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on Microeconomic European Issues |
| By: | Taylor, Mark P. |
| Abstract: | We identify patterns of self-employment entry, exit and survival in a sample of EU countries and examine factors that explain individuals self-employment experiences within and between countries. We estimate a range of models, including dynamic random effects models that endogenise the initial condition. Our results highlight similarities and differences between countries, and illustrate the importance of age and previous labour market experiences in determining self-employment flows. We also find a high degree of persistence in self-employment across countries, which is most pronounced in France and Germany and least pronounced in Spain. Our results suggest that flows into self-employment are positively associated with the strictness of employment protection legislation. |
| Date: | 2011–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:iserwp:2011-26&r=eur |
| By: | Fort, Margherita; Schneeweis, Nicole; Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between education and fertility, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms in Europe as source of exogenous variation in education. Using data from 8 European countries, we assess the causal effect of education on the number of biological kids and the incidence of childlessness. We find that more education causes a substantial decrease in childlessness and an increase in the average number of children per woman. Our findings are robust to a number of falsification checks and we can provide complementary empirical evidence on the mechanisms leading to these surprising results. |
| Keywords: | education; fertility; instrumental variables |
| JEL: | I2 J13 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8609&r=eur |
| By: | Benjamin Elsner (Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin); |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of a large emigration wave on real wages in the source country. Following EU enlargement in 2004, a large share of the workforce of the Central and Eastern Europe emigrated to Western Europe. Using data from Lithuania for the calibration of a factor demand model I show that emigration had a significant short-run impact on real wages in the source country. In particular, emigration led to a change in the wage distribution between young and old workers. The wages of young workers increased by 6%, whereas the wages of old workers decreased by around 1%. On the contrary, I find no effect on the wage distribution between workers of different education levels. |
| Keywords: | Emigration, EU Enlargement, European Integration, Wage Distribution |
| JEL: | F22 J31 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp379&r=eur |
| By: | Doblhammer, Gabriele (University of Rostock); van den Berg, Gerard J. (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation); Fritze, Thomas (German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE)) |
| Abstract: | With ageing populations and a stronger reliance on individual financial decision-making concerning asset portfolios, retirement schemes, pensions and insurances, it becomes increasingly important to understand the determinants of cognitive ability among the elderly. To study effects of the early-life economic environment, macro-economic fluctuations may be used. In European countries, about three to four economic recession and boom periods occurred between 1900 and 1945. The timing of these periods differs across countries. <p> We apply data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) among elderly individuals. This survey is homogeneous across countries. We use almost 20,000 respondents from 11 countries. We examine several domains of cognitive functioning at ages 60+ and link them to the macro-economic deviations in the year of birth, controlling for demographic, socioeconomic and health status. We find that economic conditions at birth significantly influence cognitive functioning late in life in various domains. The effects are particularly pronounced among the less educated. Recessions negatively influence numeracy and verbal fluency as well as the score on the omnibus cognitive indicator. The results are robust; controlling for current characteristics does not change effect sizes and significance. We discuss possible causal pathways. |
| Keywords: | Cognition; economic business cycle; developmental origins; health; long-run effects; dementia; numeracy; memory; decision-making |
| JEL: | I12 I18 J14 J26 N14 N34 |
| Date: | 2011–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2011_014&r=eur |
| By: | Karsten Neuhoff; Benjamin F. Hobbs; David Newbery |
| Abstract: | EU Member States are pursuing large scale investment in renewable generation in order to meet a 2020 target to source 20% of total energy sources by renewables. As the location for this new generation differs from the location of existing generation sources, and is often on the extremities of the electricity network, it will create new flow patterns and transmission needs. While congestion exists between European countries, increasing the penetration of variable sources of energy will change the current cross-border congestion profile. It becomes increasingly important for the power market design to foster the full use of existing transmission capacity and allow for robust operation even in the presence of system congestion. After identifying five criteria that an effective congestion management scheme for European countries will need, this paper critically assess to what extent the various approaches satisfy the requirements. |
| Keywords: | Power market design, integrating renewables, congestion management |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1161&r=eur |
| By: | Chiara Franco; Alberto Marzucchi; Sandro Montresor |
| Abstract: | This paper draws on the multi-dimensional characterization of absorptive capacity (AC) to empirically investigate the antecedents and the effects of its "potential" dimension (PAC): i.e., the firm's capacity of acquiring and assimilating external knowledge, as distinguished from its "realized" transformation and exploitation (RAC). Based on a sample of about 10,500 firms for an area of 3 EU countries (Italy, Germany and Spain) we find that the firm's reliance on external knowledge in general increases its PAC, and that this effect is magnified by the internal shocks the firm faces. However, both these effects find relevant exceptions when different kinds of external sources are considered, at different kinds of distance from the absorbing firm. Unexpectedly, social integration mechanisms in the firm makes PAC less, rather than more, inductive of innovation outcomes. On the contrary, the human capital of the firm has a positive moderating role on the PAC effects. A possible trade-off in the exploitation of the externally assimilated knowledge is suggested. |
| Keywords: | absorptive capacity; external knowledge; innovation |
