Innovation under central planning: patenting and productivity in the GDR

This thesis employs novel datasets on patenting activity and TFP in the GDR to study the relationship between innovation and productivity. Patenting activity is chosen as a variable of interest due to its inherent link to the innovative process and high international and intertemporal comparability. No statistically significant relationship between patenting and future productivity growth is found in an analysis across 16 sectors of the GDR’s economy from 1950-1989. This result is unusual, and likely results out of the institutional framework of the GDR: firstly, it being a planned economy and the associated reduced productivity effects of innovations, and secondly, the GDR’s unique patent system which likely increased the number of patent applications while reducing their economic usefulness. By including the full breadth of the GDR’s patent stock, as well as robustly estimating the initial capital stock of the GDR, a more reliable account of both these variables can be made than was possible in previous studies. This thesis contributes to the literature through its use of new data and an adaptation of a proven empirical identification strategy to a new context. It also suggests avenues for further research on the relationship between patenting and innovation in the GDR and planned economies more widely

The Scale of Indirect Damage from Flooding - A Case Study: Mississippi River Flooding of May 2011

There are growing risks to economic activity in flood-plain regions due to the increasing severity of climate change-driven storms. In May 2011, heavy rains led to surging flood levels along the entirety of the Mississippi River basin. This eventually required the US Army Corps of Engineering to blast open floodgates in order to save major cities like Baton Rouge and New Orleans from catastrophic damage. However, this was at the cost of sacrificing millions of acres of farmland and sparsely populated parishes all over the southern basin region. Beyond the direct flood damage, business was disrupted while the Mississippi River was unable to be used as a trade route. But these disruptions, known as ‘indirect damage,’ can sometimes have a net positive result for firms that do not sustain much physical damage and can benefit from the ensuing price increases of their products. In the long term, however, increasing defense and recovery measures from flood incidents will be required in such regions in order to maintain economic activity. Overall, sustainable development would require either an avoidance of those risky zones, which is socially and economically impractical due to the large existing populations and infrastructure, or a focus on preventative measures

The Scale of Indirect Damage from Flooding - A Case Study: Mississippi River Flooding of May 2011

There are growing risks to economic activity in flood-plain regions due to the increasing severity of climate change-driven storms. In May 2011, heavy rains led to surging flood levels along the entirety of the Mississippi River basin. This eventually required the US Army Corps of Engineering to blast open floodgates in order to save major cities like Baton Rouge and New Orleans from catastrophic damage. However, this was at the cost of sacrificing millions of acres of farmland and sparsely populated parishes all over the southern basin region. Beyond the direct flood damage, business was disrupted while the Mississippi River was unable to be used as a trade route. But these disruptions, known as ‘indirect damage,’ can sometimes have a net positive result for firms that do not sustain much physical damage and can benefit from the ensuing price increases of their products. In the long term, however, increasing defense and recovery measures from flood incidents will be required in such regions in order to maintain economic activity. Overall, sustainable development would require either an avoidance of those risky zones, which is socially and economically impractical due to the large existing populations and infrastructure, or a focus on preventative measures

The relationship between the cleavage-position and the EU-Position of Polish parties in the elections of 1997 and 2001

