chance und Risiko für den Strukturwandel in der brandenburgischen Lausitz
(2024)
The ecological and societal problems caused by product obsolescence and consumerism in modern economies constitute a “wicked human-made problem” of significant magnitude. Current (old) ways of thinking cannot address these problems. Accordingly, in this paper, we critically explore the novel idea of integrated personhood and worldviews to theorize research on self-repairers and their repair behaviours to extend product lifetimes. We conducted a structured and systematic review of published work (n = 183) to identify the conceptual content of the field to inform our theorization. Our findings highlight three key issues. First, constricted theorization undermines understanding of self-repairers and their product lifetime extension (and spillover) behaviours. Second, the underlying conceptual complexity is typically underestimated. Third, the dominance of voluntarist and deterministic studies impedes new directions in research. From our review, an integrated worldview–personhood framework emerges that can deepen understanding of avant-garde self-repairers’ engagement with product lifetimes.
We use plant-level evidence for Germany to explore the productivity effects of offshoring of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and compare them to those derived for a sample of large German companies. SMEs usually face tighter resource constraints than larger companies, thus making it harder for them to reap the potential productivity gains associated with offshoring. We find evidence for the group of SMEs that plants that offshore business activities tend to be among the more productive ones, ex ante. However, offshoring plants lose this edge over their non-offshoring counterparts. The initial productivity gap is reversed, and the productivity of offshoring plants lags behind even several years after off-shoring has actually taken place. Neither observation can be confirmed for large companies.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the economic powerhouse of many OECD countries (perhaps most prominently so in Germany). Yet, the labour market dynamics caused by the internationalization of their production activities are largely unexplored. We use surveybased micro-level data for Germany to explore the employment effects of offshoring of SMEs, relying on propensity score matching and difference-in-difference analysis. We find evidence for a downsizing effect in the immediate aftermath of offshoring whereas, initially, job creation is not spurred. In the medium run, we find evidence for a slowing down of employment dynamics of offshoring firms (that tend to belong to the better performing SMEs in Germany) relative to nonoffshoring firms. Even though our results do not point to a net employment loss in the medium run, our evidence suggests that offshoring may lead to less jobs being created. This conclusion
cannot be confirmed for large companies.