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on Microeconomic European Issues |
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Issue of 2020‒04‒20
twenty-one papers chosen by Giuseppe Marotta Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia |
| By: | Klos, Jonas; Krieger, Tim; Stöwhase, Sven |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we propose a novel index for measuring intra-generational redistribution in pay-as-you-go pension schemes. Our index solely requires information on contributions and pension benefits of retirees, enabling us to measure intra-generational redistribution isolated from possible inter-generational redistribution. We use contribution records of approx. 100,000 German individuals, who progressed into retirement in 2007-2015, to measure the level of intra-generational redistribution in the German statutory pension scheme (GRV). A recent reform of childcare benefit provision, which became effective in 2014, confirms the predictions of our index. The reform introduced additional benefits for a subgroup of substantial size of German mothers, due to which the index value for women, but not for men jumps up. Our findings suggests that GRV fulfils the ideal of a Bismarckian pension system without intra-generational redistribution for men, while women benefit from intra-generational redistribution. |
| Keywords: | PAYG pension systems,intra-generational redistribution,Beveridge vs. Bismarck,index,microdata,Germany |
| JEL: | H55 D31 C55 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wgspdp:202001&r=all |
| By: | Jaanika Meriküll; Merike Kukk; Tairi Rõõm |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the gender gap in net wealth. We use administrative data on wealth that are linked to the Estonian Household Finance and Consumption Survey, which provides individual-level wealth data for all household types. We find that the unconditional gender gap in mean wealth is 45% and that it is caused by large wealth disparities in the upper end of the wealth distribution. The structure of assets owned by men is more diversified than that for women. Men own more business assets and vehicles, while women own more deposits. The gender gaps in these asset components cannot be explained by observable characteristics. For partner-headed households the raw gender gaps across deciles are mostly in favour of men, and more strongly so for married couples, indicating that resources are not entirely pooled within households. For single-member households the raw gaps across quantiles are partially in favour of women. Accounting for observable characteristics renders the unexplained parts of the gaps mostly insignificant for all household types. |
| JEL: | D31 J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26920&r=all |
| By: | Guglielmo Briscese; Nicola Lacetera; Mario Macis; Mirco Tonin |
| Abstract: | We study how intentions to comply with the self-isolation restrictions introduced in Italy to mitigate the COVID-19 epidemic respond to the length of their possible extension. Based on a survey of a representative sample of Italian residents (N=894), we find that respondents who are positively surprised by a given hypothetical extension (i.e. the extension is shorter than what they expected) are more willing to increase their self-isolation. In contrast, negative surprises (extensions longer than expected) are associated with a lower willingness to comply. In a context where individual compliance has collective benefits, but full enforcement is costly and controversial, communication and persuasion have a fundamental role. Our findings provide insights to public authorities on how to announce lockdown measures and manage people’s expectations. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, social distancing, expectations |
| JEL: | C42 D91 H12 H41 I12 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8182&r=all |
| By: | Sophie Larribeau (Univ Rennes, CNRS, CREM - UMR 6211, F-35000 Rennes, France); Matthieu Leprince (Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, AMURE); Touria Jaaidane (Universite de Lille, LEM (UMR 9221) and CRED, Universite Paris 2) |
| Abstract: | In many countries, municipalities are central employers in their local labor market. Studies of the determinants of municipal labor demand are however scarce. Exploiting an original panel dataset of municipalities of more than 1,000 inhabitants in France over the 2002- 2008 period, we first show that usual factors such as wages, grants, median income and tax capacity explain the labor demand. Second, we show that inter-municipal cooperation (hereafter IMC) is also a key factor: we find a positive impact of inter-municipal employment level on municipal employment (IMC direct effect). Third we find that IMC leads mayors to increase municipal employment when unemployment is higher (IMC indirect effect). Moreover, Right-wing mayors tend to reduce municipal employment when unemployment is higher (partisan effect). Finally, controlling for the magnitude of the inter-municipal employment, it turns out that the IMC indirect effect holds only for municipalities in large employment cooperation bodies and that the partisan effect dominates the IMC indirect effect for Right-wing municipalities. |
| Keywords: | Municipal labor demand ; Inter-municipal cooperation ; Median voter model ; Instrumental variables ; Panel data |
| JEL: | H70 J45 C23 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cremwp:2020-01&r=all |
| By: | Mondolo, Jasmine |
