Optimization clustering techniques on register unemployment data

An important strategy for data classification consists in organising data points in clusters. The k-means is a traditional optimisation method applied to cluster data points. Using a labour market database, aiming the segmentation of this market taking into account the heterogeneity resulting from different unemployment characteristics observed along the Portuguese geographical space, we suggest the application of an alternative method based on the computation of the dominant eigenvalue of a matrix related with the distance among data points. This approach presents results consistent with the results obtained by the k-means.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Agglomeration and regional employment growth

"Seit dem Aufkommen der Neuen Ökonomischen Geographie hat auch das Interesse an den Fragen der Agglomeration wieder zugenommen. Die vorliegende Arbeit erweitert die bestehenden Erkenntnisse über die Auswirkungen von Agglomerationsvorteilen auf das Beschäftigungswachstum, indem sie zwei unterschiedliche Zweige der empirischen Literatur vereint. Zunächst werden ein Lokalisationsmaß und ein Clusterindex berechnet, um die Verbreitung von geographischer Konzentration zu messen. Der Kern des Papiers ist eine ökonometrische Analyse. In einem dynamischen Panelmodell werden diese Indizes explizit genutzt, um das zusätzliche dynamische Beschäftigungswachstum in lokalisierten Wirtschaftszweigen zu messen. Für die Schätzungen wird ein Paneldatensatz mit allen sozialversicherungspflichtig Beschäftigten in Westdeutschland in 326 Landkreisen und kreisfreien Städten über den Zeitraum 1989 bis 2006 verwendet. Anhand dieser Daten wird analysiert, welche regionalen Gegebenheiten das Beschäftigungswachstum in 191 Wirtschaftszweigen des verarbeitenden Gewerbes und des Dienstleistungssektors begünstigen. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass agglomerierte Branchen/Regions-Zellen ein besonders starkes dynamisches Wachstum aufweisen." (Autorenreferat)"The advent of the New Economic Geography has spawned a renewed interest in questions of agglomeration. The present work expands the research on the impact of agglomeration economies on employment growth by connecting two strands of the empirical literature. A localization index and a cluster index are calculated in order to measure the prevalence of agglomeration. Using these indices, industries and locations that exhibit geographical concentration are identified. The main part of the paper is an econometric analysis. In a dynamic panel data model, the two indices are explicitly used to measure additional dynamic employment growth in agglomerated plants. The study uses panel data that covers all western German employment subject to social security from 1989 to 2006 in 326 districts. I analyze which regional characteristics favor the growth of employment in 191 industries of the manufacturing and service sectors. There is evidence that industrial agglomerations exhibit stronger dynamic growth than other industry/region cells." (author's abstract

Structural Change and Regional Employment Dynamics

A casual look at regional unemployment rates reveals that there are vast differences, which appearently cannot be explained by different institutional settings. Our paper attempts to trace the these differences in the regions' labor market performance back to the regions' specialization in products that are more or less advanced in the product cycle. The model we develop shows how individual profit and utility maximization endogenously leads to decreasing employment in the presence of process innovation. Things get even worse if the considered region is less innovative than others. Our model suggests that the only way to escape from this vicious circle is to specialize on products that are at the beginning of their economic life.

The Impact of Cultural Diversity on Innovation: Evidence from Dutch Firm-Level Data

Due to the growth in international migration in recent decades, the workforce of firms in host countries has become considerably more diverse, both demographically and culturally. It is an important question for firms and for governments to ask whether there are some productivity-enhancing externalities gained from this growing diversity within firms. In recent years migration research has demonstrated positive economic impacts of cultural diversity on productivity and innovation at the regional level. However, there is a dearth of research on the links between innovation and migrant diversity at the firm level. In this paper we construct and analyse a unique linked employer-employee micro-dataset of 4582 firms, based on survey and administrative data obtained from Statistics Netherlands. Excluding firms in the hospitality industry and other industries that employ low-skilled migrants, we use the local number of restaurants with foreign cuisines and the historical presence of migrant communities as valid instruments of endogenous migrant settlement. We find that firms in which foreigners account for a relatively large share of employment are somewhat less innovative. However, there is strong evidence that firms that employ a more diverse foreign workforce are more innovative, particularly in terms of product innovations.immigration, innovation, cultural diversity, knowledge spillovers, linked employer-employee data, Netherlands

