Practical estimation methods for linked employer-employee data

Methods for the analysis of linked employer-employee data are not yet available in standard econometrics packages. In this paper, we make the fixed-effects methods developed originally by Abowd, Kramarz, Margolis and others more accessible, where possible, and show how they can be implemented in Stata. To illustrate these techniques, we give an example using German linked data. There is a caveat: when the number of plants is prohibitively large and the investigator wants to estimate the correlation between the worker and firm unobserved heterogeneities, the regressionbased techniques discussed are not feasible. In this version of the paper, we replace our earlier Two-Step estimator by a Classical Minimum Distance estimator. -- Die Analyse von zusammengefügten Personen- und Firmendaten ist bisher nicht in die Statistiksprogramme integriert worden. In dem vorliegenden Beitrag werden die ursprünglich von Abowd, Kramarz, Margolis u.a. entwickelten Analyseverfahren aufbereitet und, sofern möglich, wird gezeigt, wie diese in Stata implementiert werden können. Die vorgestellten Methoden werden mit einem kombinierten Firmen-Beschäftigtendatensatz (LIAB) aus Deutschland veranschaulicht. Es gibt jedoch eine Einschränkung: sofern die Anzahl der Firmen sehr großist und man die Korrelation zwischen den unbeobachtbaren Personen- und Firmenheterogenitäten schätzen möchte, können die in diesem Papier vorgestellten Regressionstechniken nicht verwendet werden. In dieser Fassung des Papiers wird der in der vorherigen Version verwendete 2-Stufen-Schätzer durch einen ?Classical Minimum Distance?-Schätzer ersetzt.linked employee-employer panel data,fixed effects

Practical estimation methods for linked employer-employee data

Methods for the analysis of linked employer-employee data are not yet available in standard econometrics packages. In this paper, we make the fixed-effects methods developed orginally by Abowd, Kramarz, Margolis and others more accessible, where possible, and show how they can be implemented in Stata. To illustrate these techniques, we give an example using German linked data. There is a caveat: when the number of plants is prohibitively large and the investigator wants to estimate the correlation between the worker and firm unobserved heterogeneities, the regression-based techniques discussed are not feasible. We also report an estimate of the correlation of zero. -- Die Analyse von zusammengefügten Personen- und Firmendaten ist bisher nicht in die Statistiksprogramme integriert worden. In dem vorliegenden Beitrag werden die ursprünglich von Abowd, Kramarz, Margolis u.a. entwickelten Analyseverfahren aufbereitet und, sofern möglich, wird gezeigt, wie diese in Stata implementiert werden können. Die vorgestellten Methoden werden mit einem kombinierten Firmen-Beschäftigtendatensatz (LIAB) aus Deutschland veranschaulicht. Es gibt jedoch eine Einschränkung: sofern die Anzahl der Firmen sehr groß ist und man die Korrelation zwischen den unbeobachtbaren Personen- und Firmenheterogenitäten schätzen möchte, können die in diesem Papier vorgestellten Regressionstechniken nicht verwendet werden. In Übereinstimmung mit anderen Studien finden wir ebenfalls eine Korrelation von Null.linked employee-employer panel data,fixed effects

High wage workers and low wage firms : negative assortative matching or statistical artefact?

In the empirical literature on the estimation of firm and worker heterogeneity using linked employer-employee data, unobserved worker quality appears to be negatively correlated with unobserved firm quality. We investigate the possibility that this is simply caused by standard estimation error and develop formulae that show that the estimated correlation is biased downwards if there is true positive assortative matching and when any conditioning covariates are uncorrelated with the firm and worker fixed effects. This result applies to any two-way (or higher) error-components model estimated by fixed-effects methods. We apply these bias corrections to a large German linked employer-employee dataset. We find that although the biases can be considerable, they are not sufficiently large to remove the negative correlation entirely. -- Auf der Basis von zusammengefügten Betriebs- und Personendaten findet sich in der empirischen Literatur eine negative Korrelation zwischen den unbeobachteten Eigenschaften von Beschäftigten und denen von Betrieben. Wir zeigen formal, dass die geschätzte Korrelation nach unten verzerrt ist, sofern ein positives Matching existiert und sofern die übrigen Kovariate mit den Betriebs- und Beschäftigten Fixed Effects unkorreliert sind. Dieses Ergebnis kann allgemein auf jedes mehrdimensionale Fixed Effects Modell übertragen werden. Für kombinierte Firmen-Beschäftigtendaten aus Deutschland finden wir eine beträchtliche Verzerrung in der geschätzten Korrelation. Diese ist jedoch nicht groß genug, um die ermittelte negative Korrelation vollständig erklären zu können.linked employee-employer panel data,biases,fixed-effects

