@article{CaliendoTuebbicke2019, author = {Caliendo, Marco and T{\"u}bbicke, Stefan}, title = {New evidence on long-term effects of start-up subsidies}, series = {Empirical economics}, volume = {59}, journal = {Empirical economics}, number = {4}, publisher = {Physica-Verlag}, address = {Heidelberg}, issn = {0377-7332}, doi = {10.1007/s00181-019-01701-9}, pages = {1605 -- 1631}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The German start-up subsidy (SUS) program for the unemployed has recently undergone a major makeover, altering its institutional setup, adding an additional layer of selection and leading to ambiguous predictions of the program's effectiveness. Using propensity score matching (PSM) as our main empirical approach, we provide estimates of long-term effects of the post-reform subsidy on individual employment prospects and labor market earnings up to 40 months after entering the program. Our results suggest large and persistent long-term effects of the subsidy on employment probabilities and net earned income. These effects are larger than what was estimated for the pre-reform program. Extensive sensitivity analyses within the standard PSM framework reveal that the results are robust to different choices regarding the implementation of the weighting procedure and also with respect to deviations from the conditional independence assumption. As a further assessment of the results' sensitivity, we go beyond the standard selection-on-observables approach and employ an instrumental variable setup using regional variation in the likelihood of receiving treatment. Here, we exploit the fact that the reform increased the discretionary power of local employment agencies in allocating active labor market policy funds, allowing us to obtain a measure of local preferences for SUS as the program of choice. The results based on this approach give rise to similar estimates. Thus, our results indicating that SUS are still an effective active labor market program after the reform do not appear to be driven by "hidden bias."}, language = {en} } @article{CaliendoGoethnerWeissenberger2019, author = {Caliendo, Marco and Goethner, Maximilian and Weißenberger, Martin}, title = {Entrepreneurial persistence beyond survival: Measurement and determinants}, series = {Journal of Small Business Management}, volume = {58}, journal = {Journal of Small Business Management}, number = {3}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, address = {London}, pages = {32}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Entrepreneurial persistence is demonstrated by an entrepreneur's continued positive maintenance of entrepreneurial motivation and constantly renewed active engagement in a new business venture despite counterforces or enticing alternatives. It thus is a crucial factor for entrepreneurs when pursuing and exploiting their business opportunities and in realizing potential economic gains and benefits. Using rich data on a representative sample of German business founders, we investigated the determinants of entrepreneurial persistence. Next to observed survival, we also constructed a hybrid persistence measure capturing the motivational dimension of persistence. We analyzed the influence of individual-level (human capital and personality) and business-related characteristics on both measures as well as their relative importance. We found that the two indicators emphasize different aspects of persistence. For the survival indicator, the predictive power was concentrated in business characteristics and human capital, while for hybrid persistence the dominant factors were business characteristics and personality. Finally, we showed that results were heterogeneous across subgroups. In particular, formerly unemployed founders did not differ in survival chances, but they were more likely to lack a high psychological commitment to their business ventures.}, language = {en} } @misc{CaliendoGoethnerWeissenberger2019, author = {Caliendo, Marco and Goethner, Maximilian and Weißenberger, Martin}, title = {Entrepreneurial persistence beyond survival: Measurement and determinants}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {3}, issn = {1867-5808}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-52481}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-524813}, pages = {34}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Entrepreneurial persistence is demonstrated by an entrepreneur's continued positive maintenance of entrepreneurial motivation and constantly renewed active engagement in a new business venture despite counterforces or enticing alternatives. It thus is a crucial factor for entrepreneurs when pursuing and exploiting their business opportunities and in realizing potential economic gains and benefits. Using rich data on a representative sample of German business founders, we investigated the determinants of entrepreneurial persistence. Next to observed survival, we also constructed a hybrid persistence measure capturing the motivational dimension of persistence. We analyzed the influence of individual-level (human capital and personality) and business-related characteristics on both measures as well as their relative importance. We found that the two indicators emphasize different aspects of persistence. For the survival indicator, the predictive power was concentrated in business characteristics and human capital, while for hybrid persistence the dominant factors were business characteristics and personality. Finally, we showed that results were heterogeneous across subgroups. In particular, formerly unemployed founders did not differ in survival chances, but they were more likely to lack a high psychological commitment to their business ventures.