| JEL: | O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpol:1106&r=eur |
| By: | Frieder Borggrefe; Karsten Neuhoff |
| Abstract: | EU Member States increase deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources to deliver the 20% renewable target formulated in the European Renewables Directive of 2008. To incorporate these intermittent sources, a power market needs to be flexible enough to accommodate short-term forecasts and quick turn transactions. This flexibility is particularly valuable with respect to wind energy, where wind forecast uncertainty decreases significantly in the final 24 hours before actual generation. Therefore, current designs of intraday and balancing markets need to be altered to make full use of the flexibility of the transmission system and the different generation technologies to effectively respond to increased uncertainty. This paper explores the current power market designs in European countries and North America and assesses these designs against criteria that evaluate whether they are able to adequately handle wind intermittency. |
| Keywords: | Power market design, integrating renewables, wind energy, balancing, intraday |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1162&r=eur |
| By: | Max Nathan |
| Abstract: | Ethnic inventors play important roles in US innovation systems, especially in high-tech regions like Silicon Valley. Do 'ethnicity-innovation' channels exist elsewhere? This paper investigates, using a new panel of UK patents microdata. In theory, ethnicity might affect positively innovation via 'star' migrants, network externalities from co-ethnic groups, or production complementarities from diverse inventor communities. I use the novel ONOMAP name classification system to identify ethnic inventors. Controlling for individuals' human capital, I find small positive effects of South Asian and Southern European co-ethnic group membership on individual patenting. The overall diversity of inventor communities also helps raise individual inventors' productivity. I find no hard evidence that ethnic inventors crowd out patenting by majority groups. |
| Keywords: | ethnic inventors, innovation, patents, cultural diversity, diasporas, cities |
| JEL: | J15 J24 J61 M13 O3 R11 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:0092&r=eur |
| By: | Timm Bönke; Giacomo Corneo; Holger Lüthen |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the magnitude, pattern, and evolution of lifetime earnings inequality in Germany. Based on a large sample of earning biographies from social security records, we show that the intra-generational distribution of lifetime earnings of male workers has a Gini coefficient around .2 for cohorts born in the late 1930s and early 1940s; this amounts to about 2/3 of the value of the Gini coefficient of annual earnings. Within cohorts, mobility in the distribution of yearly earnings is substantial at the beginning of the lifecycle, decreases after-wards and virtually vanishes after age forty. Earnings data for thirty-one cohorts reveals striking evidence of a secular rise of intra-generational inequality in lifetime earnings: West-German men born in the early 1960s are likely to experience about 80 % more lifetime inequality than their fathers. In contrast, both short-term and long-term intra-generational mobility have been rather stable. Longer unemployment spells of workers at the bottom of the distribution of younger cohorts contribute to explain 30 to 40 % of the overall increase in life-time earnings inequality. |
| Keywords: | Lifetime Earnings, Earnings Distribution, Inequality, Mobility, Germany |
| JEL: | D31 D33 H24 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1160&r=eur |
| By: | Assaf Razin; Jackline Wahba |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the magnet hypothesis and investigates the impact of the welfare generosity on the difference between skilled and unskilled migration rates. The main purpose of the paper is to assess the role of mobility restriction on shaping the effect of the welfare state genrosity. In a free migration regime, the impact is expected to be negative on the skill composition of migrants while in a restricted mobility regime, the impact will be the opposite, as voters will prefer selective migration policies, favoring skilled migrants who tend to be net contributors to the fiscal system. We utilize the free labor movement within EUR (the EU, Norway and Switzerland) and the restricted movement from outside of the EUR to compare the free migration. |
| JEL: | F22 H3 J48 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17515&r=eur |
| By: | Novotný, JOSEF |
| Abstract: | This paper examines regional convergence in living standards among 264 EU27 regions during1992-2006. The main contribution is the exploratory analysis, which inspects various aspects of regional dynamics such as convergence and divergence, polarization, the role of inter-national component, polarization, switching, and mobility of regions. Both the development of absolute and relative differentials in regional living standards is considered by applying several different techniques including some magnitude-free statistics. The results indicate that regional convergence in relative differentials was concurrent to widening of absolute gaps. Beyond the aggregate trends a significant extent of switching and mobility of individual regions has been detected. |
| Keywords: | European Union; living standards; subjective judgements; real convergence; regional dynamics |
| JEL: | O18 C20 R12 O52 |
| Date: | 2011–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:34145&r=eur |
| By: | David Hummels; Rasmus Jørgensen; Jakob R. Munch; Chong Xiang |
| Abstract: | We estimate how offshoring and exporting affect wages by skill type. Our data match the population of Danish workers to the universe of private-sector Danish firms, whose trade flows are broken down by product and origin and destination countries. Our data reveal new stylized facts about offshoring activities at the firm level, and allow us to both condition our identification on within-job-spell changes and construct instruments for offshoring and exporting that are time varying and uncorrelated with the wage setting of the firm. We find that within job spells, (1) offshoring tends to increase the high-skilled wage and decrease the low-skilled wage; (2) exporting tends to increase the wages of all skill types; (3) the net wage effect of trade varies substantially across workers of the same skill type; and (4) conditional on skill, the wage effect of offshoring exhibits additional variation depending on task characteristics. We then track the outcomes for workers after a job spell and find that those displaced from offshoring firms suffer greater earnings losses than other displaced workers, and that low-skilled workers suffer greater and more persistent earnings losses than high-skilled workers. |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17496&r=eur |