School tracking and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from the Finnish comprehensive school reform

This paper estimates the effect of a major education reform on intergenerational income mobility. The Finnish comprehensive school reform of 1972–1977 replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and shifted the selection of students to vocational and academic tracks from age 11 to age 16. We estimate the effect of this reform on the intergenerational income elasticity using a representative sample of males born between 1960 and 1966. The identification strategy relies on a differences-in-differences approach and exploits the fact that the reform was implemented gradually across the country during a six-year period. The results indicate that the reform reduced the intergenerational income elasticity by 23% from the pre-reform elasticity of 0.30 to post-reform elasticity of 0.23.     

Benchmarking and firm heterogeneity: a latent class analysis for German electricity distribution companies

In January 2009, the German Federal Network Agency introduced incentive regulation for the electricity distribution sector based on results obtained from econometric and nonparametric benchmarking analysis. One main problem for the regulator in assigning the relative efficiency scores is unobserved firm-specific factors such as network and technological differences. Comparing the efficiency of different firms usually assumes that they operate under the same production technology, thus unobserved factors might be inappropriately understood as inefficiency. To avoid this type of misspecification in regulatory practice, estimation is carried out in two stages: in the first stage observations are classified into two categories according to the size of the network operators. Then separate analyses are conducted for each subgroup. This article shows how to disentangle the heterogeneity from inefficiency in one step, using a latent class model for stochastic frontiers. As the classification is not based on a priori sample separation criteria it delivers more robust, statistically significant, and testable results. Against this background, we analyze the level of technical efficiency of different subgroups from a sample of 200 regional and local German electricity distribution companies for a balanced panel data set (2001–2005). Testing the hypothesis if larger distributors operate under a different technology than smaller ones, we assess if a single step latent class model provides new insights to the use of benchmarking approaches within the incentive regulation schemes.     

Going international: The experiences of smaller companies overseas :

In this paper, we analyse part-time employment of teenagers still in full-time education, their academic performance, and their school leaving decisions. Our estimation strategy takes account of the possible interdependencies of these events and distinguishes between two alternative states to full time education: entering the labour force full time and going on to further training. We model this decision in a flexible way. Our analysis is based on data from the UK National Child Development Study, which has an unusually rich set of variables on school and parental characteristics. Our main finding is that working part time while in full-time education has only small adverse effects on exam performance for females, and no effects for males. The effect of part-time work on the decision to stay on at school is also negative, but small, and marginally significant for males, but not for females. Other important determinants of exam success as well as the continuation decision are parental ambitions about the child’s future academic career.     

Part-time work, school success and school leaving

In this paper, we analyse part-time employment of teenagers still in full-time education, their academic performance, and their school leaving decisions. Our estimation strategy takes account of the possible interdependencies of these events and distinguishes between two alternative states to full time education: entering the labour force full time and going on to further training. We model this decision in a flexible way. Our analysis is based on data from the UK National Child Development Study, which has an unusually rich set of variables on school and parental characteristics. Our main finding is that working part time while in full-time education has only small adverse effects on exam performance for females, and no effects for males. The effect of part-time work on the decision to stay on at school is also negative, but small, and marginally significant for males, but not for females. Other important determinants of exam success as well as the continuation decision are parental ambitions about the child’s future academic career.     

German,British and French Geopolitics: The Enduring Differences

Geopolitical discourses for Germany, Britain and France are outlined for several periods since 1870. They are also categorised as to their orientations to different scales (regional, European, global). These discourses remain different over time. Differences are interpreted in terms of situation, state age and state organisation. At the same time these discourses change on the basis of state system characteristics and mutual interactions.     

加强师德师风建设提高以德治校能力

教育大计,教师为本;教师培养,师德师风为先。师德师风建设是高校思想政治教育的重要内容,是进一步推动廉政文化进校园工作的重中之重,是增强以德治校水平和提高以德治校能力的关键,是贯彻落实学校党风廉政建设和深入推进反腐败工作的重要举措。     

Entry, Exit and Productivity: Empirical Results for German Manufacturing Industries

Abstract. From a model by Hopenhayn, three hypotheses can be derived: (H1) Firms that exit in year t were less productive in t− 1 than firms that continue to produce in t. (H2) Firms that enter in year t are less productive than incumbent firms in year t. (H3) Surviving firms from an entry cohort were more productive than non-surviving firms from this cohort in the start year. This paper uses unique newly available panel datasets for all manufacturing plants from Germany (1995–2002) to test these hypotheses. All three hypotheses are supported empirically for West and East Germany.     

Nationalism,cognitive ability,and interpersonal relations

Interpersonal relations are shaped by the judgements associated with the social categories that individuals perceive in their social contacts. I develop a model of how those judgments form based on a theory of symbolic values. The model depicts the interaction between two values, one associated with an inherited ethnic trait (“nationality”) and one with an endogenous achievement trait (“income”). Individuals with lower cognitive ability are predicted to invest more value on nationalism and to have hostile relations with immigrants. Multiple equilibria are possible, and better schooling may eliminate equilibria with xenophobia. Econometric findings based on data from three large surveys corroborate the predictions derived from the theoretical model.     

