ISSN 1433-0210Decomposing permanent and transitory poverty

The determinants of church attendance and religious human capital in Germany: Evidence from panel data by

führen können. Der Beitrag zeigt auf, worin die Probleme von freiwilligen Kennzeichnungsprogrammen

This paper investigates the differences between directly and indirectly seasonally adjusted aggregates. This difference is derived analytically for linear seasonal adjustment methods. GDP data for five European countries and three classes of seasonal adjustment methods are used to show empirically the differences between both approaches. For this purpose cointegration methods and cross-spectral analysis are applied. The analysis shows that there are no differences in the long-run components of directly and indirectly adjusted aggregates, whereas differences in the short-run components depend strongly on the seasonal adjustment methods applied in the indirect and direct approaches. JEL classification: C49 1.

1 What we want to know Our basic question is whether elderly people (pensioners) are among the losers or the winners of the economic transition, in particular in the reforms of the pension systems in Central-Eastern Europe (CEE). The aim of this paper is descriptive. However the descriptive task is not an easy one because we must bring together in one picture two different sources of empirical evidence: On the one hand the national accounts (and official statistics which are underlying the national accounts) and on the other hand evidence by surveys (which are conducted not only by national statistical agencies but by scientific institutes as well) which do not necessarily tell the same story in a straightforward manner. This paper is organized as follows. In section 2 we give a brief overview over the statistical sources. In section 3 we present facts and figures, and section 4 summarizes the results. 2 Data and Methods 2.1 National Accounts

This paper explores the implications of possible bias cancellation using Rubin-style matching methods with complete and incomplete data. After reviewing the naïve causal estimator and the approaches of Heckman and Rubin to the causal estimation problem, we show how missing data can complicate the estimation of average causal effects in different ways, depending upon the nature of the missing mechanism. While – contrary to published assertions in the literature – bias cancellation does not generally occur when the multivariate distribution of the errors is symmetric, bias cancellation has been observed to occur for the case where selection into training is the treatment variable, and earnings is the outcome variable. A substantive rationale for bias cancellation is offered, which conceptualizes bias cancellation as the result of a mixture process based on two distinct individual-level decision-making models. While the general properties are unknown, the existence of bias cancellation appears to reduce the average bias in both OLS and matching methods relative to the symmetric distribution case. Analysis of simulated data under a set of difference scenarios suggests that matching methods do

Power Sector Reform 5. Conclusions This paper analyzes the process of power utility re-regulation in Eastern Europe and the CIS during the decade of systemic transformation (1990-1999); in particular, it explores reasons why

According to a widespread view, Germany’s unemployment crisis is caused by rigid labour markets, low profitability and increasing international competition. We argue that this view does not provide a convincing explanation for the dramatic rise in Germany’s unemployment rate since 1989, first because no distinction is drawn between the situation in the Eastern part of Germany and that in the Western part of Germany, and second because supply-side conditions in the Western part of Germany have not generally deteriorated. We argue that Germany’s slump is the result of a series of adverse supply and demand shocks since unification. Supply shocks dominated in the East, demand shocks in the West. These shocks were mainly policy-induced. The adoption of an extremely overvalued exchange rate and rapid wage increases in East Germany magnified the general problems of transition, resulting in a loss of employment of more than a third and a sustained structural weakness of its economy. The wage explosion was made possible by the government’s failure to create a proper institutional framework for wage negotiations. The unification shock to the East added at least 2.5 percentage

In Germany the foreign born population is made up of foreigners and so called ”ethnic Germans ” who migrated from eastern European countries to Germany. While the first group is confronted with problems arising from the typical German concept of ethnicity and citizenship, the latter are entitled to a German passport immediately after crossing the border. About one half of the immigrants who entered Germany since 1984 are ethnic Germans. Thus, any analysis of the living conditions of immigrant children in comparison to native born German children must take into account the heterogeneity of immigrants in Germany as well as the respective institutional settings. Throughout the last decade the financial situation of children in Germany has been marked by increasing problems: in 1997 the population share of children living in households receiving welfare payments was about twice as high as the respective share for the entire population. Poverty head count rates (based on a poverty threshold of 50 percent of median equivalent income) clearly increased over this period from about 10 percent to more than 15 percent in 1996. The central aim of this paper is to analyze differences between native and foreign

In this paper a new method to estimate the equivalence scale elasticity using individual panel data on income satisfaction will be developed. In contrast to other subjective approaches, the present one benefits from the fact that no direct cardinal individual welfare function has to be specified. In addition, panel data enables different scale use by the respondents to be controlled. The approach gives straightforward evidence: Obviously there is an optimal elasticity at which people feel satisfied with their income. JEL Classification: C23, D31, I31