}, language = {en} } @article{OrlandRoos2019, author = {Orland, Andreas and Roos, Michael W. M.}, title = {Price-setting with quadratic adjustment costs}, series = {Journal of economic behavior \& organization}, volume = {163}, journal = {Journal of economic behavior \& organization}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0167-2681}, doi = {10.1016/j.jebo.2019.05.010}, pages = {88 -- 116}, year = {2019}, abstract = {We test the price-setting behavior of firms using the Rotemberg (1982) model in order to explain puzzles in the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC). For our tests, we conducted experiments that adapt the model into an individual decision-making problem. We find systematic deviations in price-setting according to the subjects' degree of information acquisition. Subjects rarely make use of past information. On the other hand, subjects that decide to acquire relatively little information about future desired prices tend to overweight their own past set price when they set prices. We study the impact of this heterogeneous price-setting behavior for theoretically derived forward-looking Phillips curves. Our estimated NKPCs are in line with the empirical literature. The deviations from theoretical predictions in our NKPCs are driven by the less-informed subjects.}, language = {en} } @article{Borck2019, author = {Borck, Rainald}, title = {Public transport and urban pollution}, series = {Regional science and urban economics}, volume = {77}, journal = {Regional science and urban economics}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0166-0462}, doi = {10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2019.06.005}, pages = {356 -- 366}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This paper studies the effect of public transport policies on urban pollution. It uses a quantitative equilibrium model with residential choice and mode choice. Pollution comes from commuting and residential energy use. The model parameters are calibrated to replicate key variables for American metropolitan areas. In the counterfactual, I study how free public transport coupled with increasing transit speed affects the equilibrium. In the baseline simulation, total pollution falls by 0.4\%, as decreasing emissions from transport are partly offset by rising residential emissions. A second counterfactual compares a city with and without public transit. This large investment decreases pollution by 1.7\%. When jobs are decentralized, emissions fall by 0.5\% in the first and by 3\% in the second counterfactual.}, language = {en} } @article{PiontekKalkuhlKriegleretal.2019, author = {Piontek, Franziska and Kalkuhl, Matthias and Kriegler, Elmar and Schultes, Anselm and Leimbach, Marian and Edenhofer, Ottmar and Bauer, Nico}, title = {Economic Growth Effects of Alternative Climate Change Impact Channels in Economic Modeling}, series = {Environmental \& resource economics : the official journal of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists}, volume = {73}, journal = {Environmental \& resource economics : the official journal of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {0924-6460}, doi = {10.1007/s10640-018-00306-7}, pages = {1357 -- 1385}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Despite increasing empirical evidence of strong links between climate and economic growth, there is no established model to describe the dynamics of how different types of climate shocks affect growth patterns. Here we present the first comprehensive, comparative analysis of the long-term dynamics of one-time, temporary climate shocks on production factors, and factor productivity, respectively, in a Ramsey-type growth model. Damages acting directly on production factors allow us to study dynamic effects on factor allocation, savings and economic growth. We find that the persistence of impacts on economic activity is smallest for climate shocks directly impacting output, and successively increases for direct damages on capital, loss of labor and productivity shocks, related to different responses in savings rates and factor-specific growth. Recurring shocks lead to large welfare effects and long-term growth effects, directly linked to the persistence of individual shocks. Endogenous savings and shock anticipation both have adaptive effects but do not eliminate differences between impact channels or significantly lower the dissipation time. Accounting for endogenous growth mechanisms increases the effects. We also find strong effects on income shares, important for distributional implications. This work fosters conceptual understanding of impact dynamics in growth models, opening options for links to empirics.}, language = {en} } @misc{Schumacher2019, author = {Schumacher, Reinhard}, title = {Rezension: Shigeyoshi Senga, Masatomi Fujimoto, Taichi Tabuchi (Eds.).: Ricardo and International Trade. - London: Routledge, 2017. - x, 276 S. - ISBN: 978-1-138-12245-1}, series = {Journal of the History of Economic Thought}, volume = {41}, journal = {Journal of the History of Economic Thought}, number = {3}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {1053-8372}, doi = {10.1017/S1053837218000317}, pages = {435 -- 438}, year = {2019}, language = {en} } @article{KornherKalkuhl2019, author = {Kornher, Lukas and Kalkuhl, Matthias}, title = {The gains of coordination - When does regional cooperation for food security make sense?