Suchergebnisse

Über die letzten zwölf Jahre sind globale Indikatoren für Demokratie- und Freiheitsrechte kontinuierlich gesunken. Demokratie ist eine wichtige Triebkraft für wirtschaftliche Entwicklung, daher folgen aus diesem Vertrauensverlust auch Sorgen über die Zukunft des ökonomischen Wohlstandes. Diese Dissertation besteht aus drei Essays und untersucht mögliche Reformen für effektivere politische Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten in demokratischen Systemen: Dezentralisierung und Privatisierung. Das erste Essay überprüft, ob durch Dezentralisierung der öffentlichen Arbeitsvermittlung mehr Arbeitslose in freie Stellen vermittelt werden können. Dafür untersuche ich die Kommunalisierung deutscher Jobcenter im Jahr 2012. Dabei stelle ich fest, dass sich durch Dezentralisierung die Neuanstellung von Arbeitslosen um rund 10% verringern. Es zeigt sich, dass dezentralisierte Arbeitsvermittlungen vermehrt öffentlich geförderte Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen nutzen. Das zweite Essay beschäftigt sich mit finanzpolitischen Wechselwirkungen zwischen Gemeinden in Kolumbien, wo die Verantwortlichkeit für einen großen Teil des Staatsbudgets an die kommunale Regierungsebene übertragen wurde. Es ergeben sich starke räumliche Autokorrelationen im lokalen Ausgabeverhalten. Allerdings zeigt sich durch einen Instrumentalvariablenansatz, dass es keine kausalen fiskalischen Interaktionseffekte zwischen den Gemeinden gibt. Das dritte Essay analysiert, ob Regierungen ökonomischen Effizienzüberlegungen folgen, wenn sie entscheiden, welche staatlichen Firmen für eine Privatisierung ausgewählt werden. Basierend auf der Massenprivatisierung in Folge des Falls der Berliner Mauer untersuche ich Firmendaten, welche mehr als 6.000 Privatisierungs- und Liquidationsentscheidungen umfassen. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass Privatisierungsentscheidungen weniger politisch, sondern stärker ökonomisch orientiert sind, als dies durch bisherige Studien bekannt ist. ; Global indicators of democracy and civil liberties have continually decreased over the past twelve years. Scholars have identified weak public policy-making as an origin for low levels of trust in democratic governance. In three essays, this dissertation studies two reform options to improve policy-making, namely decentralization and privatization. The first essay examines whether the decentralization of public employment services (PES) increases job placements among the unemployed. Using a difference-in-differences design, I exploit unique within-country variation in decentralization provided by the partial devolution of German job centers in 2012. I find that de-centralization reduces job placements by approximately 10% while expanding the use of inefficient public job creation schemes. Essay two explores fiscal interactions in Colombia, a developing country which shifted the responsibility for a large share of public spending from the central to local governments. I find evidence of strong spatial autocorrelation of local public spending. However, an instrumental variable approach reveals that there are no significant causal fiscal interaction effects between municipalities. The third essay studies whether governments incorporate economic efficiency considerations when choosing which firms they select for privatization. Analyzing mass privatizations following the Fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany, I employ previously unavailable firm data on more than 6,000 privatization and liquidation decisions. The analysis suggests that privatization decisions are less politicized and more efficiency-oriented than found in previous studies.

This paper studies whether the decentralization of public employment services (PES) increases job placements among the unemployed. Decentralizing PES has been a widely applied reform used by governments aiming to enhance their efficacy. However, economic theory is ambiguous about its effects, and empirical evidence has been scarce. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit unique within-country variation in decentralization provided by the partial devolution of German job centers in 2012. We find that decentralization reduces job placements by approximately 10%. Decentralized providers expand the use of public job creation schemes which diminish job seekers' reemployment prospects but shift costs to higher levels of government.

Bildungsungleichheit ist ein Hauptgrund dafür, dass Einkommensunterschiede über Generationen hinweg bestehen bleiben. Da das im Erwachsenenalter erzielte Einkommen mit kognitiven Fähigkeiten im Schulalter zusammenhängt, werden die schulischen Fähigkeiten von Kindern mit deren sozioökonomischem Hintergrund verglichen. Unsere Untersuchungen mit Paneldaten zu Schulkindern in Deutschland führen zu dem Ergebnis, dass Performanceunterschiede bereits zu Schulbeginn bestehen und die Lücken im Lauf der Schulzeit nicht geschlossen werden. Diese Ergebnisse sind relevant für politische Maßnahmen, die darauf zielen, die Einkommensmobilität zwischen Generationen zu erhöhen und Chancengleichheit zu schaffen. Frühkindliche Maßnahmen können helfen, bereits vor Schulbeginn bestehende Leistungsunterschiede zu verringern. ; Educational inequality is a major reason why income disparities persist across generations. With our analysis of panel data on school children in Germany, we show tha t performance differences by socioeconomic background are already present before children start formal schooling. These gaps then persist throughout children's school careers. We find differences in important family characteristics by socioeconomic background, which might contribute to the early and persistent gap in cognitive abilities. These results are relevant for policy measures aimed at increasing intergenerational income mobility and creating equal opportunities. Combining our results with prior research suggests that policy interventions should target early childhood to minimise performance gaps at school entry age.

