Die nächsten Veranstaltungen

Marriage is one of the most important determinants of economic prosperity, yet most existing theories of inequality ignore the role of the family. This paper documents that the distributions of earnings and wealth are highly concentrated, even when disaggregated into single and married households. At the same time, there is a large marriage gap: married people earn on average 26 percent more income, and they hold 35 percent more net worth. To account for these facts, I develop a general equilibrium model where females and males face uninsurable income risk and make decisions on consumption-savings, labour supply and marriage formation. In a calibrated version of the model, I show that selection into marriage based on productive characteristics, an effective tax bonus for married couples, and stronger bequest motives for households with descendants are key to accounting for the marriage gap in earnings and wealth. A policy experiment of moving from joint tax filing for married couples to separate filing yields output gains and more marital sorting.

Der Klub der Wirtschaftspublizisten (Bauernmarkt 6, 1010 Wien) lädt am 30. Jänner 2020 um 10:00 Uhr zum Pressegespräch mit WIFO-Leiter em.o.Univ.Prof. Dr. Christoph Badelt und IHS-Direktor Prof. Dr. Martin Kocher ein. Um Anmeldungen unter klub@wirtschaftspublizisten.at wird gebeten.

Cross-country comparison is critical to understand the success of some regions and the stagnation of others. There are regions in Latin America that consistently show high levels of economic, social and environmental indicators. These regions have a high endowment of factors associated with regional competitiveness. Research establishes that regions such as the Metropolitan region in Chile compete for foreign investment while companies within regions like O'Higgins and Antofagasta regions in Chile compete for product placement in international markets. These types of competition take place mainly between countries, but there are no comparative studies of regional competitiveness between countries for Latin America that allow to assess this type of competition. Using an input-output competitiveness model regional competitiveness is measured for Chile, Colombia and Mexico for the 2008-2017 period. The measurement allows for a comparison of regional competitiveness and performance across countries. The research results show that most of the differences in performance are mainly explained by factors such as education, technological skills, and training.

How do welfare levels influence migrants' location choice? The welfare magnet hypothesis claims that migrants will be disproportionately drawn to high-welfare locations. However, the hypothesis has proven difficult to verify empirically because of the multiplicity of factors influencing mobility choices. Due to a policy of initial random dispersion of refugees and stark regional differences in welfare levels in Austria, it is possible to causally identify the effect of welfare on location choice. In some federal states welfare levels for refugees differ depending on a person's protection status, while in others, they do not. On top, there have been three reforms of the welfare system in specific states, which led to reductions in welfare levels of 30 to 60 percent, generating variation over time. The results show strong evidence for welfare levels having an effect on location choice. However, for understanding overall mobility patterns of refugees the importance of state specific support structures cannot be overstated.

Using data for the period June 2010 to February 2017, this study investigates the possibility of predicting total tourist arrivals to four Austrian cities (Graz, Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Vienna) from Likes of posts on the Facebook pages of the destination management organisations of these cities. Google Trends data are also incorporated in investigating whether forecast models with Likes and/or with Google Trends deliver more accurate forecasts. To capture the dynamics in the data, the autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) model class is employed. Taking into account the daily frequency of the original Likes data, the mixed data sampling (MIDAS) model class is employed as well. While time-series benchmarks from the naive, error-trend-seasonal, and autoregressive moving average model classes perform best for Graz and Innsbruck across forecast horizons and forecast accuracy measures, ADL models incorporating only Likes or both Likes and Google Trends generally outperform their competitors for Salzburg. For Vienna, the MIDAS model including both Likes and Google Trends produces the smallest forecast accuracy measure values for most forecast horizons.

The Euroframe group of research institutes (CASE, CPB, DIW, ESRI, ETLA, IfW, NIESR, OFCE, PROMETEIA, WIFO) will hold its 17th annual Conference on Economic Policy Issues in the European Union in London on 5 June 2020. The aim of this conference is to bring together academics and policy-oriented economists by providing a forum for debate on economic policy issues relevant in the European context. The 17th Conference will focus on the challenges posed by climate change. Public opinion has changed and European policy-makers, businesses and the financial sector have started to recognise the importance of climate change and biodiversity on the lives of people and the economy. Climate action must stand at the core of long-term growth and infrastructure planning. How do policy-makers ensure that the costs and benefits of climate action are shared equitably at a time when multilateral frameworks have come under threat?