Titelblatt, Danksagung, Inhaltsverzeichnis, Tabellen- u. Abbildungsverzeichnis, Abkürzungsverzeichnis Zusammenfassung Summary Einleitung I. Politische Parteien: Konzeptionalisierung und Erklärungsansätze I.1. Theoretische Aspekte der Parteienforschung im Osteuropa-Kontext I.2. Erklärungsansätze der Parteienforschung im Osteuropa-Kontext II. Entstehung, Struktur und Probleme des polnischen Parteiensystems II.1. Von der Solidarnosc zur Fragmentierung des Parteiensystems in Polen II.2. Die politische Bühne Polens und die Wahlen II.3. Strukturelle Probleme der polnischen Parteien II.4. Herausarbeitung einer neuen polnischen Außenpotitik nach 1989 III. Cleavage-Struktur und Parteien in Polen III.1. Cleavages und EU-Positionen der Parteien: Einführung III.2. Cleavage-Struktur in Polen III.3. Cleavage-Positionen der politischen Parteien in Polen III.4. Der Charakter des EU-Themas in Polen III.5. Die EU-Positionen der polnischen Parteien III.6. Analyse des Zusammenhangs zwischen den cleavage-Positionen und den EU- Positionen der polnischen Parteien IV. Schlussfolgerungen Materialgrundlage 1\. Dokumentationen 2\. Forschungsliteratur 3\. Zeitschriftenbeiträge 4\. Internet RechercheParteienforschern bot sich nach 1989 die einmalige Gelegenheit, die Geburt von Parteiensystemen in den neuen Demokratien Osteuropas zu verfolgen. Nach der antikommunistischen Wende in Osteuropa waren zwar die Voraussetzungen für die Entstehung demokratischer Parteien gegeben, ihre Institutionalisierung hat sich jedoch als komplizierter Prozess erwiesen. Polen im Vorzimmer der Europäischen Union, war auf dem Weg zu einem konsolidierten Parteiensystem. Der Beitritt Polens zur Europäischen Union bot die Möglichkeit, unterschiedliche Hypothesen über strukturelle und politische Faktoren, die die Politik moderner Parteien zu einem großen Teil erklären, zu prüfen. In dieser Dissertation werden zum einen die Rahmenbedingungen der Entwicklung des polnischen Parteiensystems beschrieben, zum anderen werden die Gerinnungsprozesse ihrer Konfliktstrukturen dargestellt. Dabei wird die Frage nach den die Parteiensysteme prägenden Konfliktlinien besonders intensiv diskutiert. Die Erklärung der Entstehung eines Systems rivalisierender Parteien durch soziostrukturelle Konflikte (cleavages) ist eine der etabliertesten Theorien in der modernen Politikwissenschaft, die im Wesentlichen auf die Arbeit von Lipset/Rokkan (1967) zurückreicht. In dieser Abhandlung sollen die politischen Positionen der polnischen Parteien, deren Einbettung in die Sozialstruktur sowie europapolitischen Standpunkte analysiert werden. Des Weiteren wird untersucht, in welchem Zusammenhang die cleavage-Positionen mit den EU-Positionen der polnischen Parteien in den Parlamentswahlen 1997 und 2001 standen. Das Ergebnis der Studie deutet darauf hin, dass das Zusammenspiel der cleavages die Positionen der Parteien in einem hohen Grad bestimmt. Während die ökonomische Dimension wenig zur Erklärung der EU-Standpunkte beiträgt, besitzen die kulturell beladenen Konflikte eine höhere Erklärungskraft.Political scientists had the rare opportunity to study the birth of Party systems in the new democracies of Eastern Europe after 1989. After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe the foundations for the formation of democratic parties were at hand however their institutionalisation has proven to be a complicated process. As Poland approached European Union membership it was already on the way to having a developed Party system. The entry of Poland to the European Union offered the opportunity to test various Hypotheses that attempt to explain the structural and political factors of modern Party politics. This Dissertation will on the one hand describe the developmental framework of the Polish political system, on the other hand it will describe the coagulation of its conflict structures. Questions regarding the conflict lines that helped form the Party system will be discussed intensively. The explanation of the development of rival Parties through socio-structural conflicts (cleavages) is one of the most established theories within modern Political Science. This theory primarily goes back to the work of Lipset/Rokkan (1967). In this Treatise the political positions of the Polish political parties, how they are embedded in the social structure as well as their political viewpoint regarding Europe will be analysed. Furthermore the relationship between the Polish parties cleavage-positions and their EU- positions in the Parliamentary elections of 1997 and 2001 will be examined. The results of this study point to the cleavages determining the EU positions to a high degree. Whereas the economic dimensions contribute little to explaining the EU positions, the culturally loaded conflicts have a higher ability to explain these positions

Early Jurassic large igneous province carbon emissions constrained by sedimentary mercury

Large igneous province eruptions and their carbon emissions often coincide with, and are hypothesized to have driven, severe environmental perturbations in the geological past. However, the vast scale of large igneous provinces and uncertainties in magmatic volatile contents and radioisotopic dates limit our ability to resolve gas emissions in detail over time. Here we employ high-resolution (~5–200 kyr) sedimentary mercury data from the Llanbedr (Mochras Farm) borehole, Wales, to derive quantitative large igneous province degassing estimates over a 20-million-year-long Early Jurassic interval (195–175 million years ago). Intervals of relatively elevated sedimentary mercury coincide with episodes of carbon-cycle change, including the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (183–182 million years ago). We use excess mercury loading to estimate large igneous province-associated carbon emissions, revealing that multi-millennial episodes of activity plausibly drove recognized pCO2 and temperature increases. However, previous carbon-cycle model-based carbon emission scenarios require faster and larger carbon inputs than our proposed emissions. Resolving this discrepancy may require climate–carbon-cycle feedbacks or co-emitted gases to substantially exacerbate the carbon-cycle response, processes potentially underestimated in current models. Our long and near-continuous record of Early Jurassic large igneous province activity demonstrates mercury’s potential as a tool to resolve past carbon fluxes