In this paper, we make multi-step forecasts of the annual growth rates of the real GRP for each of the 31 Chinese provinces simultaneously. Beside the usual panel data models, we use panel models that explicitly account for spatial dependence between the GRP growth rates. In addition, the...

The effects of inter-government fiscal arrangements on variation in regional economic growth are analyzed for Russia, a country with large cross-regional differences and considerable fiscal redistribution. Moreover, fiscal reforms implemented in the first half of 2000s, which followed to some...

Unemployment insurance agencies may combat moral hazard by punishing refusals to apply to assigned vacancies. However, the possibility to report sick creates an additional moral hazard, since during sickness spells, minimum requirements on search behavior do not apply. This reduces the ex-ante...

The self-employment rate includes entrepreneurs out of opportunity and entrepreneurs out of necessity. While the effect of opportunity entrepreneurs on economic development should be positive, there should be no or a negative effect of necessity entrepreneurship. We use a geographically weighted...

In this paper, we evaluate the forecasting ability of 115 indicators to predict the housing prices and rents in 71 German cities. Above all, we are interested in whether the local business confidence indicators can allow substantially improving the forecasts, given the local nature of the...

This paper proposes new metrics for the process of price discovery on the main electronic trading platform for euro-denominated government securities. Analysing price data on daily transactions for 107 bonds over a period of twenty-seven months, we find a greater degree of price leadership of...

We suggest to use Internet car sale price advertisements for measuring economic inequality between and within German regions. Our estimates of regional income levels and Gini indices based on advertisements are highly, positively correlated with the official figures. This implies that the...

The very first minimum wage in Germany was introduced in 1997 for blue-collar workers in sub-sectors of the construction industry. In the setting of a natural experiment blue-collar workers in neighboring 4-digit-industries and white-collar workers are used as control groups for...

We use a neoclassical production function to analyze the effects of knowledge spillovers via entrepreneurship on economic performance of 337 German districts. To take the spatial dependence structure of the data into account, we estimate a spatial Durbin model. We highlight the importance of the...

In this paper, we propose an indicator of the homeownership rate based on Internet ads offering the housing for rent and sale. We constructed the HOR estimate using the number of ads in four different markets (flats for rent, flats for sale, houses for rent, and houses for sale). Our HOR...