| Abstract: | In recent years, a number of papers have attempted to shed light on some macroeconomic dynamics in a few countries, especially in the US, which raise some concerns and which may be influenced by variations in corporate market power. This study mainly aims to understand how and to what extent Italy differs from other economies in terms of these trends, and whether there are relevant within-country differences. Specifically, we first look at the trends, based on aggregate data, of domestic investment rate, labor share and capital share, labor force participation, wage dispersion and economic dynamism, observed in Italy since the mid-nighties, and make some comparisons with the US and the EU. Then, since national data may hide relevant within-country heterogeneity, when possible, we split Italy in four macro-areas. Further, we focus on a specific Italian region, namely Trentino, for which we also recover the trends in private investment rate, factor shares and profit share, for the years 2009-2015, using a firm-level dataset compiled by Ispat. The main results of this study are as follows: the macroeconomic trends under scrutiny observed in Italy since the second half of the nineties partly diverge from those emerged in the US. In particular, labor share presents a mixed trend during the selected time period, domestic investment has been recovering after the contraction occurred in the aftermath of the economic recession, and labor force participation exhibits a clear average positive trend. In addition, the overall picture hides considerable within-country heterogeneity (more in terms of levels than in terms of trends). For instance, labor force participation is still sensibly lower in the Mezzogiorno than in the rest of the country. As for Trentino, this region exhibits a relatively high level of investment rate, a relatively small wage dispersion (proxied by the Gini coefficient) in recent years and, in most of the years since 2002, a net turnover rate of firms which is higher than the average national one. |
| Keywords: | market power, markup, labor share, capital share, investment, wage dispersion, economic dynamism |
| JEL: | D2 E2 J3 L1 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:99138&r=all |
| By: | Monika Banaszewska (Poznan University of Economics and Business); Ivo Bischoff (University of Kassel); Aneta Kaczynska (Poznan University of Economics and Business); Eva Wolfschuetz (University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at testing whether inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in policies to promote local business development has a positive impact on local economic performance. We apply two-way fixed effects as well as marginal structural models to a panel data set covering 1,849 Polish municipalities between 2007 and 2014. We use the unemployment rate and the rate of population growth as a proxy for local economic performance. Our results show a systematic effect of IMC on local economic performance. However, the results are contradictory. While IMC causes higher rates of population growth, they also cause higher rates of unemployment. |
| Keywords: | Inter-municipal cooperation, local business development, population decline, marginal structural models, Poland |
| JEL: | D72 H77 H80 O10 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:202006&r=all |
| By: | Alacevich, Caterina; Bonev, Petyo; Söderberg, Magnus |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the spillover effect of a pro-environmental policy that introduced organicwaste sorting bins on a non-targeted behavior: total household waste. Using an administrativedataset on household waste from Sweden, we find large reductions in waste due to (i) information about the benefits of organic waste recycling and (ii) the provision of organicwaste bins. Our empirical strategy utilises spatial random variation in the administrative implementation of the reform. Our findings are compatible with attention spillovers in a framework with limited attention. |
| Keywords: | Behavioral spillovers, environmental policy, limited attention, household waste, staggered difference-in-difference |
| JEL: | D01 D04 D12 D83 D9 H41 O31 Q5 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2020:06&r=all |
| By: | Jonas Dovern; Lena Sophia Müller; Klaus Wohlrabe |
| Abstract: | Expectations are highly relevant for macroeconomic dynamics. Yet, the empirical evidence about properties of corporate macroeconomic expectations is scarce. Using new survey data on quantitative growth expectations of firms in Germany, we show that expectations are highly dispersed. The degree of dispersion depends on firm size and on how important the general economy is for the business of firms, supporting theories of rational inattention. Firms seem to extrapolate from local economic conditions and business experiences to aggregate growth expectations. Differences in growth expectations are associated with differences in firms’ investment and labor demand. |
| Keywords: | GDP expectations, expectation heterogeneity, firm, ifo business tendency survey |
| JEL: | D84 E32 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8179&r=all |
