Aufsätze zu empirischer Makroökonomie

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first two chapters investigate the real effects of inflation and the third chapter the role of child care for fertility and female female labor supply. Chapter 1 introduces a generalized panel threshold model to analyze the relation between inflation and economic growth for a sample of developing countries. It is demonstrated that allowing for regime intercepts can be crucial for obtaining unbiased estimates of both, inflation thresholds and its marginal effects on growth in the various regimes. The empirical results confirm that the omitted variable bias of standard panel threshold models can be statistically and economically significant. Chapter 2, which is joined work with Dieter Nautz, investigates the impact of inflation on relative price variability (RPV) as a further important channel of the real effects of inflation. With a view to the recent debate on the Fed's implicit lower and upper bounds of its inflation objective, the econometric model introduced in Chapter 1 is used to explore the inflation-RPV linkage in U.S. cities. Chapter 3 investigates the relationship between fertility, female labor supply and child care in the context of a life cycle model for Germany. A particular emphasis is placed on the differences between West and East Germany. Counterfactual policy experiments mimicking recent policy reforms on maternal leave and the provision of subsidized child care are conducted with a structurally estimated version of the model.Die Dissertation besteht aus drei Kapiteln, die sich in zwei Themengebiete einteilen lassen. Im ersten Themengebiet werden die realen Effekte von Inflation mittels eines Schwellenwert-Modells untersucht. In Kapitel 1 wird eine Verallgemeinerung des Schwellenwert-Modells von Hansen (1999) eingeführt, womit anschliessend der nicht-lineare Einfluss von Inflation auf das Wirtschaftswachstum geschätzt wird. Im zweiten Kapitel, das in Ko-Autorenschaft mit Dieter Nautz entstand, wird diese Methodik auf den Zusammenhang von Inflation und der Variabilität relativer Preise angewandt. Das zweite Themengebiet der Dissertation und gleichzeitig dritte Kapitel untersucht den Zusammenhang von Fertilität, Frauenerwerbstätigkeit und Kinderbetreuung im Rahmen eines Lebenszyklus-Modells für Deutschland, mit besonderem Augenmerk auf die Unterschiede zwischen West- und Ostdeutschland

Inflation and Growth: New Evidence From a Dynamic Panel Threshold Analysis

We introduce a dynamic panel threshold model to shed new light on the impact of inflation on long-term economic growth. The empirical analysis is based on a large panel-data set including 124 countries during the period from 1950 to 2004. For industrialized countries, our results confirm the inflation targets of about 2% set by many central banks. For non-industrialized countries, we estimate that inflation hampers growth if it exceeds 17%. Below this threshold, however, the impact of inflation on growth remains insignificant. Therefore, our results do not support growth-enhancing effects of inflation in developing countries.Inflation Thresholds, Inflation and Growth, Dynamic Panel Threshold Model

The quantitative role of child care for female labor force participation and fertility

Consistent with facts for a cross-section of OECD countries, I document that the labor force participation rate of West German mothers with children aged zero to two exceeds the corresponding child care enrollment rate whereas the opposite is true for mothers with children aged three to mandatory school age. I develop a life-cycle model that explicitly accounts for this age-dependent relationship through various types of non-paid and paid child care. The calibrated version of the model is used to evaluate two recently passed policy reforms concerning the supply of subsidized child care for children aged zero to two in Germany. These counterfactual policy experiments suggest that the lack of subsidized child care constitutes indeed for some females a barrier to participate in the labor market and depresses fertility.Child Care, Fertility, Life-cycle Female Labor Supply

Heteroclinic Dynamics of Localized Frequency Synchrony: Stability of Heteroclinic Cycles and Networks

In the first part of this paper, we showed that three coupled populations of identical phase oscillators give rise to heteroclinic cycles between invariant sets where populations show distinct frequencies. Here, we now give explicit stability results for these heteroclinic cycles for populations consisting of two oscillators each. In systems with four coupled phase oscillator populations, different heteroclinic cycles can form a heteroclinic network. While such networks cannot be asymptotically stable, the local attraction properties of each cycle in the network can be quantified by stability indices. We calculate these stability indices in terms of the coupling parameters between oscillator populations. Hence, our results elucidate how oscillator coupling influences sequential transitions along a heteroclinic network where individual oscillator populations switch sequentially between a high and a low frequency regime; such dynamics appear relevant for the functionality of neural oscillators

new evidence from a dynamic panel threshold analysis

We introduce a dynamic panel threshold model to shed new light on the impact of inflation on long-term economic growth. The empirical analysis is based on a large panel-data set including 124 countries during the period from 1950 to 2004. For industrialized countries, our results confirm the inflation targets of about 2% set by many central banks. For non-industrialized countries, we estimate that inflation hampers growth if it exceeds 17%. Below this threshold, however, the impact of inflation on growth remains insignificant. Therefore, our results do not support growth-enhancing effects of inflation in developing countries

Inflation and Growth

We introduce a dynamic panel threshold model to shed new light on the impact of inflation on long-term economic growth. The empirical analysis is based on a large panel-data set including 124 countries during the period from 1950 to 2004. For industrialized countries, our results confirm the inflation targets of about 2% set by many central banks. For non-industrialized countries, we estimate that inflation hampers growth if it exceeds 17%. Below this threshold, however, the impact of inflation on growth remains insignificant. Therefore, our results do not support growth-enhancing effects of inflation in developing countries

The quantitative role of child care for female labor force participation and fertility

Consistent with facts for a cross-section of OECD countries, I document that the labor force participation rate of West German mothers with children aged zero to two exceeds the corresponding child care enrollment rate whereas the opposite is true for mothers with children aged three to mandatory school age. I develop a life-cycle model that explicitly accounts for this age-dependent relationship through various types of non-paid and paid child care. The calibrated version of the model is used to evaluate two recently passed policy reforms concerning the supply of subsidized child care for children aged zero to two in Germany. These counterfactual policy experiments suggest that the lack of subsidized child care constitutes indeed for some females a barrier to participate in the labor market and depresses fertility

The quantitative role of child care for female labor force participation and fertility

Consistent with facts for a cross-section of OECD countries, I document that the labor force participation rate of West German mothers with children aged zero to two exceeds the corresponding child care enrollment rate whereas the opposite is true for mothers with children aged three to mandatory school age. I develop a life-cycle model that explicitly accounts for this age-dependent relationship through various types of non-paid and paid child care. The calibrated version of the model is used to evaluate two recently passed policy reforms concerning the supply of subsidized child care for children aged zero to two in Germany. These counterfactual policy experiments suggest that the lack of subsidized child care constitutes indeed for some females a barrier to participate in the labor market and depresses fertility

The quantitative role of child care for female labor force participation and fertility

Consistent with facts for a cross-section of OECD countries, I document that the labor force participation rate of West German mothers with children aged zero to two exceeds the corresponding child care enrollment rate whereas the opposite is true for mothers with children aged three to mandatory school age. I develop a life-cycle model that explicitly accounts for this age-dependent relationship through various types of non-paid and paid child care. The calibrated version of the model is used to evaluate two policy reforms concerning the supply of subsidized child care for children aged zero to two. These counterfactual policy experiments suggest that the lack of subsidized child care constitutes indeed for some females a barrier to participate in the labor market and depresses fertility