Expertenwissen im politischen Prozess — Nutzen,Grenzen und Gefahren

Since the outbreak of the financial and economic crisis, confidence in politicians as well as the economists in their advisory expert panels seems to be at an all-time low. Why do politicians reject science-based advice unless it fits into their political agenda? Are economists misunderstood by politicians and vice versa? The tension between the ideal of evidence-based policy-making and the reality of policy-based evidence-making is hardly a new phenomenon. Therefore, the expectation that Donald Trump, the Brexiteers and European populists will necessarily disappoint their voters because they simply cannot deliver what they have promised is misleading. Experts would be well advised to use the debate on the post-factual era as an impetus to reflect critically on their profession. One opinion expressed in this Zeitgespräch is that the contested societal and political impact of modern economics is due to its restricted scientific self-concept. A more open, pluralistic and transdisciplinary self-definition of economics would strengthen its societal influence. Another contributor ponders the proper incentives to persuade academic economists to provide economic policy advice. Key is the independence of advisory institutions like the German Council of Economic Experts. The selection of people with the best scientific qualifications will ensure the reputation of such institutions.     

Nach der Wahl: Was sind die wichtigsten wirtschaftspolitischen Herausforderungen?

Even though Germany’s economy is currently going strong, the country still faces enormous challenges if it wants to maintain and increase this prosperity. The new government should take this opportunity to set the course for the future by encouraging the digitalisation of the economy and the society as well as by ensuring that the ongoing energy transition is sustainable and efficient. Other challenges include the adverse effects of globalisation on parts of society and the uneven distribution of income and wealth. But the actual magnitude of the government’s room to manoeuver is up for debate. The new government’s fiscal space might be more limited than it seems, since an automatic adjustment of the income tax to inflation and growth is required to end the bracket creep. Given that transfer programmes are being phased out, the federal income tax surcharge to finance German unification also needs to be abolished. Further budget pressure stems from the pension system and from demands by state and local as well as European governments. The new German government should use the next governing period to initiate fundamental reforms of economic and fiscal policy that will provide adequate answers to long-run challenges.     

WTO's Anti-dumping Rule and the Protection of Incumbents

Article VI of the GATT allows counter measures if goods are sold in a foreign market at a price below average production plus transportation costs. The present article analyses Article VI based on a simple game theoretic model with two countries and economies of scale in the production of one homogeneous good. It is shown that multiple equilibria exist under the WTO rule for some parameter values that do not exist without the rule. In some equilibria, the incumbent serves the entire market even if the entrant can produce at lower costs. The model supports the criticism of the anti-dumping rule as an instrument of protection by industrialized countries against competition from developing countries.     

Occupational job creation: patterns and implications

This paper empirically investigates the matching process ofjob seekers and job vacancies, on different occupational labormarkets, and reveals the relative importance of supply and demandfactors, and frictions in the job creation process. Using datafrom German administrative records, we estimate matching functionsboth on the aggregate level, and for different occupationaland educational groups. The data allow to avoid some of theusual problems in empirical matching studies; extensive robustnessand stationarity tests are carried out. The results indicatesubstantial heterogeneity in the matching processes at disaggregatelevels. This information can be useful for policymakers, sincepolicy interventions that are effective in creating employmenton some occupational labor markets might lead to unsatisfactoryresults for other occupations.     

Total factor productivity, the east Asian miracle, and the world production frontier

Total Factor Productivity, the East Asian Miracle, and the World Production Frontier. — The post WWII growth of the East Asian Tiger states has stimulated the discussion about its determinants. Young and Krugman hold that high capital accumulation rather than gains in efficiency or technological progress has spurred growth. Nelson and Pack, however, have recently criticized the methods of measuring technological progress. Applying the nonparametric approach to frontier production function determination and the Malmquist index of total factor productivity change, the authors take up this criticism. They calculate productivity indicators for a sample of 18 American, Asian, and European countries. For the Tiger states, their results confirm that capital accumulation was the main source of growth in 1960-1973, whereas they find evidence for an increasing importance of efficiency improvements for the growth in 1973-1990.     

Die Anforderungen an die interne Unternehmenskommunikation in neuen Organisationskonzepten

This article mainly concentrates on two questions: 1. What functions does an internal corporate communication perform in a learning organization, and in relation to knowledge management? 2. Under which conditions or circumstances can internal corporate communication fulfill these functions? In the concepts of organizational learning and knowledge management, internal communication gains an important productive function in generating, processing and saving knowledge. Instruments and tools such as face-to-face communication, internal magazines, information boards and the use of an intranet are discussed. As far as the generation, production and saving of knowledge are concerned, the instrument of face-to-face communication and the intranet are gaining special importance. In order to cope with these functional challenges, the internal corporate communication has to institutionalize selective incentives and motivating factors. For generating and saving knowledge, the actors’ reception of these media of communication seems of great importance also: Only a unified «community of practice» is able to transform information into knowledge.     

Liberalisation of the capital markets in developing countries

Intereconomics - The domestic capital markets of developing countries are typically subject to serious inefficiencies. This article shows how these inefficiencies can be eliminated without...     

私人部门在满足医疗需求方面的作用（上）

本文就私人部门在满足医疗需求方面的作用进行分析,认为如果私人部门能够得到有效监管,并按照社会道德认同的方式进行运转,一国医疗体系就能够受益于私人部门。本部分探讨了医疗体系的基本功能及其目标,介绍了绝对平均主义、两阶层医疗体系和多阶层医疗体系三种分配医疗服务的观点,指出当前用货币价值衡量医疗产出价值是次优选择;而衡量医疗服务分配效率也存在争议。     

Within‐Subject Intra‐ and Inter‐Method Consistency of Two Experimental Risk Attitude Elicitation Methods

We compare the consistency of choices in two methods used to elicit risk preferences on an aggregate as well as on an individual level. We ask subjects to choose twice from a list of nine decisions between two lotteries, as introduced by Holt and Laury 2002, 2005 ) alternating with nine decisions using the budget approach introduced by Andreoni and Harbaugh ( 2009 ). We find that, while on an aggregate (subject pool) level the results are consistent, on an individual (within‐subject) level, behaviour is far from consistent. Within each method as well as across methods we observe low (simple and rank) correlations.