The Takeover and Selection Effects of Foreign Ownership in Germany : An Analysis Using Linked Worker-Firm Data

We use a linked employer-employee data set from Germany to estimate the wage effect of foreign-affiliates in East and West Germany. In addition, the wage effects of the large number of West German affiliates which are located in East Germany are also considered. The implemented techniques allow us to control both for worker- and plant-level unobserved components of earnings. We find large selection effects both in terms of worker and firm unobserved components of wages. The selection effect is larger for East German plants. Once it is taken into account, the genuine takeover effect is small and in some cases insignificantly different from zero. In contrast to the selection effect, the takeover effect is slightly larger in West Germany, where it amounts to 2.7 %. -- Mit einem deutschen kombinierten Betriebs-Beschäftigten-Datensatz wird analysiert, ob Betriebe im ausländischen Eigentum höhere Löhne zahlen. Auch werden Lohndifferentiale von ostdeutschen Betrieben in westdeutschem Eigentum untersucht. Die verwendeten Schätzmethoden erlauben es, für jeweils unbeobachtbare Personen- und Betriebsheterogenitäten zu kontrollieren. Bezüglich beider Komponenten werden große Selektionseffekte gefunden, wobei diese für ostdeutsche Betriebe größer sind. Der verbleibende (wahre) Übernahmeeffekt ist gering und teilweise nicht signifikant von Null verschieden. Im Gegensatz zum Selektionseffekt ist der Übernahmeeffekt etwas größer für Westdeutschland, wo er 2,7% beträgt.foreign ownership,wages,linked employer-employee data

Communicative success in spatial dialogue: The impact of functional features and dialogue strategies

This paper addresses the impact of dialogue strategies and functional features of spatial arrangements on communicative success. To examine the sharing of cognition between two minds in order to achieve a joint goal, we collected a corpus of 24 extended German-language dialogues in a referential communication task that involved furnishing a dolls’ house. Results show how successful communication, as evidenced by correct placement of furniture items, is affected by a) functionality of the furniture arrangement, b) previous task experience, and c) dialogue features such as description length and orientation information. To enhance research in this area, our 'Dolldialogue' corpus is now available as a free resource on www.dolldialogue.spac

Efficient Triangle Counting in Large Graphs via Degree-based Vertex Partitioning

The number of triangles is a computationally expensive graph statistic which is frequently used in complex network analysis (e.g., transitivity ratio), in various random graph models (e.g., exponential random graph model) and in important real world applications such as spam detection, uncovering of the hidden thematic structure of the Web and link recommendation. Counting triangles in graphs with millions and billions of edges requires algorithms which run fast, use small amount of space, provide accurate estimates of the number of triangles and preferably are parallelizable. In this paper we present an efficient triangle counting algorithm which can be adapted to the semistreaming model. The key idea of our algorithm is to combine the sampling algorithm of Tsourakakis et al. and the partitioning of the set of vertices into a high degree and a low degree subset respectively as in the Alon, Yuster and Zwick work treating each set appropriately. We obtain a running time $O \left(m + \frac{m^{3/2} \Delta \log{n}}{t \epsilon^2} \right)$ and an $\epsilon$ approximation (multiplicative error), where $n$ is the number of vertices, $m$ the number of edges and $\Delta$ the maximum number of triangles an edge is contained. Furthermore, we show how this algorithm can be adapted to the semistreaming model with space usage $O\left(m^{1/2}\log{n} + \frac{m^{3/2} \Delta \log{n}}{t \epsilon^2} \right)$ and a constant number of passes (three) over the graph stream. We apply our methods in various networks with several millions of edges and we obtain excellent results. Finally, we propose a random projection based method for triangle counting and provide a sufficient condition to obtain an estimate with low variance.Comment: 1) 12 pages 2) To appear in the 7th Workshop on Algorithms and Models for the Web Graph (WAW 2010

Practical estimation methods for linked employer-employee data

"Methods for the analysis of linked employer-employee data are not yet available in standard econometrics packages. In this paper, we make the fixed-effects methods developed orginally by Abowd, Kramarz, Margolis and others more accessible, where possible, and show how they can be implemented in Stata. To illustrate these techniques, we give an example using German linked data. There is a caveat: when the number of plants is prohibitively large and the investigator wants to estimate the correlation between the worker and firm unobserved heterogeneities, the regression-based techniques discussed are not feasible." (authjors abstract

Metaphoric coherence: Distinguishing verbal metaphor from `anomaly\u27

Theories and computational models of metaphor comprehension generally circumvent the question of metaphor versus “anomaly” in favor of a treatment of metaphor versus literal language. Making the distinction between metaphoric and “anomalous” expressions is subject to wide variation in judgment, yet humans agree that some potentially metaphoric expressions are much more comprehensible than others. In the context of a program which interprets simple isolated sentences that are potential instances of cross‐modal and other verbal metaphor, I consider some possible coherence criteria which must be satisfied for an expression to be “conceivable” metaphorically. Metaphoric constraints on object nominals are represented as abstracted or extended along with the invariant structural components of the verb meaning in a metaphor. This approach distinguishes what is preserved in metaphoric extension from that which is “violated”, thus referring to both “similarity” and “dissimilarity” views of metaphor. The role and potential limits of represented abstracted properties and constraints is discussed as they relate to the recognition of incoherent semantic combinations and the rejection or adjustment of metaphoric interpretations

The Spread of ICT and Productivity Growth: Is Europe really lagging behind in the New Economy?