| By: | Piva, Mariacristina (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza); Tani, Massimiliano (UNSW Canberra, and IZA, Bonn); Vivarelli, Marco (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, and IZA, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | This paper builds on and considerably extends Piva, Tani and Vivarelli (2018), confirming the key role of Business Visits as a productivity enhancing channel of technology transfer. Our analysis is based on a unique database on business visits sourced from the U.S. National Business Travel Association, merged with OECD and World Bank data and resulting in an unbalanced panel covering 33 sectors and 14 countries over the period 1998-2013 (3,574 longitudinal observations). We find evidence that BVs contribute to fostering labour productivity in a significant way. While this is consistent with what found by the previous (scant) empirical literature on the subject, we also find that short-term mobility exhibits decreasing returns, being more crucial in those sectors characterized by less mobility and by lower productivity performances. |
| Keywords: | Business visits, Labour mobility, Knowledge diffusion, R&D, Productivity |
| JEL: | J61 O33 |
| Date: | 2020–03–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2020011&r=all |
| By: | Giancarlo Corsetti; Meredith Crowley; Lu Han |
| Abstract: | Using administrative data on export transactions, we show that UK firms invoice in multiple currencies — even when shipping the same product to the same destination — and switch invoicing currencies over time. We then provide microeconometric evidence that the currency in which a cross-border sale is invoiced predicts systematic differences in exchange rate pass-through and destination-specific markup adjustment, at the granular level of firm-productdestination and time. Based on an event study around the 2016 Brexit depreciation and econometric analysis of a longer period (2010-2017), we examine the export price elasticity to the exchange rate measured in sterling to find that this is low for transactions invoiced in producer currency and comparably high for sales invoiced either in a vehicle or in the destination market currency. However, our analysis of markup elasticities reveals that firms price-to-market only when they invoice sales in the destination market currency. Altogether, our findings imply that currency movements may cause significant short-run deviations from the law of one price not only across but also within borders; these are systematically linked to the firm’s choice of invoicing currencies. Dynamically, we find that the stark differences in price changes across invoicing currencies that emerged in the aftermath of the Brexit depreciation atrophied within six quarters, as all prices came to align broadly with the weaker pound. These findings enrich our understanding of the ‘international price system’ underpinning the international transmission of shocks (Gopinath (2015)), with crucial implications for open macro modelling and policy design. |
| Keywords: | exchange rates, pass through, law of one price, markup elasticity, vehicle currency, dominant currency, firm level data |
| JEL: | F31 F41 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:liv:livedp:202007&r=all |
| By: | Harald Fadinger; Jan Schymik |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of confi nement on infection risk and on the German economy. We fi rst document that regions whose industry structure allows for a large fraction of work to be done at home also experienced much fewer Covid-19 cases and fatalities. We estimate the eff ect of working from home using a simple epidemiological model and show that it is very eff ective in reducing infections. Based on this observation, we then use a calibrated structural model of the German economy with input-output linkages to assess the economic cost of imposing social distancing rules in the workplace. We also discuss industry- and region-based policies for reducing con finement. Our model identi fies the industries and regions with the largest value added gains per worker sent back to the workplace. Finally, we discuss alternative policies of sustaining maximum output while exposing as few workers as possible to infection risks. |
| Keywords: | Covid19, Corona, home work, infection, growth, industry, input-output |
| JEL: | E J |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_167&r=all |
| By: | Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada; Voicu, Anca M.; Vidovic, Martina |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the 2004 enlargement of the European Union to the East and treats it as a natural experiment to investigate two issues: first, whether there has been a trade creation effect in final and intermediate goods and second, to what extent this effect has been more pronounced for final or for intermediate goods. Using difference-in-differences analysis, we find that the effect of the 2004 EU enlargement has been positive for both intermediate and final goods trade, and it is in general greater for final goods. Using a generalized gravity model of trade that controls for the multilateral resistance and bilateral time-invariant factors, we estimate an increase in bilateral trade of 28% for final goods and 24% for intermediates. However, the effects are heterogeneous by sub-sector and indicate that the main trade gains were for non-durable consumer goods and food and beverages primary and processed products. |
| Keywords: | difference-in-differences,CEECs,EU accession,production networks |
| JEL: | F14 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:390&r=all |
| By: | Jean Roch Donsimoni; René Glawion; Bodo Plachter; Klaus Wälde |
| Abstract: | We model the evolution of the number of individuals that are reported to be sick with COVID-19 in Germany. Our theoretical framework builds on a continuous time Markov chain with four states: healthy without infection, sick, healthy after recovery or after infection but without symptoms and dead. Our quantitative solution matches the number of sick individuals up to the most recent observation and ends with a share of sick individuals following from infection rates and sickness probabilities. We employ this framework to study inter alia the expected peak of the number of sick individuals in a scenario without public regulation of social contacts. We also study the effects of public regulations. For all scenarios we report the expected end of the CoV-2 epidemic. |
