Asymmetrie und Divergenz internationaler Handelsabkommen

Zusammenfassung  Der Welthandel ist seit 1980 deutlich rascher gewachsen als die internationale Produktion. In welche Richtung bewegen sich die internationalen Handelsbeziehungen? Ist es zu einer st?rkeren Regionalisierung des Handels gekommen? Welche Rolle spielen dabei Pr?ferenzhandelsabkommen? Georg Koopmann, 63, Dipl.-Volkswirt, ist Senior Economist am Institut für Au?enhandel und Wirtschaftsintegration der Universit?t Hamburg und Research Associate am Hamburgischen WeltWirtschaftsInstitut (HWWI). Lars Vogel, 30, Dipl.-Volkswirt, ist Gesch?ftsführer der Ludwig-Erhard-Stiftung Bonn.     

Terra incognita,Wirtschaftskrise und Unternehmertum

Zusammenfassung  Dem Staat sind bei der Bew?ltigung der Finanzkrise umfangreiche Aufgaben zugewachsen. Das Potential des freien Unternehmertums wird dabei eher vernachl?ssigt. Inwieweit k?nnen die privaten Unternehmer zu einem neuerlichen Aufschwung beitragen? Welche Voraussetzungen sollte der Staat schaffen, um ihnen dies zu erleichtern? Prof. Dr. Norbert Berthold, 56, ist Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Volkswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Wirtschaftsordnung und Sozialpolitik n]Bayerischen Julius-Maximilians-Universit?t Würzburg. Für hilfreiche Anmerkungen danke ich Dipl.-Volkswirt Matthias Kullas.     

Employment, wages, and the economic cycle: Differences between immigrants and natives

In this paper, we analyse differences in the cyclical pattern of employment and wages of immigrants and natives for two large immigrant receiving countries, Germany and the UK. We show that, despite large differences in their immigrant populations, there are similar and significant differences in cyclical responses between immigrants and natives in both countries, even conditional on education, age, and location. We decompose changes in outcomes into a secular trend and a business cycle component. We find significantly larger unemployment responses to economic shocks for low-skilled workers relative to high-skilled workers and for immigrants relative to natives within the same skill group. There is little evidence for differential wage responses to economic shocks. We offer three explanations for these findings: an equilibrium search model, where immigrants experience higher job separation rates, a model of dual labour markets, and differences in the complementarity of immigrants and natives to capital.     

Book reviews

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Book reviews

     

Growth and social security: the role of human capital

This paper studies the growth and efficiency effects of pay-as-you-go financed social security when human capital is the engine of growth. Employing a variant of the Lucas model [Lucas, R.E., 1988. On the mechanics of economic development. Journal of Monetary Economics 22, 3–42.] with overlapping generations, it is shown that a properly designed, unfunded social security system leads to higher output growth than a fully funded one. Furthermore, the economy with an unfunded social security is efficient, while the other one is not. These results stand in sharp contrast to those obtained in models where the reason for economic growth is physical capital accumulation.     

On the Intergenerational Incidence of Wage and Consumption Taxes

This paper identifies the conditions that determine the intergenerational incidence of wage and consumption taxes. It emphasizes the role of the households' age‐earnings and age‐consumption profiles for an understanding of various intergenerational incidence patterns. Furthermore, the paper considers some political economy implications of the intergenerational incidence of wage and consumption taxes. It demonstrates that the distributional impact of wage versus consumption taxes bears the potential of a conflict between the young and the old on the one side and the middle‐aged on the other.     

Impact of Adoption of Long-Term Performance Plans on Financial Analysts' Long-Term Forecasts

Prior research demonstrates that firms adopting long-term performance plans experience increased capital investment, earnings, and risk in the post-adoption period. However, these results are subject to distortions that may result from exogenous factors over the long time period examined. To avoid these potential distortions we examine financial analysts' forecasts in the periods immediately preceding and following the adoption of the performance plan. We find that projected long-term capital expenditures per share, earnings per share and cash flow per share are revised upward in the post-adoption period. These results are consistent with the premise that the adoption of long-term performance plans is expected to favorably affect managers' decisions. In addition, we find that the revisions are primarily attributable to firms that were performing poorly in the period prior to plan adoption and in greatest need of change. This finding has not been documented in previous studies.     

Buchbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Distribution and growth reconsidered: empirical results for six OECD countries

We analyse the relationship between functional income distributionand economic growth in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands,the UK and the USA from 1960 until 2005. The analysis is basedon a demand-driven distribution and growth model for an openeconomy inspired by Bhaduri and Marglin, which allows for eitherprofit- or wage-led growth. We find that growth in France, Germany,the UK and the USA has been wage-led, whereas Austria and theNetherlands have been profit-led. In the case of Austria a domesticallywage-led economy changes to profit-led when including the effectof distribution on external trade. The Netherlands, however,are already profit-led without external trade. Our results sofar only partially confirm Bhaduri and Marglin's theoreticalconclusion that wage-led growth becomes less feasible when theeffects of distribution on foreign trade are taken into account.