历史法学、统一国家与德国资本主义

本文宏观考察了19世纪德国法理学发展的思想史轨迹。19世纪的德国法理学围绕统一德国的主题而展开,经历了面对统一问题的自由主义法理论与民族主义法理论间的复杂争论。19世纪的德国资产阶级要求的民主问题与地方封建邦的自主要求混杂在一起,从而又危及着德国的统一问题（德国自由主义法理论的困境）;同时,德国的统一问题又与维持德国封建君主制关联在一起（德国民族主义法理论的困境）。这是德国法理学不同于自然法理念的历史法理学特征。可以说,以历史法学为象征的19世纪德国法理论丧失了现代性的普遍品格,成为一种德意志的意识形态。     

EU Enlargement, Migration, and Lessons from German Unification

The paper studies the role of international implications after EU enlargement. Based on a formal model with migration costs for both capital and labor, it predicts a two-sided migration from the new to the old EU countries which is later reversed. As the migration pattern chosen by market forces turns out to be efficient, migration should not be artificially reduced by means of legal constraints or subsidies to the new member countries. The paper draws the parallel with German unification and points out the lessons to be learned by Europe. The analysis concludes with a brief discussion of the second-best problem posed by the existence of welfare states in the old member countries.     

企业异质性、贸易理论与经验研究:综述

贸易的企业异质性理论正逐渐兴起,本文围绕该理论的拓展思维和微观基础进行系统述评;不同于传统贸易理论的行业间资源配置分析,异质性理论强调要素在企业间的配置从而通过效率改善实现福利优化。而基于微观生产率差异的理论模型强调企业出口的自我淘汰机制,这一核心基础改变了传统贸易理论的基础动因、模式和福利收益。最后,异质性理论发展和国际经验考察对我国当前具有重要启示。     

Mapping expectations for system transformations: Lessons from Sustainability Foresight in German utility sectors

Expectations held by different actor groups are of key importance for the shaping of socio-technical transformation processes. Foresight activities may be interpreted as a means to elicit, aggregate, modulate and contextualize expectations held by different actors. The paper proposes a conceptual framework that allows assessing and reflecting expectations in foresight initiatives that focus on sustainable sector transformations. For this purpose it draws on the recent literature on socio-technical system transformations and social expectation dynamics. The application of the framework is illustrated by experiences gained with the Sustainability Foresight method developed for the case of sustainable utility sector futures in Germany. The process was conceived as a series of participative scenario and strategy workshops involving about 120 stakeholders from the provision, use and governance of utility services.     

Envy,wealth, and class hierarchies

A persion i is said to not envy another person j if he likes his own bundle of goods as well as he would like j's bundle. This paper explores the social structure defined by the non-envy relation, and relates it to the social structure defined by market values of bundles, or wealth.     

The Catching-up of Japanese with German Industries: Production Organization, Infrastructure, and R&D

This paper presents an empirical productivity comparison between Japan and Germany, focusing on organization, R&D and infrastructure. Time-series datasets from the auto vehicle and electronic engineering industries are used to demonstrate the reversal in productivity advantage from Germany to Japan at around 1980. It is argued that Japanese productivity gains arose from a better infrastructure and from cost-reducing innovations such as lean production methods. An econometric model determines the causes for the observed differences in the quantities of inputs used. It shows that frequent external procurement in Japanese manufacturing has shifted the factor inputs from labor and capital to materials, a result in line with the philosophy of lean production.     

Innovation,complementarity, and exporting. Evidence from German manufacturing firms

This paper assesses whether there might be complementarities between different types of innovation activities (product, process and organizational) and how these effects may be linked to the likelihood that a firm will export. Complementarity is addressed through the properties of supermodular functions, and firm heterogeneity by export destination is explored. A new econometric strategy to test for pairwise complementarity in a function with three independent variables and a binary dependent variable is proposed. Exogenous and endogenous innovation variables are considered by using bootstrapping for hypothesis testing, propensity score matching and treatment effects models. The empirical analysis shows that complementarity relationships between innovation strategies are more likely to exist when firms export to multiple foreign markets.     

The organisation of innovation: collaboration, cooperation and multifunctional groups in UK and German manufacturing

Marked differences exist between the institutional and socialcontext for innovation in the UK and Germany. The question addressedhere is how these different contexts affect the objectives andorganisation of innovation in UK and German manufacturing. Inparticular, the paper examines the extent to which UK and Germanplants engage in inter-plant collaboration and cooperation andmultifunctional working as part of their innovative activity,and explores the reasons for differences in these patterns ofinvolvement. The investigation is based on a large-scale, comparativesurvey of manufacturing plants in the two countries. In Germany,institutional and social norms are found to encourage collaborativeinter-plant innovation, but aspects of the German skills trainingand industrial relations systems make the adoption of more flexibleinternal systems more difficult. In the UK, by contrast, themore adversarial nature of inter-firm relations makes it moredifficult to establish external collaborations based on mutualtrust, but less restrictive labour market structures make iteasier for UK plants to adopt multifunctional working. Thisis linked to differences in attitudes to the property rightsand transaction cost problems inherent in innovation.     

The rich, the poor, and the middle class: Thresholds and intensity indices

This paper contributes to the literature on the measurement of social classes by providing a wealth threshold for distinguishing the rich from the middle class and an intensity index for measuring the extent of affluence within a country. The empirical applicability of this approach is then illustrated with household-level survey data from the Bank of Italy; the results show an unambiguous decline in poverty and an increase in affluence in Italy between 2002 and 2004. Moreover, the findings indicate that social class is statistically linked to age, gender, marital status, household size, education, employment, and geography.