}, series = {Global Food Security - AGRICULTURE POLICY ECONOMICS AND ENVIRONMENT}, volume = {22}, journal = {Global Food Security - AGRICULTURE POLICY ECONOMICS AND ENVIRONMENT}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {2211-9124}, doi = {10.1016/j.gfs.2019.09.004}, pages = {37 -- 45}, year = {2019}, abstract = {With the onset of the global food crisis, the discussion about the use and misuse of agricultural market interventions regained academic attention. As a result of economies of scale, centralized policy implementation at the regional level has the potential to reduce the budgetary costs of policies. Borrowing from the literature on international unions and international policy coordination, we develop a conceptual framework to analyze when regional policy implementation makes sense. This is the case whenever spill-overs from centralization are large and policy preferences, driven by country-specific characteristics, are homogeneous. Subsequently, we examine the advantageousness of centralized policy implementation for the West African region regarding the most common food security policies. We show that centralization of trade policies and emergency food reserves is beneficial, while buffer stocks, safety net policies, and producer support policies should be implemented at the national level.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wozny2019, author = {Wozny, Florian}, title = {Three empirical essays in health economics}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-46991}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-469910}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {200}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Modern health care systems are characterized by pronounced prevention and cost-optimized treatments. This dissertation offers novel empirical evidence on how useful such measures can be. The first chapter analyzes how radiation, a main pollutant in health care, can negatively affect cognitive health. The second chapter focuses on the effect of Low Emission Zones on public heath, as air quality is the major external source of health problems. Both chapters point out potentials for preventive measures. Finally, chapter three studies how changes in treatment prices affect the reallocation of hospital resources. In the following, I briefly summarize each chapter and discuss implications for health care systems as well as other policy areas. Based on the National Educational Panel Study that is linked to data on radiation, chapter one shows that radiation can have negative long-term effects on cognitive skills, even at subclinical doses. Exploiting arguably exogenous variation in soil contamination in Germany due to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the findings show that people exposed to higher radiation perform significantly worse in cognitive tests 25 years later. Identification is ensured by abnormal rainfall within a critical period of ten days. The results show that the effect is stronger among older cohorts than younger cohorts, which is consistent with radiation accelerating cognitive decline as people get older. On average, a one-standarddeviation increase in the initial level of CS137 (around 30 chest x-rays) is associated with a decrease in the cognitive skills by 4.1 percent of a standard deviation (around 0.05 school years). Chapter one shows that sub-clinical levels of radiation can have negative consequences even after early childhood. This is of particular importance because most of the literature focuses on exposure very early in life, often during pregnancy. However, population exposed after birth is over 100 times larger. These results point to substantial external human capital costs of radiation which can be reduced by choices of medical procedures. There is a large potential for reductions because about one-third of all CT scans are assumed to be not medically justified (Brenner and Hall, 2007). If people receive unnecessary CT scans because of economic incentives, this chapter points to additional external costs of health care policies. Furthermore, the results can inform the cost-benefit trade-off for medically indicated procedures. Chapter two provides evidence about the effectiveness of Low Emission Zones. Low Emission Zones are typically justified by improvements in population health. However, there is little evidence about the potential health benefits from policy interventions aiming at improving air quality in inner-cities. The chapter ask how the coverage of Low Emission Zones air pollution and hospitalization, by exploiting variation in the roll out of Low Emission Zones in Germany. It combines information on the geographic coverage of Low Emission Zones with rich panel data on the universe of German hospitals over the period from 2006 to 2016 with precise information on hospital locations and the annual frequency of detailed diagnoses. In order to establish that our estimates of Low Emission Zones' health impacts can indeed be attributed to improvements in local air quality, we use data from Germany's official air pollution monitoring system and assign monitor locations to Low Emission Zones and test whether measures of air pollution are affected by the coverage of a Low Emission Zone. Results in chapter two confirm former results showing that the introduction of Low Emission Zones