| Keywords: | Corona, COVID19, SARS-CoV-2, spread of infection, Markov model, Germany, projection. |
| JEL: | I18 E17 C63 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8183&r=all |
| By: | Balbo, Nicoletta; Carapella, Piergiorgio; Toffolutti, Veronica |
| Abstract: | Despite the growing evidence of health-responses to macroeconomic fluctuations, little research has been carried out on the economic reflexes of licit and illicit drug-consumption, especially among teenagers. This paper uses data on adolescents between 15 and 17 years old from 25 European countries to test, if and how the substance-use pattern has changed during the Great Recession. The data come from two cross-sectional waves (2007 and 2011) of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) (n= 137,989 individuals). One percentage point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with an increase [decrease] in the probability of having tried inhalants and cocaine [ecstasy] at least once, by about 0.005 (95% CI: 0.004, 0.006) and 0.001 (95% CI: 0.0001, 0.001) [-0.001 (95% CI: -0.001, -0.001)] respectively. Social protection expenditure reduces the use of inhalants, whereas ecstasy consumption rises. The pattern for cocaine is unclear. |
| Date: | 2020–03–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:tk2dv&r=all |
| By: | Davide Castellani (Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK); Giovanni Marin (Department of Economics, Society, Politics, University of Urbino, Italy; SEEDS); Sandro Montresor (Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy); Antonello Zanfei (Department of Economics, Society, Politics, University of Urbino, Italy) |
| Abstract: | The paper builds on (eco-)innovation geography and international business studies to investigate the effects of MNEs on regional specialisation in green technologies. Combining the OECD-REGPAT and the fDi Markets datasets with respect to 1,050 European NUTS3 regions over the period 2003-2014, we find that MNEs can positively impact on regions’ specialisation in environmental technologies, when their Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) occur in industries with a green technological footprint. The effect of green FDIs is further reinforced if they involve R&D activities. We also find that the relatedness of environmental technologies to pre-existing regional specialisations exerts a negative moderating effect on the role of green R&D FDIs in shaping patterns of specialisation. In particular, green R&D FDIs have a larger effect in regions whose prior knowledge base is highly unrelated to environmental technologies. This result is consistent with the idea that MNEs inject the host region with external knowledge, which makes the development of green-technologies less place-dependent. |
| Keywords: | green regional specialisation; MNEs; FDIs; environmental innovation |
| JEL: | O31 O33 R11 R58 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:srt:wpaper:0620&r=all |
| By: | Pierre-André Chiappori; Monica Costa Dias; Sam Crossman; Costas Meghir |
| Abstract: | The extent to which like-with like marry is important for inequality as well as for the outcomes of children that result from the union. In this paper we present evidence on changes in assortative mating and its implications for household inequality in the UK. Our approach contrasts with others in the literature in that it is consistent with an underlying model of the marriage market. We argue that a key advantage of this approach is that it creates a direct connection between changes in assortativeness in marriage and changes in the value of marriage for the various possible matches by education group. Our empirical results do not show a clear direction in the change in assortativeness in the UK, between the birth cohorts of 1945-54 and 1965-74. We find that changes in assortativeness pushed income inequality up slightly, but that the strong changes in education attainment across the two cohorts contributed to scale down inequality. |
| JEL: | H31 I24 I3 J1 J11 J12 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26933&r=all |
| By: | Müngersdorff, Maximilian; Stoffel, Tim |
| Abstract: | Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP) is a tool to use the market power of the public sector to trigger private companies to provide socially responsible products and services. In this sense, SRPP contributes to achieving SDG 12 of the Agenda 2030 ("Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns"). However, while regulations at EU level and within the member states encourage SRPP, German municipalities lack effective implementation of social criteria in their tenders. This gap seriously decreases the triggering effect of the country's procurement expenditures of which municipalities account for more than 50 per cent. By triangulating interview data with secondary literature, this paper identifies success factors and triggers for the introduction and consolidation of SRPP practices in German municipalities. Our research shows that there is not one gold standard of implementing SRPP in a municipality (as suggested by most existing toolboxes and handbooks on the topic). Rather, our paper presents a compilation of various different entry points from which practitioners may embark on fitting pathways. Beyond this, we have translated the most crucial success factors and triggers into nine recommendations for political action, for example, with regard to clear and ambitious regulations; measures to ensure broad support for SRPP within the municipal administration; and approaches for a more strategic procurement management. Our research also highlights the role played by individuals, that is, the importance of personal commitment for successful implementation of SRPP. This finding, however, is problematic when it comes to transferring and upscaling good practices. To reach a high level of broad and ambitious SRPP action, the balance between individual, regulatory and institutional measures has to change for the benefit of the latter two. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:diedps:82020&r=all |
