Structural Change and Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Germany

This paper uses a long time series of German employment data to test the theory of Ngai & Pissarides (2007). The theory suggests that the shift of employment shares from manufacturing to services is due to divergent growth rates of total factor productivity (TFP) in the two sectors. To test the theoretical predictions, I use the "Establishment History Panel" together with sectoral data on total factor productivity. The results confirm the theoretical predictions, i.e. they show a negative relationship between employment growth and TFP growth

Structural change and total factor productivity: Evidence from Germany

This paper uses a long time series of German employment data to test the theory of Ngai & Pissarides (2007). The theory suggests that the shift of employment shares from manufacturing to services is due to divergent growth rates of total factor productivity (TFP) in the two sectors. To test the theoretical predictions, I use the "Establishment History Panel" together with sectoral data on total factor productivity. The results confirm the theoretical predictions, i.e. they show a negative relationship between employment growth and TFP growth

International trade and the occupational mix in manufacturing: Evidence from german micro data

We use the Establishment History Panel from 1975 to 2010 provided by the German Federal Employment Office to examine the impact of international trade on the occupational structure of the German manufacturing sector. To capture trade, we match the Establishment History Panel with UN Comtrade trade data. To do so, we develop a new matching approach that takes the input and output structure of the German manufacturing sector into account. We identify three different trade channels: import intensity, import competition, and export intensity. Using a fixed-effects Poisson regression model, we find diverse occupational effects from trade at the industry-level, while establishment-level estimations show only few significant effects

Structural Change, Wage Inequality, and the Occupational Mix of Firms : Evidence from German Micro Data

The purpose of this dissertation is to shed new light on the causes and consequences of structural change, both in terms of inter-sectoral reallocations of employment and intra-sectoral reallocations of employment. Its focus lies on Germany, which is among the industrialized nations that experienced substantial structural change over the last decades, i.e. a shift of employment toward services. The results of my empirical analyses show that structural change has a positive effect on the increasing wage gap in Germany that is comparable to the effect of international trade. Additionally, I show the importance of using detailed micro-level data to account for intra-sectoral changes of employment, i.e. the rising share of employment in service occupations within manufacturing. In a further step, I show that diverging sectoral growth rates of total factor productivity (TFP) are a driving force behind inter-sectoral changes of employment. My findings reveal a negative relationship between employment growth and TFP growth and thus confirm the theoretical predictions of Ngai & Pissarides (2007). In a final step, I focus on intra-sectoral reallocations of employment within the manufacturing sector and investigate the effects of three different channels of international trade on the occupational mix in manufacturing. Hence, I am able to investigate very precisely which employees benefit or suffer from the increasing exposure to international trade. The results provide diverse occupational effects from trade at the industry-level, while estimations at the establishment-level only show few significant effects

Structural change and wage inequality: Evidence from German micro data

This paper measures the impact of sectoral composition, international trade and technological progress on the rising wage gap in Germany. I find a positive effect of the increasing importance of services on the rising wage gap in Germany that is comparable to the effects of international trade and technological change. To quantify the causal relationship between the structural change of the German economy and the wage premium, I use the Establishment History Panel (in German: Betriebs-Historik-Panel - BHP), a detailed establishment-level data set provided by the German Federal Employment Office covering the period 1975-2010. This empirical work puts the focus on an important cause of the rising wage gap that so far has been largely ignored by the literature

Towards Grid Friendly Zero Energy Buildings

High-performance buildings, such as zero-energy buildings (ZEBs), are an important step toward a reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. Because ZEBs may exhibit large differences between demand and on-site generated electricity, residual electrical loads imposed by the building may fluctuate between positive and negative values. Furthermore, such buildings can be characterized by large temporal changes in residual load, commonly caused by clouds passing on a sunny day. Today, electricity grid operators can easily deal with a single ZEB with this behavior. But what happens if large portfolios of ZEBs have the same behavior? In this study, a highly efficient office building with a total floor area of 8,355 m2 located in Denver, Colorado, was designed and simulated using a detailed building energy modeling approach. Combining the building energy model with a photovoltaic model showed that the building reached net positive status on an annual basis. Further analysis of residual loads and strategies for their reduction revealed the limited potential of demand-side management in ZEBs and the high flexibility of batteries. Using a multiple-objective optimization approach for optimizing several simplified electric and thermal storage systems allowed the comparison of different strategies for residual load reduction. Although electrical storage may not yet be economical given today&rsquo;s system costs, results show that the residual loads can be effectively managed and reduced, and at the same time, an increase in photovoltaic self-consumption can be achieved. The analysis concludes with the presentation of a multiple-objective optimal solution (Pareto front) for a battery storage model, indicating what utility incentives would be required to achieve cost-effectiveness for a range of price scenarios for battery systems.</p