The end of communism in the 1990s probably is the most fundamental restructuring of institutions witnessed in recent history. At its core was the large-scale redistribution of previously state-owned companies. We construct a unique firm-level dataset to study this redistribution in East Germany where the entire state-owned economy was either privatized or liquidated within less than five years. We examine whether the privatization authority followed its mandate to privatize competitive firms using initial labor productivity to indicate firms' competitiveness. Our results highlight that firms with higher baseline productivity are more likely to be privatized, yield higher sales prices, are more often acquired by West German investors, and are more likely to remain in business even 20 years after leaving public ownership. The privatization agency plausibly contributed to these outcomes by rating and prioritizing productive firms ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Auch zum 30. Jubiläum der Deutschen Einheit ist noch viel von Ost-West-Unterschieden die Rede. Im Vordergrund stehen hierbei neben rein ökonomischen Differenzen auch Unterschiede in soziokulturellen Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen. Dass diese Diskussionen auch nach so langer Zeit noch geführt werden, erscheint erstaunlich und wirft die Frage nach der Herkunft dieser anhaltenden Differenzen auf. Typischerweise wird diese Frage mit der Erfahrung verschiedener politischer Systeme beantwortet, die unterschiedliche gesellschaftliche Prägungen zur Folge hatten. Folglich entwickelte sich auch in den Sozial wissenschaften ein großes Interesse an der deutschen Teilung 1949 in die Deutsche Demokratische Republik und die Bundesrepublik Deutschland sowie an der Wiedervereinigung 1990. Die Bevölkerung in Ost- und Westdeutschland unterschied sich jedoch bereits vor der Teilung. Die heute verbleibenden Unterschiede müssen dennoch nicht als unveränderlich hingenommen werden. ; Even on the 30th anniversary of German unity, there is still a lot of talk about East-West differences. Typically, these differences are attributed to different political systems, which have created different impressions. As a result of the division of Germany in 1949 into the GDR and the Federal Republic as well as the reunification in 1990, a lively interest in the social sciences has developed as they offer a unique framework for analysing the effects of communism. Never before has such an unexpected introduction and abolition of a communist regime occured on the territory of a previously and subsequently united country. This paper looks into the history of East-West differences and argues that the division and reunification of Germany are nonetheless not a simple 'experiment' from which one can directly deduce the effects of communism. The paper finds that the populations of East and West Germany already differed before the division, that the GDR and FRG were unequally affected by the Second World War, and that selective East-West migration took place during the division. Nevertheless, the remaining East-West differences are not necessarily permanent.

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly selected treatment and control groups. First, the later border is already visible in many socio-economic characteristics in pre-World War II data. Second, World War II and the subsequent occupying forces affected East and West differently. Third, a selective fifth of the population fled from East to West Germany before the building of the Wall in 1961. In light of our findings, we propose a more cautious interpretation of the extensive literature on the enduring effects of communist systems on economic outcomes, political preferences, cultural traits, and gender roles.

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly selected treatment and control groups. First, the later border is already visible in many socio-economic characteristics in pre-World War II data. Second, World War II and the subsequent occupying forces affected East and West differently. Third, a selective fifth of the population fled from East to West Germany before the building of the Wall in 1961. In light of our findings, we propose a more cautious interpretation of the extensive literature on the enduring effects of communist systems on economic outcomes, political preferences, cultural traits, and gender roles.

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly selected treatment and control groups. First, the later border is already visible in many socio-economic characteristics in pre-World War II data. Second, World War II and the subsequent occupying forces affected East and West differently. Third, a selective fifth of the population fled from East to West Germany before the building of the Wall in 1961. In light of our findings, we propose a more cautious interpretation of the extensive literature on the enduring effects of communist systems on economic outcomes, political preferences, cultural traits, and gender roles.

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly selected treatment and control groups. First, the later border is already visible in many socio-economic characteristics in pre-World War II data. Second, World War II and the subsequent occupying forces affected East and West differently. Third, a selective fifth of the population fled from East to West Germany before the building of the Wall in 1961. In light of our findings, we propose a more cautious interpretation of the extensive literature on the enduring effects of communist systems on economic outcomes, political preferences, cultural traits, and gender roles.

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly selected treatment and control groups. First, the later border is already visible in many socio-economic characteristics in pre-World War II data. Second, World War II and the subsequent occupying forces affected East and West differently. Third, a selective fifth of the population fled from East to West Germany before the building of the Wall in 1961. In light of our findings, we propose a more cautious interpretation of the extensive literature on the enduring effects of communist systems on economic outcomes, political preferences, cultural traits, and gender roles.