East German wages have been below the West German wage level since unification. Moreover, the East-West wage gap implied by the contractual wagesspecified in collective wage agreements is drifting ever further apart from the wagegap in terms of effective wages. This paper looks at the role of...

One of the major cost factors in car manufacturing is the painting of bodyand other parts such as wing or bonnet. Surprisingly, the painting may beeven more expensive than the body itself. From this point of view it is clearthat car manufacturers need to observe the painting process carefully to...

Students of introductory courses consider statistics as particularly difficult,as the understanding of the underlying concepts may require more time andenergy than for other disciplines. For decades statisticians have tried to enhanceunderstanding with the help of technical solutions such as...

Along with many others, we agree that a modern education in statistics needs toincorporate the practical analysis of real datasets, which are usually more complex than the common examples found in standard textbooks. The software used in the teaching of statistics includes standard spreadsheet...

Die Gestaltung der Produktpalette war ein zentrale Herausforderung für ostdeutsche Unternehmen nach der Wende. Spezialisierung oder eine diffuse Generalistenstrategie war die Frage. Welche Strategie sich durchgesetzt hat und ob der Anschluss an den Westen gelang, wird in dieser Arbeit erstmals...

The purpose of this paper is to sort out firm-related differences from effects that result from different economic structures. A non-parametric decomposition is used to analyse firm level difference between the wage spread in the two major regions of unified Germany. If firm-specific effects...

Modern computing equipment is present at schools and universities at all levelsof education. 4 In the statistical sciences computers offer great opportunities toenrich the learning process by the means of e.g. animations, software integrationor on-the-fly computations. A personal review of...

The vast majority of regions in West Germany, and the EU, have become more similar in terms of per-capita income and productivity between 1980 and 2000. But a number of rich areas - generally large agglomerations - have succeeded in departing from this trend ofconvergence. They are continuing to...

Without doubt modern education in statistics must involve practical, computer-based data analysis but the question arises whether and how computational elements should be integrated into the canon of methodological education. Should the student see and study high-level programming code right at...

Statistical research has always been at the edge of available computing power. Huge datasets, e.g in DataMining or Quantitative Finance, and computationally intensive techniques, e.g. bootstrap methods, always require a little bit more computing power than is currently available. But the most...