A Case for Integrated Data Processing in Large-Scale Cyber-Physical Systems

Large-scale cyber-physical systems such as manufacturing lines generate vast amounts of data to guarantee precise control of their machinery. Visions such as the Industrial Internet of Things aim at making this data available also to computation systems outside the lines to increase productivity and product quality. However, rising amounts and complexities of data and control decisions push existing infrastructure for data transmission, storage, and processing to its limits. In this paper, we exemplarily study a fine blanking line which can produce up to 6.2 Gbit/s worth of data to showcase the extreme requirements found in modern manufacturing. We consequently propose integrated data processing which keeps inherently local and small-scale tasks close to the processes while at the same time centralizing tasks relying on more complex decision procedures and remote data sources. Our approach thus allows for both maintaining control of field-level processes and leveraging the benefits of “big data” applications

The Effects of Latency and In-Game Perspective on Player Performance and Game Experience

Previous work shows that high latency, a prolonged delay between player in- and system output, negatively affects player experience and performance. However, previous work also comes to contrary conclusions about how the in-game perspective alters the latency sensitivity of video games. Currently, it is unclear if the in-game perspective independently modulates latency's effects. To investigate how a game's in-game perspective interacts with latency, we developed a shooting game incorporating three perspectives (First-Person-, Third-Person-, and Bird's-Eye-View). In a study, participants (N = 36) played with two levels of latency (low and high) and the three perspectives. We show that latency reduces performance and experience, independent of the perspective. Moreover, Bayesian analysis suggests that the in-game perspective does not interact with latency and does not affects performance or experience. We conclude that more robust means to categorize latency sensitivity of video games than the in-game perspective are required

Firm size distribution and employment fluctuations:Theory and evidence

This paper studies the effect of the firm-size distribution on the relationship between employment and output. We construct a theoretical model, which predicts that changes in demand for industry output have larger effects on employment in industries characterised by a distribution that is more skewed towards smaller firms. Industry-specific shape parameters of the firm size distributions are estimated using firm-level data from Germany, Sweden and the UK, and used to augment a relationship between industry-level employment and output. Our empirical results align with the predictions of the theory and confirm that the size distribution of firms is an important determinant of the relationship between changes in output and employment

Impact of sex and gender on post-COVID-19 syndrome, Switzerland, 2020

Background: Women are overrepresented among individuals with post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC). Biological (sex) as well as sociocultural (gender) differences between women and men might account for this imbalance, yet their impact on PASC is unknown. Aim: We assessed the impact of sex and gender on PASC in a Swiss population. Method: Our multicentre prospective cohort study included 2,856 (46% women, mean age 44.2 ± 16.8 years) outpatients and hospitalised patients with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection.ResultsAmong those who remained outpatients during their first infection, women reported persisting symptoms more often than men (40.5% vs 25.5% of men; p < 0.001). This sex difference was absent in hospitalised patients. In a crude analysis, both female biological sex (RR = 1.59; 95% CI: 1.41-1.79; p < 0.001) and a score summarising gendered sociocultural variables (RR = 1.05; 95% CI: 1.03-1.07; p < 0.001) were significantly associated with PASC. Following multivariable adjustment, biological female sex (RR = 0.96; 95% CI: 0.74-1.25; p = 0.763) was outperformed by feminine gender-related factors such as a higher stress level (RR = 1.04; 95% CI: 1.01-1.06; p = 0.003), lower education (RR = 1.16; 95% CI: 1.03-1.30; p = 0.011), being female and living alone (RR = 1.91; 95% CI: 1.29-2.83; p = 0.001) or being male and earning the highest income in the household (RR = 0.76; 95% CI: 0.60-0.97; p = 0.030). Conclusion: Specific sociocultural parameters that differ in prevalence between women and men, or imply a unique risk for women, are predictors of PASC and may explain, at least in part, the higher incidence of PASC in women. Once patients are hospitalised during acute infection, sex differences in PASC are no longer evident