South–North Refugee Migration: Lessons for Development Cooperation

Migration has become a major concern of European development policies. By improving socio–economic and political conditions through development cooperation, a reduction of South–North migration flows is envisaged. This new approach is examined by analyzing the causes of asylum migration from developing countries to Germany. The econometric findings suggest that support of democracy, economic development and trade will not reduce migration, at least not in the medium-run. However, restrictive legal measures work. Migration control by international development cooperation therefore seems to need a long–term perspective.     

Stable mixture GARCH models

A new model class for univariate asset returns is proposed which involves the use of mixtures of stable Paretian distributions, and readily lends itself to use in a multivariate context for portfolio selection. The model nests numerous ones currently in use, and is shown to outperform all its special cases. In particular, an extensive out-of-sample risk forecasting exercise for seven major FX and equity indices confirms the superiority of the general model compared to its special cases and other competitors. Estimation issues related to problems associated with mixture models are discussed, and a new, general, method is proposed to successfully circumvent these. The model is straightforwardly extended to the multivariate setting by using an independent component analysis framework. The tractability of the relevant characteristic function then facilitates portfolio optimization using expected shortfall as the downside risk measure.     

Testing the Bhaduri–Marglin model with OECD panel data

The Bhaduri–Marglin model is a post-Kaleckian model that allows one to study the impact of a functional income distribution on the growth in demand. Over recent years, a number of empirical studies based on this model have aimed at determining whether a redistribution towards profits harms or fosters demand growth. The focus so far has been on a very limited number of countries. This paper is the first to test the Bhaduri–Marglin model with panel data. It finds that demand growth is reduced by a redistribution towards profits in the average OECD country. Productivity growth is also impaired.     

Entrepreneurial Spawning: Experience,Education, and Exit

We investigate the career dynamics of high‐tech entrepreneurs by analyzing the exit choice of entrepreneurs: to act as a business angel, to found another firm, or to become dependently employed. Our detailed data from CrunchBase indicate that founders are more likely to stick with entrepreneurship as a serial entrepreneur or as an angel investor in cases where the founder had prior experience either in founding other startups or working for a startup, or had a “jack‐of‐all‐trades” education.