Regionale Wachstumseffekte der GRW-Förderung?: Eine räumlich-ökonometrische Analyse auf Basis deutscher Arbeitsmarktregionen

This paper provides an analysis of the impact of the German “Joint Task for the Improve-ment of Regional Economic Structures” (GRW) on labour productivity growth of 225 German labour market regions for the period 1994 to 2006. The empirical regression approach builds on a “Barro-type” growth equation, where a special focus is given to the policy instrument as additional right hand side regressor. The results show that for different model specifications the direct effect of the regional policy instrument on labour productivity growth remains statistically significant and positive for almost two thirds of the supported labour markets. In order to check for the robustness of the results we also augment the standard regression approach to the field of spatial econometrics. Here the results for the Spatial Lag model show that we observe a strong positive spatial spillover effect for productivity growth among neighbouring regions. If we additionally include further spatial lags of the right hand side regressors in the growth equation, the estimated coefficients for the resulting Spatial Durbin and Spatial Durbin Error model indicate that there is a negative spillover effect from the GRW policy on neighbouring regions. This effect remains stable, if we add further spatial lags of other explanatory variables. The indirect distorting effect of the GRW programme yields to the result that only for about 45% of supported regions a positive overall effect was found (with an initial income level up to 73% of the non-funded West German labour markets)

Regional population structure and young workers' wages

This paper estimates the effect that changes in the size of the youth population have on the wages of young workers. Assuming that differently aged workers are only imperfectly substitutable, economic theory predicts that individuals in larger age groups earn lower wages. We test this hypothesis for a sample of young, male, full-time employees in Western Germany during the period 1999-2010. In contrast to other studies, functional rather than administrative spatial entities are used as they provide a more accurate measure of the youth population in an actual labour market. Based on instrumental variables estimation, we show that an increase in the youth share by one percentage point is predicted to decrease a young worker's wages by 3%. Our results also suggest that a substantial part of this effect is due to members of larger age groups being more likely to be employed in lower-paying occupations

Do higher corporate taxes reduce wages? : Micro evidence from Germany

Because of endogeneity problems very few studies have been able to identify the incidence of corporate taxes on wages. We circumvent these problems by using an 11-year panel of data on 11,441 German municipalities' tax rates, 8 percent of which change each year, linked to administrative matched employer-employee data. Consistent with our theoretical model, we find a negative effect of corporate taxation on wages: a 1 euro increase in tax liabilities yields a 77 cent decrease in the wage bill. The direct wage effect, arising in a collective bargaining context, dominates, while the conventional indirect wage effect through reduced investment is empirically small due to regional labor mobility. High and medium-skilled workers, who arguably extract higher rents in collective agreements, bear a larger share of the corporate tax burden

Large-Scale Transition of Economic Systems Do CEECs Converge Towards Western Prototypes?

In order to identify convergence patterns among the group of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) we analyze clusters of traditional OECD countries, i.e. EU-15 plus Norway and Switzerland, Anglo-Saxon non-EU countries plus Japan, and CEECs based on macro data on government regulation and spending instead of micro data on firm relations and market characteristics as is usually applied in Varieties-of-Capitalism (VoC) analysis. This framework is supposed to incorporate some of the critique that has been expressed towards the traditional VoCapproach, especially its ignorance of government spending and performance. We acknowledge for the transition aspect by looking at cluster history and principal component analysis for periods of transition. Our analysis reveals that there is consolidation rather than convergence with CEECs being divided in clusters leaning towards CME and LME prototypes respectively. Overall, there are worlds of redistribution within which clusters differ with respect to their mix of - negatively correlated - regulation and innovation. Interestingly, CEECs do not mix up with Mediterranean MMEs, which indeed provide a kind of worst case setting, while Scandinavian CMEs as well as traditional LMEs provide a kind of role model within their respective worlds of redistribution

The Role of Regional Knowledge Production in University Technology Transfer: Isolating Coevolutionary Effects

The rate and magnitude of university-to-industry-technology-transfer (UITT) is a function not only of university characteristics but also of regional factors. A university's embeddedness in an innovative regional milieu moderates UITT. This necessary balance of the supply side (technology push) and demand side (market pull) of technology transfer has so far neither been systematically addressed in the technology transfer literature nor has it been acknowledged by policy makers.We investigate UITT as a function of the interrelation of the industrial innovative milieu of a region and the characteristics of regional universities to identify the impact of the industry on UITT. Thereby we do not only aim to reduce the existing empirical gap in the academic entrepreneurship literature but also to inform policy in its attempt to foster UITT in European regions

The chromatin remodelling enzymes SNF2H and SNF2L position nucleosomes adjacent to CTCF and other transcription

Within the genomes of metazoans, nucleosomes are highly organised adjacent to the binding sites for a subset of transcription factors. Here we have sought to investigate which chromatin remodelling enzymes are responsible for this. We find that the ATP-dependent chromatin remodelling enzyme SNF2H plays a major role organising arrays of nucleosomes adjacent to the binding sites for the architectural transcription factor CTCF sites and acts to promote CTCF binding. At many other factor binding sites SNF2H and the related enzyme SNF2L contribute to nucleosome organisation. The action of SNF2H at CTCF sites is functionally important as depletion of CTCF or SNF2H affects transcription of a common group of genes. This suggests that chromatin remodelling ATPase's most closely related to the Drosophila ISWI protein contribute to the function of many human gene regulatory elements

Cross-reactive CD4+ T cells enhance SARS-CoV-2 immune responses upon infection and vaccination

The functional relevance of pre-existing cross-immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is a subject of intense debate. Here, we show that human endemic coronavirus (HCoV)-reactive and SARS-CoV-2-cross-reactive CD4+ T cells are ubiquitous but decrease with age. We identified a universal immunodominant coronavirus-specific spike peptide (S816-830) and demonstrate that pre-existing spike- and S816-830-reactive T cells were recruited into immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and their frequency correlated with anti-SARS-CoV-2-S1-IgG antibodies. Spike-cross-reactive T cells were also activated after primary BNT162b2 COVID-19 mRNA vaccination displaying kinetics similar to secondary immune responses. Our results highlight the functional contribution of pre-existing spike-cross-reactive T cells in SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination. Cross-reactive immunity may account for the unexpectedly rapid induction of immunity following primary SARS-CoV-2 immunization and the high rate of asymptomatic/mild COVID-19 disease courses