Asset Accumulation: An Alternative Approach to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unlikely to be achieved by 2015, owing to conceptual flaws in their design as well as the structural and political constraints faced during implementation at the country level. While criticism of the MDGs is widespread, innovative ideas on addressing these operational challenges are still scanty. By reviewing a number of experiences, including those of the Foundation for the Promotion of Local Development (PRODEL) in Nicaragua and the Ministry of Cities in Brazil, this article highlights the importance of incorporating an asset‐accumulation perspective into MDG‐related policies and programmes as a way of generating an enabling environment that opens up new opportunities for poverty reduction in the cities of low‐ and middle‐low‐income countries.     

The impact of US tariffs against China on US imports: Evidence for trade diversion?

We provide evidence on the existence of short-run trade diversion effects towards third countries as a consequence of tariff shocks. We exploit sudden policy changes in the context of the trade dispute between the United States and China in 2018. Based on a data set covering monthly product-level information on US imports from 30 countries for the period 2016 until May 2019, we employ a difference-in-differences estimation framework. Doing so, we can show a strong negative direct effect of US tariffs on US imports from China, but do not find evidence for significant short-run trade diversion effects towards third countries.     

Sequential Estimation of Dynamic Discrete Games: A Comment

Recursive procedures which are based on iterating on the best response mapping have difficulties converging to all equilibria in multi‐player games. We illustrate these difficulties by revisiting the asymptotic properties of the iterative nested pseudo maximum likelihood method for estimating dynamic games introduced by Aguirregabiria and Mira (2007). An example shows that the iterative method may not be consistent.     

Marriage Migration Versus Family Reunification: How Does the Marriage and Migration History Affect the Timing of First and Second Childbirth Among Turkish Immigrants in Germany?

Our study focuses on the fertility of first-generation female and male Turkish migrants in Germany. To evaluate whether timing effects such as fertility disruption or an interrelation of marriage, migration and childbirth occur, we examine first and second births in the years before and after immigration to Germany. The Turkish sample of the Generations and Gender Survey which was conducted in 2006 offers the unique opportunity to examine Turkish immigrants as a single immigrant category. We question the common understanding that Turkish immigrants who arrived to Germany after 1973 mainly arrived for family reunification resulting in high birth intensities immediately after immigration. To distinguish different circumstances under which male and female immigrants have arrived to Germany, we include the combined marriage and migration history of the couple. We find that first birth probabilities are elevated during the years immediately following migration. But this effect is not universal among migrants with different marriage and migration histories. It appears that the arrival effect of high birth intensities is particularly high among female immigrants and is evident only among marriage migrants, that is Turks who married a partner who already lived in Germany at the time of the wedding. By contrast, among those who immigrated for family reunification, we do not find such an arrival effect.     

Insurance demand and social comparison: An experimental analysis

This paper analyzes whether social comparison can explain the low take-up of disaster insurance usually reported in field studies. We argue that risks in the case of disasters are highly correlated between subjects whereas risks for which high insurance take-up can be observed (e.g. extended warranties or cell phone insurance) are typically idiosyncratic. We set up a simple model with social reference points and show that in the presence of inequality aversion social comparison makes insurance indeed less attractive if risks are correlated. In addition we conducted a simple experiment which confirms these theoretical results. The average willingness to pay for insurance is significantly higher for idiosyncratic than for correlated risks.     

The demographics of expropriation risk

It is often argued that capital should flow from aging industrialized economies to countries with fast-growing populations. However, institutional failures and the risk of expropriation substantially reduce developing economies’ attractiveness for foreign investors. We analyze the influence of a country’s demographic structure on international investment inflows, using a political economy model in which population growth potentially affects the risk of expropriation. We first explore how redistributive expropriation affects the welfare of different age groups and derive the government’s incentive to expropriate. We then analyze how the relative size of different generations influences the feasible volume of foreign investment.     

The Swiss social insurance system: Social security and grass‐roots democracy

The foundations of Switzerland's social insurance system can be traced to 1890 when a public referendum voted the inclusion of an article into the Federal Constitution that gave the executive the task of creating a sickness and accident insurance scheme. Currently, as in other European countries, the Swiss social insurance system is facing challenges as a result of rising health costs and demographic shifts, which are placing a growing burden on both public finances and private households. To reach policy decisions to address these challenges, the Swiss system is distinguishable from those of its European neighbours because of a continuing tradition of political decision‐making based on grass‐roots democracy: through referenda, the Swiss people remain directly responsible for the development of the national social insurance system. Importantly, not only might this unique feature of Swiss democracy lead the Swiss people more readily to accept and identify with their social insurance system but it may offer a sound democratic base upon which to build a consensual approach to address the policy challenges that lie ahead.     

Freiwillige in Organisationen — störend oder bereichernd? Merkmale einer gelingenden Integration

Volunteers in organizations — problem or asset? Characteristics of successful integrationVolunteering in Germany is on the rise. The expectations of the volunteers regarding their work are shifting from altruistic to self centered motives. Organizations have to respond to these changes and implement a specific management of volunteers. Also in counseling of organizations and their members, specific measures have to be developed to sharpen their view on potential conflict.     

F?rdern aktienkursbasierte Vergütungsinstrumente langfristig orientierte Unternehmensentscheidungen? Lehren aus der Kreditkrise

The question whether stock-based management incentives encourage long-term oriented management decisions is the topic of a controversial public debate. Also, the existing academic literature provides no clear picture, mainly due to endogeneity problems. In this paper, we reexamine the issue in the context of the recent credit crises, which allows us to solve the endogeneity problem. In the empirical analysis we find that firms, which have awarded stock-based incentives to their executives prior or during the financial crises, face substantially lower cuts in investment spending. These firms also show higher levels of R&D investments during the financial crises. Overall, our results suggest that stock based long-term incentives promote long-term oriented management decisions.