Inequality, infrastructure, and institutions

Florian Dorn prepared this study during his doctoral studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (LMU). The study was completed in September 2020 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics. This dissertation contributes to the empirics of public economics and political economy. All chapters are self-contained research articles and can be read independently. However, the chapters are mutually related and contribute to the discussion on how economic inequality, institutions, and economic and infrastructure policies can influence welfare and political stability. Chapter 2 examines how relative economic deprivation influences the support for radical parties. Chapter 3 examines how trade openness influences income inequality. Chapter 4 uses a case study to discuss how infrastructure policies can affect regional economic development. Chapters 5 and 6 contribute to the debate on the effect of political and fiscal institutions on budgeting, accountability, and government efficiency. Empirical identification strategies, endogeneity problems, and remaining caveats regarding causal inferences are discussed in detail in all chapters of this dissertation. The study employs state-of-the-art empirical techniques to infer causal effects including instrumental variables, difference-in-differences, event study, and synthetic control estimations. The addendum contains extended abstracts of three further research projects during the Ph.D. phase of Florian Dorn: (I) Globalization, government ideology, and top income shares: Evidence from OECD countries; (II) Political institutions and health expenditure; (III) The common interest of health and the economy: Evidence from Covid-19 containment policies. These papers are also related to the empirics on public economics and political economy and contribute well to his overall research agenda.Florian Dorn erstellte diesen Beitrag während seines Promotionsstudiums an der Universität München (LMU). Die Studie wurde im September 2020 abgeschlossen und von der Fakultät für Volkswirtschaftslehre als Dissertation angenommen. Die Dissertation trägt zur Empirie der Ökonomie des öffentlichen Sektors und der politischen Ökonomie bei. Alle Kapitel sind in sich abgeschlossene Forschungsartikel und können unabhängig voneinander gelesen werden. Die Kapitel sind miteinander verbunden und tragen zur Diskussion bei, wie wirtschaftliche Ungleichheit, Institutionen sowie Wirtschafts- und Infrastrukturpolitik Wohlfahrt und politische Stabilität beeinflussen. In Kapitel 2 wird untersucht, wie relativer wirtschaftlicher Mangel die Unterstützung für radikale Parteien beeinflusst. In Kapitel 3 wird untersucht, wie die Offenheit des Handels die Einkommensungleichheit beeinflusst. In Kapitel 4 wird anhand einer Fallstudie erörtert, wie Infrastrukturpolitik die regionale Wirtschaftsentwicklung beeinflussen kann. Die Kapitel 5 und 6 leisten einen Beitrag zu der Debatte, ob politische und fiskalische Institutionen die Haushaltsplanung, die Rechenschaft und die Effizienz der Regierung beeinflussen. In allen Kapiteln werden empirische Identifizierungsstrategien, Endogenitätsprobleme und verbleibende Vorbehalte hinsichtlich kausaler Schlussfolgerungen eingehend erörtert. Die Studie verwendet modernste ökonometrische Techniken wie Instrumentalvariablen, Differenz-in-Differenzen Schätzer, Ereignisstudien und synthetische Kontrollmethoden, um kausale Effekte zu identifizieren. Der Anhang enthält Zusammenfassungen drei weiterer Forschungsprojekte: (I) Globalisierung, Regierungsideologie und Spitzeneinkommen: Evidenz aus OECD-Ländern; (II) Politische Institutionen und Gesundheitsausgaben; (III) Das gemeinsame Interesse von Gesundheit und Wirtschaft: Erkenntnisse aus der Covid-19 Eindämmungspolitik

Die Kombination von Kräuterextrakten mit Propionsäure zur Therapie subklinischer Ketosen im biologischen Landbau eine Feldstudie

On 25 Swiss and German organic dairy farms all fresh cows (a total of 283 cows between 5 and 50 days in milk) were tested weekly for blood- -hydroxybutyrate (BBHB), 121 exceeded the threshold of 1.0 mmol/l BBHB. A total of 84 cows were randomly assigned to three treatments which were given daily, diluted in 700ml fluid divided to two oral administrations for 4 days: placebo (PL), 240g sodium propionate per day (SP) and 240g sodium propionate combined with an extract of seven herbs (27g drug equivalent). Milk acetone (MAC) and BBHB were observed during the administration period and thereafter, in total for two weeks. A reduction of ketone bodies was measured in all three treatment groups. No significant differences between SP and PL arose regarding the observed parameters. During the first week of observation SP-H showed the lowest MAC and mean values differed significantly from those in group SP (p=0.035) and PL (p<0.001). After two weeks SP-H showed the largest reduction in BBHB which was by trend different from SP but without differences from PL. Compared to PL or SP, SP-H seemed to have slight advantages in a four days therapy of subclinical ketotic fresh cows

Stickstoff-Effizienz von Milchkühen bei Fütterung mit und ohne Proteinkonzentrate

In einer ökologischen Milchviehherde in der Schweiz wurden 12 Kühe mit 2.4 kg/Tag und 11 Kühe mit 0 kg/Tag Proteinkonzentraten supplementiert. Der Verzicht auf die Konzentrate führte zu einer signifikanten Steigerung der Grundfutteraufnahme. Der Effekt auf die Milchprotein-Leistung war nicht signifikant. Die Stickstoff-Effizienz war nicht beeinflusst. Diese Daten unterstützen die Hypothese, dass die Protein-Konzentrate in der ökologischen Milchviehfütterung signifikant reduziert werden könnten ohne an Effizienz in der Milchproteinproduktion zu verlieren