The Single Market, welfare and population size – an analysis of EU countries and regions. Bertelsmann Policy Brief

The Single Market (SM) constitutes the world’s largest economic area. Its trade liberalization policies can bring about significant income gains: Fewer barriers to trade are likely to increase competition and boost the productivity of firms – which would positively impact upon wage growth. Moreover, heightened competition decreases markups and reduces the prices of goods and services, which fosters consumer welfare. Through these channels, the SM increases the size of the “economic pie” and contributes to stronger economic growth across European countries and regions. These welfare gains can be deemed as “direct” or “first round” as fewer trade barriers and thus lower trade costs due to the SM directly translate into higher productivity and lower prices. Empirically, these welfare gains have been documented in a number of recent studies (e.g., Ponattu and Mion, 2019a)

Wholesalers and Retailers in U.S. Trade (Long Version)

International trade models typically assume that producers in one country trade directly with final consumers in another. In reality, of course, trade can involve long chains of potentially independent actors who move goods through wholesale and retail distribution networks. These networks likely affect the magnitude and nature of trade frictions and hence both the pattern of trade and its welfare gains. To promote further understanding of the means by which goods move across borders, this paper examines the extent to which U.S. exports and imports flow through wholesalers and retailers versus .producing and consuming firms.Wholesaler, retailer, intermediary, international trade

Zahlt Deutschland drauf? - Was die Neue Ökonomische Geographie der deutschen Politik für die Verhandlungen um den europäischen Etat mit auf den Weg geben kann

Die EU-Kommission verlangt für die Periode von 2007 bis 2013 eine Aufstockung ihres Budgets, was eine höhere Belastung der Nettozahlerländer mit sich bringen würde. Prof. Dr. Norbert Berthold und Dr. Michael Neumann, Universität Würzburg, gehen in diesem Beitrag der Frage nach, ob sich Deutschland als Nettozahler gegen die Kommissionspläne stellen sollte. Im Fokus stehen dabei nicht nur Deutschland als Ganzes, sondern auch die besonders geförderten strukturschwachen Gebiete in Deutschland. Hilft ihnen die europäische Politik wirklich weiter? Die Autoren kommen zu dem Schluss, dass die europäische Regionalpolitik auch negative Einflüsse auf die politischen Märkte der Mitgliedstaaten - und damit auf die Arbeitslosigkeit - hat: Bei kollektiv ausgehandelten Löhnen bringt europäische Strukturpolitik ein unerwünschtes Ergebnis für die geförderte Peripherie hervor. Die finanzielle Unterstützung von Peripheriegebieten durch die Strukturfonds kann nämlich in einer Kombination mit Agglomerationsräumen, national undifferenzierten Löhnen und minimaler Migration die hohe Arbeitslosigkeit in vielen strukturschwachen Regionen Europas erklären. Interregionale Umverteilung "zugunsten" immobiler Arbeitnehmer in den Randgebieten der großen europäischen Flächenstaaten stellt Mittel zur Verfügung, damit sie nicht wandern und gleichzeitig nicht auf Lohnsenkungen bestehen. Nur dies würde ihnen aber helfen, ihre Nachteile als Einwohner der Peripherie zu überkommen. Damit hilft die europäische Umverteilung den strukturschwachen Regionen in Deutschland nur vordergründig. Langfristig sorgt sie hingegen dafür, die bestehenden Unterschiede zu zementieren. Deutschland ist folglich nicht nur als Staat Nettoverlierer im EU-Haushalt, auch seine armen Regionen werden schlechter gestellt, obwohl sie netto Transferempfänger sind.Politik, EU-Regionalpolitik, Neue ökonomische Geographie, Öffentlicher Haushalt, Finanzierung, EU-Strukturfonds, EU-Staaten, Deutschland

