The failure of integrated transport policy in Germany: a historical perspective

In order to reach a sustainable traffic development, the European Union follows the central idea of an integrated transport policy. In contrast to the widely accepted concept, the EU recently had to admit that in fact transport development goes in the opposite direction. This contradiction has to be explained. The article describes the long lasting succession of efforts to implement a far-reaching cooperation in the transport sector as is aspired to by an integrated transport policy. In each case, though, the political idea of cooperation was superseded by the economic one of competition. Therefore, the author argues in favour of a detailed scientific analysis of the necessary political conditions for an integrated transport policy, instead of continuing an untested concept.     

A new poolability test for cointegrated panels

This paper proposes a new test of the null hypothesis that the parameters in a cointegrated panel data regression are equal across the cross‐section. The asymptotic distribution of the new test statistic is derived and simulation results are provided to suggest that it performs very well in small samples. An empirical application to the monetary exchange rate model is also provided. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sharing the burden for climate change mitigation in the Canadian federation

Dividing the burden for greenhouse gas abatement among the provinces has proven challenging in Canada and contributes to Canada's failure to limit emissions. This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to compare a number of rules for sharing the burden of emission reductions among Canadian provinces. Because of the substantial heterogeneity among Canadian provinces, these different rules imply significantly different relative abatement effort among provinces, and also significantly different welfare implications. We compare these archetypal burden sharing rules to existing provincial emission reduction commitments and find that none of the standard burden sharing rules comes close to existing commitments.     

Should Welfare Administration be Centralized or Decentralized? Evidence from a Policy Experiment

The 2005 reform of the German welfare system introduced two competing organizational models for welfare administration. In most districts, a centralized organization was established where local welfare agencies are bound to central directives. At the same time, 69 districts were allowed to opt for a decentralized organization. We evaluate the relative success of both types in terms of integrating welfare recipients into employment. Compared to centralized organization, decentralized organization has a negative effect on employment chances of males. For women, no significant effect is found. These findings are robust to the inclusion of aspects of internal organization common to both types of agencies.     

Patterns and determinants of entry and exit in industrial sectors in Sweden

This paper uses a unique dataset which gives a complete picture of the pattern of entry and exit in industrial sectors in Sweden during the period 1997–2001. The importance of profitability, industrial market growth, tangible capital intensity, intangible capital intensity and economies of scale for entry and exit are investigated. A fixed effects panel data model is used, and it is shown that the inclusion of unobserved industry-specific effects explains many of the inter-industrial differences in entry and exit rates. For policymakers, this implies that it is difficult to formulate an entrepreneurship policy that can be expected to be equally successful across all industries. It is also shown that investments in intangible assets is one way to compete, while economies of scale tend to deter entry rates.     

The trade with developing countries

The classic view of the theory of foreign trade that unfettered international exchanges of goods enhance the economic welfare of all participating nations is gaining more and more ground in the discussions about development policy. Since past experience has shown capital aid alone to be incapable of lessening the prosperity differential between the North and the South, the “Aid by Trade“ strategy is now of increasing importance. There is however no panacea which would embrace the developing countries more closely in the international goods exchanges.     

Distributive Aspekte handelbarer Flächennutzungsrechte

Die Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie der Bundesregierung sieht langfristig eine neue Inanspruchnahme der Siedlungs- und Verkehrsflächen von 30 ha pro Tag vor. Bei einer Kontingentierung der Flächennutzung könnte die Nachfrage effizient mit handelbaren Nutzungsrechten geregelt werden. Welche verteilungspolitischen Implikationen sind mit diesem Instrument verbunden?Prof. Dr. Dirk Löhr, MBA, 40, ist Sprecher des Zentrums für Bodenschutz und Flächenhaushaltspolitik an der Fachhochschule Trier, Umwelt-Campus Birkenfeld.