The economic performance of some OECD countries over the past decade, most notably the United States, has renewed the interest of analysts and policy makers on economic growth and on how policy can eventually support it. This report sheds some light on this issue by relying on harmonised macro and sectoral data for OECD countries and a unique cross-country firm-level dataset. This allows to address a number of issues. What are the key factors explaining differences in output and productivity performances across OECD countries? What is the role of ICT-producing industry and the ICT-driven capital deepening in explaining the different growth patterns of countries? Does the adoption of IC technologies require organisational changes and/or changes in the composition of inputs? What is the contribution of new firms to overall productivity growth in general and in ICT-related sectors? Do ICT-industries show stronger firm and employment turnover rates? Is there any relationship between the spread of ICT and institutional features of the product and labour markets? For example, do stringent regulations on start-ups (as well as those affecting incumbents) affect the diffusion of ICT? Do differences in labour market policy and institutions explain different patterns of adoption of new technologies?Macro data clearly point to widening disparities in growth performance across the OECD countries, even on the basis of cyclically-adjusted series. These disparities are related to differences in labour utilisation rather than to widening differences in labour productivity growth rates: i.e. higher growth rates in output per capita observed in a number of countries have been accompanied by improvements in the utilisation of labour, while sluggish employment in others (mainly in continental Europe) have not been fully compensated by higher labour productivity growth, thereby leading to a further slowdown in output growth. However, observed changes in growth patterns in some countries are also the result of the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution. In particular, it is argued that those countries that have developed an ICT-producing industry -- and/or where other industries have been quick in adopting highly productive ICT equipment -- have been able to shift to higher output and productivity growth paths. In this respect, the United States and some smaller countries (e.g. Australia, Ireland) have benefited the most from this ICT revolution, while most large European economies are still lagging behind. The sectoral and micro analysis also reveals important cross-country differences. The U.S. economy seems to be better able to acquire comparative advantage in rapidly growing ICT market segments than most of its trading partners. At the micro level, there seems to be a different degree of "market experimentation" in the United States compared with Europe, even if aggregate firm turnover rates are similar. The findings suggest that in the U.S. new firms tend to be smaller (relative to average incumbent) and less productive when compared with their European counterparts, but, if successful, they also tend to grow much more rapidly.The micro evidence reported in the paper offers additional elements in our discussion of a growth-enhancing policy setting. Our results seem to suggest that certain institutional and regulatory settings may reduce the degree of market experimentation of new firms. This, in turn, could lower the speed with which a country shifts to a new technology, thereby offering an interpretation to the observed differences in innovation and adoption across the Atlantic. For example, low administrative costs of start-ups and not unduly strict regulations on labour adjustments in the United States, may stimulate potential entrepreneurs to start on a small scale, test the market and, if successful with their business plan, expand rapidly to reach the minimum efficient scale. In contrast, higher entry and adjustment costs in Europe may stimulate a pre-market selection of business plans with less market experimentation. Our econometric results lend some support to these considerations. By using pooled data (country, industry and time) we find that stringent regulatory settings in the product and labour markets contribute to hinder innovation activity and the adoption of leading technologies

Self-organising Thermoregulatory Huddling in a Model of Soft Deformable Littermates

Thermoregulatory huddling behaviours dominate the early experiences of developing rodents, and constrain the patterns of sensory and motor input that drive neural plasticity. Huddling is a complex emergent group behaviour, thought to provide an early template for the development of adult social systems, and to constrain natural selection on metabolic physiology. However, huddling behaviours are governed by simple rules of interaction between individuals, which can be described in terms of the thermodynamics of heat exchange, and can be easily controlled by manipulation of the environment temperature. Thermoregulatory huddling thus provides an opportunity to investigate the effects of early experience on brain development in a social, developmental, and evolutionary context, through controlled experimentation. This paper demonstrates that thermoregulatory huddling behaviours can self-organise in a simulation of rodent littermates modelled as soft-deformable bodies that exchange heat during contact. The paper presents a novel methodology, based on techniques in computer animation, for simulating the early sensory and motor experiences of the developing rodent