Test of the German Resilience

From its early post-war catch-up phase, Germany’s formidable export engine has been its consistent driver of growth. But Germany has almost equally consistently run current account surpluses. Exports have powered the dynamic phases and helped emerge from stagnation. Volatile external demand, in turn, has elevated German GDP growth volatility by advanced countries’ standards, keeping domestic consumption growth at surprisingly low levels. As a consequence, despite the size of its economy and important labor market reforms, Germany’s ability to act as global locomotive has been limited. With increasing competition in its traditional areas of manufacturing, a more domestically-driven growth dynamic, especially in the production and delivery of services, will be good for Germany and for the global economy. Absent such an effort, German growth will remain constrained, and Germany will play only a modest role in spurring growth elsewhere

How do people play a repeated trust game? : Experimental evidence

We run an experiment that implements a finitely repeated version of the trust game in which players can choose in each period with whom to interact. Change in trust and trustworthiness in terms of previous experience is statistically investigated where confounding factors are controlled for. Motives such as reinforcement learning, reciprocity and rationality are useful to explain findings. Overall we find a high persistence of choice and uncover more trust and trustworthiness than in the one shot experiments. Towards the end of the game the degree of trust and trustworthiness decline

Experimental methods and simulation techniques : what can be learned about trust, schooling decisions and exchange rates?

Defence date: 20 September 2004Examining Board: Prof. Anindya Banerjee, supervisor, EUI ; Prof. Alan Duncan, University of Nottingham ; Prof. Urs Fischbacher, University of Zurich ; Prof. Andrea Ichino, EUIFirst made available online on 25 April 201

On the use of panel unit root tests on cross-sectionally dependent data: an application to PPP

A Monte Carlo exercise demonstrates the different size distortions that two of the most commonly used panel unit root tests have when the sections of the panel are affected by correlated errors, when they are cointegrated, or both. For a specific form of sectional correlation, the limiting distribution is derived and asymptotic normality of the test statistic is established. To determine the nature of contemporaneous cross-sectional correlation in real data, covariance matrix estimation techniques are discussed and an appropriate bootstrap method for the estimation of standard errors is suggested. In an application to a panel of real exchange rates it is found that both aforementioned dependencies are present, and therefore the results of panel unit root tests if applied at all should be interpreted accordingly.panel data, nonstationarity, cross-sectional dependence, PPP

Regional Unemployment and Its Persistence in Transition Countries

We look at the differences in regional unemployment rates in six major transition countries and their persistence over time. We analyse the role various adjustment mechanisms play. While movement out of the labour force seems to be one consequence in many regions with high relative unemployment, there are also signs of emerging wage flexibility. Employment creation, by contrast, has not picked up in regions of high unemployment. Labour mobility also remains very limited in size although it appears to respond to basic economic incentives. Policies addressing housing market imperfections and information asymmetries are necessary to increase worker mobility and to integrate better national labour markets