EXPERIENCE OF PRIVATIZATION IN EASTERN GERMANY*

ABSTRACT^**: The analysis of the experience of privatization in Eastern Germany shows that the boundaries between the private and public sectors will become increasingly blurred, with the public sector becoming more like the private sector. One may also expect that employment will fall and productivity greatly increase. The legislature's urge to regulate everything will ultimately subside but the public sector will continue to be of vital importance for the economy as a whole. A modernized public sector will be able to deploy its services to make an important contribution to economic growth and employment.     

ARE COLLECTIVE ECONOMY UNDERTAKINGS INTEGRATED INTO THE CONCEPT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICY IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY? A POSTSCRIPT*

I. The concept of economic and social policy in the Federal Republic of Germany. II. Public undertakings: conditionally recognized. III. Co-operatives: integrated. IV. Trade union undertakings: disputed. V. German collective economy: a creation of theory, not a political reality.     

EVALUATING THE IMPACTS OF SUBSIDIES ON INNOVATION ACTIVITIES IN GERMANY

Innovations are a key factor to ensure the competitiveness of establishments as well as to enhance the growth and wealth of nations. But more than any other economic activity, decisions about innovations are plagued by failures of the market mechanism. As a response, public instruments have been implemented to stimulate private innovation activities. The effectiveness of these measures, however, is ambiguous and calls for an empirical evaluation. In this paper we make use of the IAB Establishment Panel and apply various microeconometric methods to estimate the effect of public measures on innovation activities of German establishments. We find that neglecting sample selection due to observable as well as to unobservable characteristics leads to an overestimation of the treatment effect and that there are considerable differences with regard to size class and between West and East German establishments.     

ESTIMATES OF CAPITAL STOCK BY INDUSTRIES IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the measurement problems in connection with the perpetual inventory method applied for estimates of capital stock. In the Federal Republic of Germany, highly aggregated capital stock data by business sector are compiled by the Federal Statistical Office within its national accounts calculations, while more detailed capital stock estimates by industrial sectors are published by the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin. Because of various gaps in the statistical sources, the accuracy of the capital stock calculations is not yet entirely satisfactory. Aside from the problem of establishing long time series for gross fixed capital formation in constant prices for all sectors, it is difficult to obtain reliable data on the inter-sectoral transactions in secondhand capital goods. In addition, there are problems of determining price indices and service life distributions of the fixed assets in the various parts of the economy. This paper shows a way to arrive at a reasonably close approximation to the latter problem.     

ESTIMATING THE IMPACT OF IMMIGRANTS ON THE HOST COUNTRY SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM WHEN RETURN MIGRATION IS AN ENDOGENOUS CHOICE*

This article estimates immigrants’ fiscal impact on the German pension insurance and unemployment insurance systems when return migration is an endogenous choice. For this purpose, it develops a dynamic stochastic model of joint return migration and saving decisions and estimates it using longitudinal data on immigrants from five countries. The results indicate that exogenous return migration—which has been the practice of the literature so far—underestimates the state coffers’ net gain substantially; e.g., the unemployment insurance system’s net gain from Turks arriving after age 30 falls by an amount that is roughly equal to their annual earnings at arrival.     

HAS THE QUALITY OF IMMIGRANTS DECLINED? EVIDENCE FROM THE LABOR MARKET ATTACHMENT OF IMMIGRANTS AND NATIVES

This is an investigation of the labor market activities of U.S. immigrants who arrived from the 1960s through the 1980s. Relative to natives, upon arrival male immigrants who arrived during the 1980s are more likely to be persistently jobless than are male immigrants who arrived during the 1960s. The increased disengagement of immigrant arrivals from the U.S. labor market appears solely in the form of labor market withdrawal and has not manifested itself in increased institutionalization. Though the "new immigration" apparently does not increase fiscal burdens on the penal system, it nonetheless is expanding the dependent population. The greater labor market idleness of today's immigrants relative to pre-1970 arrivals is consistent with a growing body of economic evidence suggesting a deterioration of U.S. immigrants' labor market capital and success during the post war period.     