Fütterungseinflüsse auf das Fress- und Wiederkäuverhalten von Milchkühen auf einem Biobetrieb

In einer ökologischen Milchviehherde in der Schweiz wurden 23 Kühe mit verschiedenen Rationen gefüttert. Futteraufnahme und Wiederkäuverhalten wurden mit Kausensoren erfasst. Proteinkonzentrate sowie eine separate Heugabe zeigten signifikante Einflüsse auf das Fressen und Wiederkäuen während des Tages, jedoch nicht während der Nacht. Die Daten zeigen das Potential der Erhebung von Fress- und Wiederkäuverhalten zur Beurteilung von Fütterungssituationen mit grundfutterreichen Rationen

Application-oriented Method for Determining the Adhesion between Insulated Flat Copper Wire and Impregnation Resin

In the field of hairpin stator technology, increasing demands are currently being made on the semi-finished product of insulated flat copper wire. In particular, the focus is on the electrical requirements against the background of increasing voltage levels to 800 V and more. The test procedures described in the standards IEC 60317 & 60851 for verifying the properties of insulated flat copper wires only partially map the requirements from the point of automotive industry. An example for insufficiently considered properties lays in the correlation between wire and insulation resin. In addition to electrical and thermal benefits, impregnation helps to mechanically stabilize the winding and protect it from ambient factors. Adhesion between the winding and the impregnating resin is a key parameter here, but is not considered in material pre-selection today. The adhesion of the impregnation resin to the insulated wire is essential to ensure the lifetime of electric motors. This paper describes a method for determining the adhesion of the impregnating resin to the insulation of the wire. It could be shown that there is a correlation between the material of the wire insulation and the impregnating resin in terms of adhesion. Further on the described method can be used for an application-oriented specification of insulated copper flat wires to ensure a consistent composition of the insulation material

Childhood haemorrhagic stroke: a 7-year single-centre experience

Background In recent years, there has been increasing research interest in improving diagnostic and management protocols in childhood arterial ischaemic stroke (AIS). However, childhood stroke comprises, in approximately equal parts, both arterial ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke (HS). Objective The aim of this study was to focus on the aetiology, clinical presentation, treatment and short-term outcome of children with spontaneous intracranial bleeding in a university hospital and elucidate differences to childhood AIS. Design We performed a retrospective analysis of electronic medical records of children (28 days-18 years) diagnosed with HS between 2010 and 2016. Results We included 25 children (male child, n=11) with a median age of 8 years 1 month. The most common clinical presentations were vomiting (48%), headache (40%) and altered level of consciousness (32%). In more than half of the patients, HS was caused by vascular malformations. Other risk factors were brain tumour, coagulopathy and miscellaneous severe underlying diseases. Aetiology remained unclear in one child. Therapy was neurosurgical in most children (68%). Two patients died, 5 patients needed further (rehabilitation) treatment and 18 children could be discharged home. Conclusions HS differs from AIS in aetiology (vascular malformations as number one risk factor), number of risk factors ('mono-risk' disease), clinical presentation (vomiting, headache and altered level of consciousness) and (emergency) therapy

Laser Drying Of Graphite Anodes For The Production Of Lithium-Ion Batteries - A Process- And Material-Side Analysis For Sustainable Battery Production

In many industries, such as the automotive industry or consumer electronics, the demand for lithium-ion batteries is increasing significantly. The state of the art in battery production is energy-consuming and cost-intensive. The drying process of the viscous active material applied to the conductor foils, together with the coating process, is responsible for more than half of the production costs of an electrode. The high energy consumption of conventional drying processes, such as convection drying, must be reduced. Therefore, lasers are used to dry the active material of the electrodes. Further advantages are the low footprint and the increased process flexibility. Moreover, the controlled energy deposition and the spatially selective heat input increase the energy efficiency of the process innovation laser drying. In this review, the results of experiments on drying anodes by laser are compared with the results of convection drying. For this purpose, different production process parameter combinations and material compositions for anodes are chosen in order to be able to derive the process and material influences on the electrode quality

VARDA (VARved sediments DAtabase) – providing and connecting proxy data from annually laminated lake sediments

Varved lake sediments provide long climatic records with high temporal resolution and low associated age uncertainty. Robust and detailed comparison of well-dated and annually laminated sediment records is crucial for reconstructing abrupt and regionally time-transgressive changes as well as validation of spatial and temporal trajectories of past climatic changes. The VARved sediments DAtabase (VARDA) presented here is the first data compilation for varve chronologies and associated palaeoclimatic proxy records. The current version 1.0 allows detailed comparison of published varve records from 95 lakes. VARDA is freely accessible and was created to assess outputs from climate models with high-resolution terrestrial palaeoclimatic proxies. VARDA additionally provides a technical environment that enables to explore the database of varved lake sediments using a connected data-model and can generate a state-of-the-art graphic representation of multi-site comparison. This allows to reassess existing chronologies and tephra events to synchronize and compare even distant varved lake records. Furthermore, the present version of VARDA permits to explore varve thickness data. In this paper, we report in detail on the data mining and compilation strategies for the identification of varved lakes and assimilation of high-resolution chronologies as well as the technical infrastructure of the database. Additional paleoclimate proxy data will be provided in forthcoming updates. The VARDA graph-database and user interface can be accessed online at https://varve.gfz-potsdam.de, all datasets of version 1.0 are available at http://doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.4.3.2019.003 (Ramisch et al., 2019)