Estimating the impact of Brexit on European countries and regions. Bertelsmann Policy Paper, March 2019

In this paper we provide quantitative insights into the economic impact of Brexit on European countries and regions. More specif- ically, we evaluate the impact of a soft and a hard Brexit on pro- ductivity, markups, product variety, welfare and the distribution of population across European countries and regions. We employ a model characterized by costly trade, love of variety, heterogeneous firms, labour mobility as well as endogenous markups and produc- tivity. We quantify the model using goods and services trade data as well as GDP and population for EEA countries/regions plus BRIC countries and other OECD countries. We finally compute, starting from the observed initial situation in the year 2016, counterfactual economic changes stemming from changes in trade costs related to the implementation of both a soft and a hard Brexit. We find that Brexit would have a significant impact on the UK and EU economies. A hard Brexit could lead to annual welfare losses of 57 billion euros in the UK and about 40 billion euros in other EU countries. A soft Brexit would strongly mitigate these losses. Productivity losses and markup increases drive the simulated effects

Regionale Beschäftigungsentwicklung und regionaler Lohn in Ostdeutschland (Regional development of employment and regional wages in eastern Germany)

"This paper examines the effects of regional wage differentials on the development of employment in eastern Germany. For this, a model concept is briefly developed which is aimed at different market constellations of individual branches of the economy. The empirical approach used is a shift-share regression, which makes it possible to relate regional wage differentials to the development of individual branches of the economy. With the data of the employment statistics, contrasting effects of the regional wage level are indeed found. The influences of the regional wage development are also tested which, are more uniform however." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))Beschäftigungsentwicklung - Determinanten, regionaler Arbeitsmarkt, Lohnstruktur, Lohnhöhe, Wirtschaftszweige, Ostdeutschland, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Total Digestible Nutrient of Diet Containing PUFA- Concentrate Supplemented with Yeast and Curcuma Xanthorrhiza Roxb for Dairy Goat

Penelitian ini didisain untuk mengevaluasi kecernaan nutrisi, dinyatakan dalam TDN, dari ransum yang mengandung PUFA konsentrat yang disuplementasi yeast dan Curcuma xanthorrhiza Roxb pada kambing perah. Dua puluh ekor kambing Peranakan Ettawah (PE) pada fase laktasi akhir dialokasikan kedalam 6 perlakuan dengan Rancangan Acak Kelompok. Perlakuan tersebut adalah: PD0: PUFA-diet tanpa suplemen, PDA: dengan Asifit, PDY: dengan 0,5% yeast, PDC: dengan 2% curcuma, dan PDM: dengan 0,5% yeast + 2% curcuma. Ransum- PUFA terdiri atas 80% PUFA- konsentrat sebagai ransum dasar dan 20% rumput gajah. Sumber PUFA terdiri atas jagung giling sangrai, tepung kedelai sangrai, dan minyak jagung. Hasil menunjukkan bahwa konsumsi DM, OM, CP, CF, NFE, ADF, dan GE tidak terpengaruh oleh perlakuan. Namun, EE dan NDF antarperlakuan berbeda signifikan (P<0.05), sedang Ca dan P berbeda sangat signifikan (P<0.01). Kandungan nutrisi yang tinggi (DM, OM, CP, EE, CF, NDF, and GE) ditemukan di feces pada kambing dengan perlakuan Curcuma (PDC), konsekuensinya adalah kecernaan nutrisinya secara signifikan (P<0.05) atau sangat signifikan (P<0.01) terendah. Total digestible nutrient (TDN) dari PDY dan PDM secara signifikan tinggi (79,89% dan 79,37%) disbanding ransum lainnya, terendah pada PDC (69,94%). Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa yeast atau ragi dengan konsentrasi 1,8 108cfu/d baik disuplementasikan tunggal atau dikombinasi dengan 2% Curcuma dapat dikatakan sebagai kandungan yang tepat untuk memperbaiki kecernaan nutrisi pada kambing perah dengan laktasi akhir pada penelitian ini