MEASURING POVERTY AND DEPRIVATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

This paper compares a standard expenditure-based poverty measure with a specifically created composite measure of deprivation using household survey data from South Africa. While there is a strong overall correlation between expenditures and levels of deprivation, the correlation is much weaker among the worst-off South Africans. In addition, the two measures differ considerably in the impact of race, headship, location (urban, rural), and household size on expenditure poverty versus deprivation. In general, the deprivation measure finds more Africans, rural dwellers, members of de facto female-headed households, and members of smaller households deprived than expenditure poor. Only the differences in the effect of household size on poverty are sensitive to assumptions about equivalence scales. As a result, the two measures diverge greatly in identifying the poorest and most deprived sections of the population, which may have considerable consequences for targeting.     

NATIONAL PRODUCT AT CONSTANT PRICES IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY

With few exceptions, only cormmodity flows and values which can be determined by means of commodity flows (flows of goods and services) are calculated in constant prices in the official national accounts of the Federal Republic of Germany. Figures an the industrial origin and the final use of the national product are published, the former according to thirty industries, the latter according to the major types of uses of which in particular private consumption expenditure has been further analysed. The computations at constant prices are based on market prices and not on factor costs. It is only on this basis that a uniform valuation of the production and the expenditure side can be made since the turnover tax, which is the most important indirect tax, is contained in the elements of final demand in varying shares and cannot be eliminated (the tax is part of the price and has cumulative effect). The computation at constant prices presupposes a breakdown of the values in current prices according to quantities and prices. This raises a number of problems, e.g. because seller and buyer may consider differing aspects-production costs, technical attributes, etc., on the one hand, and use etc., on the other hand. In part there exist only vague ideas, or no ideas at all, as to what is to be considered-from a theoretical point of view-as quantity and price. In other cases the two values can only with great difficulties, if at all, be quantified, or there exists no market price and only the production costs are available. The author deals in greater detail with differences in quality and new commodities, the determination and treatment of quantities and prices for services, in particular for trade services (services attached to goods), the computation of government services at constant prices considering the development of productivity in public service, the determination of the values calculated as balances, above all the treatment of changes in the terms of trade for net exports of goods and services, the computation of the contributions of industries to the gross domestic product and, finally, the reconciliation of the production and the expenditure side. In a third section the author deals with index formulae and the base year. In the majority of cases values are deflated; partly, however, they are currently adjusted by means of volume and quantity data. On the production side the two methods are in part combined. In a concluding section a survey is provided of the computation methods used in the Federal Republic of Germany and on the available material for the computations. Mention is made of depreciation at constant prices.     

SOCIAL ECONOMY IN THE CO-CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC POLICY

ABSTRACT:  In this paper, I focus on the contribution of the social economy to the democratization of the State and of public policy by making use of the distinction between the concepts of co-production and co-construction. In part one, I clarify the meanings given to various concepts. In particular, I pay attention to the idea of a co-production of public policy. This concept relates to the organizational dimension of policy and enables a contextualization of the participation of both civil society stakeholders and market forces in the implementation of services to the public. In part two, I discuss the concept of co-construction which relates to the institutional dimension of public policy and enables an analysis of how both civil society stakeholders and market forces are defining public policies. While the co-construction of public policy can produce various types of outcomes, I favor a solidarity-based model in which the State is open to forms of governance inclusive of the contributions of civil society stakeholders and market forces. This type of co-construction is fitting with a concern for the general interest and is ready to use the resources of the social economy. In part three, I review the housing policy case study in Canada and Quebec during the last twenty years. Three observations emerge from this case study: 1) the presence of both co-production and co-construction in public housing policy; 2) an active presence of the social economy such as co-operatives and non-profit organizations; 3) this active presence of the social economy has helped to produce a number of social innovations that have improved the democratization of public policy in the housing field.