Labor market pooling and human capital investment decisions

"Of the typically cited agglomeration advantages labor market pooling receives strong empirical support - yet remains under-explored theoretically. This paper presents a model of human capital formation in an imperfectly competitive, pooled local labor market with heterogeneous workers and firms. Firms produce for a competitive output market with differing technologies, thus requiring diverse skills. In anticipation of firm behavior, workers choose between specializing into specific skills and accumulating general human capital. While labor market pooling provides static efficiency gains, our approach also suggests that there are long-term effects: under a diversified industrial structure, industry-specific shocks lead to a labor market pooling advantage which raises the incentive for workers to acquire both general and specific human capital. This will not only strengthen a region's capability to adapt to change but will also contribute to higher growth." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))regionaler Arbeitsmarkt, Ballungsraum, Regionalverflechtung, Arbeitsmarktstruktur, Region, Humankapital, Bildungsinvestitionen, Allgemeinbildung, Fachkenntnisse, Qualifikationsstruktur, matching, Arbeitslosigkeit, Beschäftigungseffekte, Regionalökonomie, Bildungsökonomie

On inductively free Restrictions of Reflection Arrangements

Let W be a finite complex reflection group acting on the complex vector space V and let A(W) = (A(W), V) be the associated reflection arrangement. In an earlier paper by the last two authros, we classified all inductively free reflection arrangements A(W). The aim of this note is to extend this work by determining all inductively free restrictions of reflection arrangements.Comment: 15 pages, final version to appear in Journal of Algebr

The Asolant/Rubin-5 Technology Demonstration Mission - System Description and First Flight Results

This paper addresses the Asolant/Rubin-5 flight experiment conducted onboard the upper stage of a Cosmos rocket in late 2005. The main objective of the project was to flight-qualify a newly developed combined solar cell/antenna device, the so-called Advanced SOLar ANTenna (ASOLANT) technology. In order to assess both, the reception as well as emission of R/F signals, two different devices were involved in the mission. One was linked to a space-borne Phoenix-S GPS receiver to examine the receiving performance. A second device was designed to send out S-Band beacon signals generated by the SAFIR-S amateur radio transmitter to evaluate the radiation characteristics. Moreover, both ASOLANT devices supplied the electrical power for the onboard systems. Telecommand and telemetry functionalities were provided by an ORBCOMM communicator making use of the ORBCOMM satellite network to relay data between space and ground. This unit, furthermore, served as onboard computer. The experiment was launched along with eight multinational payload satellites. It was designed to remain attached to the rockets upper stage after burnout. Due to a separation failure of one of the copassengers, the primary mission objectives could not be fully met. Nevertheless, a sufficient number of data was retrieved to confirm the good overall performance of the ASOLANT devices. Roughly ten month after the launch, still most system components are operational and experiment data are transmitted to ground. Following a description of the main flight system components and the overall ystem architecture, the paper summarizes the hitherto obtained experiment results

Human capital formation under product market uncertainty

The paper presents a microeconomic model of human capital formation in a local labour market, with heterogeneous workers and firms, when product markets are characterised by price uncertainty. We analyse a setting where firms are hit by demand shocks determining either a good or a bad state. Firms produce for a competitive output market with differing technologies, thus requiring diverse skills. In anticipation of firm behaviour, workers choose between specialising into a certain type of skills, and accumulating general skills. We thus look at the endogenous determination of the level of both horizontally differentiated and general human capital. Our findings suggest that, with equal probability on each shock scenario, a higher output price (booming industry) will raise the return to both general and specific human capital. Labour market size (skill diversification) however, has a differential impact. As the market is enlarged, workers are likely to form more general human capital at the expense of directly productive human capital. We then investigate a specific shock probability structure and find that under more symmetric shocks the incentive to invest in either kind of human capital is weaker. Interpreting the symmetry of shocks as an indicator of the degree of regional industrial specialisation, we infer that, everything else being constant, specialised regions will be less flexible in their response to structural change and also less productive. Bearing in mind the importance of human capital for economic growth, adverse effects on the growth rate of specialised regions may follow

Regionale Arbeitsmärkte in Ostdeutschland: Was hat das eine, was das andere Land nicht hat?

Mit dem Projekt 'Vergleichende Analyse von Länderarbeitsmärkten' (VALA) untersucht das IAB die Beschäftigungsentwicklung in den ostdeutschen Bundesländern. Dabei zeigen sich erhebliche Unterschiede: In den Regionen an der ehemaligen innerdeutschen Grenze werden weniger Arbeitsplätze abgebaut als in den Kernstädten und den Grenzregionen zu den neuen EU-Mitgliedsländern. Insgesamt führt die negative Konjunkturentwicklung im Osten weiterhin zu massiven Beschäftigungsverlusten. Vor allem Standortbedingungen bestimmen die regionsspezifischen Entwicklungstrends. Strukturelle Merkmale wie Branchenzusammensetzung, Betriebsgröße und Qualifikation sowie das Lohnniveau erklären ebenfalls einen erheblichen Teil der regionalen Unterschiede. So zeigt sich, dass ein hoher Akademikeranteil unter den Beschäftigten und mittelgroße Unternehmen einen positiven Einfluss auf die Beschäftigungsentwicklung in einer Region haben. Die Arbeitsmarkt- und Standortpolitik in Ostdeutschland steht vor einem besonderen Dilemma: Während die Abwanderung zu einer erwünschten Entlastung des angespannten Arbeitsmarktes führt, ist der Fortzug qualifizierter Arbeitskräfte aus standortpolitischer Sicht negativ zu beurteilen

Benthic invertebrates that form habitat on deep banks off southern California, with special reference to deep sea coral

There is increasing interest in the potential impacts that fishing activities have on megafaunal benthic invertebrates occurring in continental shelf and slope ecosystems. We examined how the structure, size, and high-density aggregations of invertebrates provided structural relief for fishes in continental shelf and slope ecosystems off southern California. We made 112 dives in a submersible at 32−320 m water depth, surveying a variety of habitats from high-relief rock to flat sand and mud. Using quantitative video transect methods, we made 12,360 observations of 15 structure-form-ing invertebrate taxa and 521,898 individuals. We estimated size and incidence of epizoic animals on 9105 sponges, black corals, and gorgonians. Size variation among structure-form-ing invertebrates was significant and 90% of the individuals were <0.5 m high. Less than 1% of the observations of organisms actually sheltering in or located on invertebrates involved fishes. From the analysis of spatial associations between fishes and large invertebrates, six of 108 fish species were found more often adjacent to invertebrate colonies than the number of fish predicted by the fish-density data from transects. This finding indicates that there may be spatial associations that do not necessarily include physical contact with the sponges and corals. However, the median distances between these six fish species and the invertebrates were not particularly small (1.0−5.5 m). Thus, it is likely that these fishes and invertebrates are present together in the same habitats but that there is not necessarily a functional relationship between these groups of organisms. Regardless of their associations with fishes, these invertebrates provide structure and diversity for continental shelf ecosystems off southern California and certainly deserve the attention of scientists undertaking future conservation efforts