improved air quality significantly by reducing NO2 and PM10 concentrations. Furthermore, the chapter shows that hospitals which catchment areas are covered by a Low Emission Zone, diagnose significantly less air pollution related diseases, in particular by reducing the incidents of chronic diseases of the circulatory and the respiratory system. The effect is stronger before 2012, which is consistent with a general improvement in the vehicle fleet's emission standards. Depending on the disease, a one-standard-deviation increase in the coverage of a hospitals catchment area covered by a Low Emission Zone reduces the yearly number of diagnoses up to 5 percent. These findings have strong implications for policy makers. In 2015, overall costs for health care in Germany were around 340 billion euros, of which 46 billion euros for diseases of the circulatory system, making it the most expensive type of disease caused by 2.9 million cases (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2017b). Hence, reductions in the incidence of diseases of the circulatory system may directly reduce society's health care costs. Whereas chapter one and two study the demand-side in health care markets and thus preventive potential, chapter three analyzes the supply-side. By exploiting the same hospital panel data set as in chapter two, chapter three studies the effect of treatment price shocks on the reallocation of hospital resources in Germany. Starting in 2005, the implementation of the German-DRG-System led to general idiosyncratic treatment price shocks for individual hospitals. Thus far there is little evidence of the impact of general price shocks on the reallocation of hospital resources. Additionally, I add to the exiting literature by showing that price shocks can have persistent effects on hospital resources even when these shocks vanish. However, simple OLS regressions would underestimate the true effect, due to endogenous treatment price shocks. I implement a novel instrument variable strategy that exploits the exogenous variation in the number of days of snow in hospital catchment areas. A peculiarity of the reform allowed variation in days of snow to have a persistent impact on treatment prices. I find that treatment price increases lead to increases in input factors such as nursing staff, physicians and the range of treatments offered but to decreases in the treatment volume. This indicates supplier-induced demand. Furthermore, the probability of hospital mergers and privatization decreases. Structural differences in pre-treatment characteristics between hospitals enhance these effects. For instance, private and larger hospitals are more affected. IV estimates reveal that OLS results are biased towards zero in almost all dimensions because structural hospital differences are correlated with the reallocation of hospital resources. These results are important for several reasons. The G-DRG-Reform led to a persistent polarization of hospital resources, as some hospitals were exposed to treatment price increases, while others experienced reductions. If hospitals increase the treatment volume as a response to price reductions by offering unnecessary therapies, it has a negative impact on population wellbeing and public spending. However, results show a decrease in the range of treatments if prices decrease. Hospitals might specialize more, thus attracting more patients. From a policy perspective it is important to evaluate if such changes in the range of treatments jeopardize an adequate nationwide provision of treatments. Furthermore, the results show a decrease in the number of nurses and physicians if prices decrease. This could partly explain the nursing crisis in German hospitals. However, since hospitals specialize more they might be able to realize efficiency gains which justify reductions in input factors without loses in quality. Further research is necessary to provide evidence for the impact of the G-DRG-Reform on health care quality. Another important aspect are changes in the organizational structure. Many public hospitals have been privatized or merged. The findings show that this is at least partly driven by the G-DRG-Reform. This can again lead to a lack in services offered in some regions if merged hospitals specialize more or if hospitals are taken over by ecclesiastical organizations which do not provide all treatments due to moral conviction. Overall, this dissertation reveals large potential for preventive health care measures and helps to explain reallocation processes in the hospital sector if treatment prices change. Furthermore, its findings have potentially relevant implications for other areas of public policy. Chapter one identifies an effect of low dose radiation on cognitive health. As mankind is searching for new energy sources, nuclear power is becoming popular again. However, results of chapter one point to substantial costs of nuclear energy which have not been accounted yet. Chapter two finds strong evidence that air quality improvements by Low Emission Zones translate into health improvements, even at relatively low levels of air pollution. These findings may, for instance, be of relevance to design further policies targeted at air pollution such as diesel bans. As pointed out in chapter three, the implementation of DRG-Systems may have unintended side-effects on the reallocation of hospital resources. This may also apply to other providers in the health care sector such as resident doctors.}, language = {en} }