| By: | Michele Loberto; Andrea Luciani; Marco Pangallo |
| Abstract: | Traditional data sources for the analysis of housing markets show several limitations, that recently started to be overcome using data coming from housing sales advertisements (ads) websites. In this paper, using a large dataset of ads in Italy, we provide the first comprehensive analysis of the problems and potential of these data. The main problem is that multiple ads ("duplicates") can correspond to the same housing unit. We show that this issue is mainly caused by sellers' attempt to increase visibility of their listings. Duplicates lead to misrepresentation of the volume and composition of housing supply, but this bias can be corrected by identifying duplicates with machine learning tools. We then focus on the potential of these data. We show that the timeliness, granularity, and online nature of these data allow monitoring of housing demand, supply and liquidity, and that the (asking) prices posted on the website can be more informative than transaction prices. |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2004.02706&r=all |
| By: | Paolo Brunori (Università degli Studi di Firenze); Giuliano Resce (Sose (Rome)) |
| Abstract: | One of the difficulties faced by policy makers during the Covid-19 outbreak in Italy was the monitoring of the virus diffusion. Due to changing criteria and insufficient resources to test all suspected cases, the number of "confirmed infected" cases rapidly proved to be unreliably reported by official statistics. This limited the ability of epidemiologic models to predict the evolution of the infectious disease. This paper explores the possibility of using information obtained from Google Trends to supplement official statistics in order to predict when the number of deaths due to Covid-19 will peak in Italy. We estimate and regularize a panel model with regional and time fixed effects. Our preferred specification shows a positive and significant correlation between Google searches for commonly reported Covid-19 symptoms and deaths recorded. The analysis suggests that the social distancing measures implemented in early March in Italy were effective in slowing down the spread of the virus. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, Google Trends, Lasso |
| JEL: | I18 D83 C10 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bai:series:series_wp_04-2020&r=all |
| By: | Tran Phan Huy Hieu (LAPE - Laboratoire d'Analyse et de Prospective Economique - GIO - Gouvernance des Institutions et des Organisations - UNILIM - Université de Limoges) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effectiveness of the national supportive policy suggested by the European Commission to promote employee share ownership programs (ESOP) in European banks. We find that supportive measures are effective to promote ESOP in widely-held banks, independently of their degree of opacity and the level of shareholder protection. However, supportive measures are only effective to promote ESOP in closely-held banks if they are more transparent or located in countries with higher levels of shareholder protection. Our findings indicate that European countries not only need to implement supportive measures but also to enhance transparency and shareholder protection to promote ESOP. To identify the causal effect between the national supportive policy and ESOP adoption, we use the number of labor-support-parties in parliament as the instrumental variable for the supportive measures. |
| Keywords: | Employee share ownership programs,Banks,Governance,Policy Evaluation |
| Date: | 2020–04–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02534814&r=all |
| By: | Paolo Giovanni Piacquadio |
| Abstract: | Poverty-reducing policies ought to prioritize the “deserving” poor, that is, those who do all that can be reasonably expected from them in their circumstances, but fail to achieve a minimum standard of living. To inform such policies, one needs a theory of justice accommodating norms of individual responsibility. I propose and axiomatically characterize a family of poverty indices that address these issues. Formally, poverty is measured by the sum of specific indices of individual deprivation which (i) keep individuals accountable for their choices, (ii) compare individuals based on the set of attainments they are deprived of, and (iii) prioritize the most deprived individuals. I illustrate the results with Norwegian register data. Among single males, about a third of the income-poor ones are “undeserving,” because (based on the estimates) they are unwilling to accept a job that brings them out of poverty. |
| Keywords: | multidimensional poverty, responsibility, fairness |
| JEL: | D63 I30 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8169&r=all |