Seasonal adjustment of Austrian labour force series

Zusammenfassung Seit mehr als fünfzig Jahren haben Statistiker ihre Anstrengungen darauf gerichtet, optimale Methoden der Saisonbereinigung zu entwickeln. Einige dieser Methoden verwenden wir in der vorliegenden Arbeit, um saisonale Schwankungen aus österreichischen Arbeitsmarktreihen auszuschalten. Saisonbereinigte Reihen spielen für die laufende Konjunkturbeobachtung eine große Rolle. Aber um Enttäuschungen vorzubeugen, möchten wir gleich zu Beginn eine Warnung anbringen. Viele Praktiker scheinen zu glauben, daß bei Verwendung von saisonbereinigten Reihen Veränderungen gegen den Vormonat ein eindeutiges Bild der augenblicklichen Konjunkturlage vermitteln. Dabei wird leider häufig übersehen, daß saisonbereinigte Reihen eine irreguläre Komponente enthalten. In vielen Fällen ist diese Komponente so groß, daß sie die Schwankungen der Reihe von Monat zu Monat dominiert. Es ist daher oft von Vorteil, die jüngsten Daten mit solchen zu vergleichen, die schon zwei oder drei Monate früher anfielen, anstatt sich auf einen Vergleich mit dem Vormonat zu konzentrieren. Der dabei in Kauf genommene Informationsverlust wird durch die größere Verläßlichkeit der Ergebnisse mehr als wettgemacht, und die Information ist noch immer viel früher verfügbar, als wenn man mit Vorjahresvergleichen unbereinigter Daten operiert.

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Financial support by the Jubiläumsfonds der Oesterreichischen Nationalbank under grant no. 2203 is gratefully acknowledged. We wish to thank Manfred Deistler and Wolfgang Polasak for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

On the Existence of Chaotic Policy Functions in Dynamic Optimization

Applying the characterization results from Mitra and Sorger (1999), we show that topological chaos is a robust phenomenon in standard aggregative growth models even under arbitrary mild discounting. Furthermore, we state exact discount factor restrictions, under which two of the most popular examples of chaotic dynamics, the logistic map and the tent map, can be optimal policy functions of aggregative growth models.
JEL Classification Numbers: C61, O41.     

Die Nachfrage im Monopolgebiet

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Welfare effects of the euro cash changeover

Using merged data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this paper applies a parametric difference-in-differences approach to assess the real effects of the introduction of the euro on subjective well-being. A complementary nonparametric approach is also used to analyze the impact of difficulties with the new currency on well-being. The results indicate a loss in well-being associated with the introduction of the new currency, with the predicted probability that a person is contented with his/her household income diminishing by 9.7 percentage points. We calculate a compensating income variation of approximately one-third. That is, an increase in post-government household income of more than 30% is needed to compensate for the clear decline in well-being. The reasons for the negative impact are threefold. First, perceived inflation overestimates the real increase in prices resulting in suboptimal consumption decisions. Second, money illusion causes a false assessment of the budget constraint. Third, individuals have to bear the costs from the conversion and the adjustment to the new currency. Moreover, it is thought that losses are higher for persons who have difficulties with the new currency. However, the impact of difficulties in using and converting the new currency is rather small, and the initial problems were overcome within one year of the introduction of euro cash.     

Decomposing desert and tangibility effects in a charitable giving experiment

Several papers have documented that when subjects play with standard laboratory “endowments” they make less self-interested choices than when they use money they have either earned through a laboratory task or brought from outside the lab. In the context of a charitable giving experiment we decompose this into two common artifacts of the laboratory: the intangibility of money (or experimental currency units) promised on a computer screen relative to cash in hand, and the distinct treatment of random “windfall” gains relative to earned money. While both effects are found to be significant in non-parametric tests, the former effect, which has been neglected in previous studies, has a stronger impact on total donations, while the latter effect has a greater impact on the probability of donating. These results have clear implications for experimental design, and also suggest that the availability of more abstract payment methods may increase other-regarding behavior in the field.