Search for publicationsAdvanced search

Der Beitrag skizziert einen Mechanismus "gewinnabhängig rückzahlbarer Zuschuss" zur Unterstützung von kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen in der COVID-19-Krise, der schnell, zielgerichtet und mit geringen administrativen Kosten implementiert werden kann. Dieser Mechanismus ist charakterisiert durch die gewinnabhängige Rückzahlung, eine begrenzte Rückzahlungsfrist, marktübliche Verzinsung und eine Abwicklung über das Steuerkonto. Ein solcher Mechanismus kann effizient und fiskalisch verantwortungsvoll staatliches "Unterstützungskapital" für viele kleine und mittlere Unternehmen zur Verfügung stellen. Abschließend werden mögliche Probleme des Mechanismus diskutiert.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union a new class of entrepreneurs, the so called "oligarchs", have emerged in Russia. Using individual survey data for Russia in combination with unique regional data on oligarchic dominance, we try to illuminate the relationship of oligarchs and levels of social capital in Russian regions. We further examine the interplay of oligarchs and public governance. The analysis reveals that social capital in terms of informal network strength and trust is significantly higher in regions with stronger oligarchic dominance. While the quality of all levels of public governance is perceived to be worse in oligarchic regions, this effect is especially pronounced for the local government.

This paper investigates the role of foreign language skills in the Visegrad Four countries' labour markets using data obtained from key online vacancy boards in these countries and from an online wage survey. Firstly, it considers the demand for language skills based on vacancies and then builds on this information by analysing the wage premium associated with foreign language skills on the occupation and individual level. The results indicate that English language knowledge is highly in demand in the Visegrad region, followed by the command of German language. Particularly, English proficiency appears to be correlated with higher wages, when controlled for common wage determinants in a regression.

The objective of this study is twofold. First, it investigates the association between technological change and over-education by analysing incidence of over-education and its change across skill-based and task-based job categories. Second, it compares countries with different employment change pattern – mainly upgrading and polarising – to establish a link between employment polarisation and over-education. Using data from European Labour Force Survey covering the period from 1999 to 2007, the paper analyses four countries of Europe – Germany, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The results suggest higher incidence of over-education in polarised countries – Spain and UK – as compared to countries with a somewhat upgrading pattern of employment change – Germany and Sweden. It also reveals that in Spain and UK, over-education is prominent and increasing over time in the low-skill jobs which are mostly non-routine manual in nature, while Germany and Sweden have more over-educated workers in middle skilled routine and high skilled analytical jobs. I find similar results in both descriptive and job fixed effects regressions.

This study contributes to the literature on destination-country consequences of international migration, with investigations on the effects of immigration from new EU member countries and Eastern Partnership countries on the economies of old EU member countries during the years 1995-2010. Using a rich international migration dataset and an empirical model accounting for the endogeneity of migration flows, we find positive and significant effects of post-enlargement migration flows from new EU member countries on old member countries' GDP, GDP per capita, and employment rate, and a negative effect on output per worker. We also find small, but statistically significant negative effects of migration from Eastern Partnership countries on receiving countries' GDP, GDP per capita, employment rate, and capital stock, but a positive significant effect on capital-to-labour ratio. These results mark an economic success of the EU's eastern enlargements and free movement of workers in an enlarged EU.

Austria's EU accession led to an increase in the number of banks participating in treasury auctions. We use structural estimates of bidders' private values to examine the effect of increased competition on auction performance. As the results show, increased competition reduces bidder surplus substantially, but less than reduced form estimates would suggest. A significant component of the surplus reduction is due to more aggressive bidding. Counterfactuals establish that as competition increases, concerns regarding auction format play a smaller role.

We examine the relationship between information and price dispersion in the retail gasoline market. We first show that the clearinghouse models in the spirit of Stahl (1989) generate an inverted-U relationship between information and price dispersion. We construct a new measure of information based on precise commuter data from Austria. Regular commuters can freely sample gasoline prices on their commuting route, providing us with spatial variation in the share of informed consumers. We use detailed information on gas station level price to construct various measures of price dispersion. Our empirical estimates of the relationship are in line with the theoretical predictions.

Cartels were legal to a large extent in Austria until the country's EU accession in 1995. We examine archival material on registered horizontal cartels to learn about their inner working. Applying content analysis to legally binding cartel contracts, we comprehensively document different collusion methods along the lines described by Stigler (1964). Quota cartels employ regular reporting schemes and use compensation mechanisms for departures from set quotas. Specialisation cartels divide markets and rely the least on information exchange and punishment. Price and payment condition cartels primarily aim to prevent secret price cuts, requiring information provision upon request, allow for discretionary decision-taking and (sometimes immediate) punishment. These stylised facts on the contractual arrangements suggest that the possibility to write legally binding agreements was employed to address the usual obstacles to sustaining collusion.