Agenda 2020: Strategies to Achieve Full Employment in Germany

This strategy paper by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) shows ways in which Germany once more can attain full employment in the coming decade. Much of what the previous government's "Agenda 2010" has put into motion has clearly steered labor market development in the right direction. The reforms are one of the main reasons why Germany has been more resistant to the recent financial and economic crisis than other countries. While these achievements should not be called into question, further action is necessary. The IZA concept includes the following elements: (1) Education reform: Early childhood education must be improved. Social background should no longer determine future career prospects. More independence and competition between schools and universities would improve the quality of education. Selection of students into different secondary school tracks should occur at a higher age. The dual system of apprenticeship training could be shortened. College tuition fees could be replaced by a graduate tax. (2) Welfare state reform: A consistent implementation of the principle of reciprocity would create additional employment incentives and make working for a living worthwhile again even for the low-skilled. Workfare is socially just and promotes independence rather than producing dependency. Child benefits should be granted primarily as vouchers. (3) Job placement reform: The problem groups of the labor market need one-stop support tailored to their individual needs as soon as they become unemployed. IZA proposes the creation of job centers that act independently from local and federal authorities in order to avoid the organizational maze of unclear responsibilities. (4) Immigration policy reform: Germany needs high-skilled immigrants to cope with demographic change and skilled labor shortages. A selection system for permanent immigrants and a market-based solution for temporary immigrants would substantially increase the economic benefits of immigration and create additional momentum for the realization of full employment.labor market policy, Agenda 2010, Hartz reforms, workfare, job center, education, demography, migration policy

LEAST COST EFFICIENCY OF AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

The study evaluates the efficiency of government intervention using a vertical structured model including imperfectly competitive agricultural input markets, the bread grains market, and the imperfectly competitive food industry. The actually observed policy is compared to a hypothetical optimal policy of the same policy instruments to test for policy efficiency.Agricultural and Food Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Dynamics of Water Movement near Boundaries of the Vadose Zone

Processes at boundaries of the unsaturated soil water zone were investigated: At the upper boundary evaporation at the soil-atmosphere interface, and at the lower boundary the dynamic capillary fringe. For studying the upper boundary, an evaporation experiment at the representative elementary volume (REV) scale was considered and modelled numerically. A model with a diffusive boundary layer and a 1D Richards' description including vapour transport fitted well to experimental data. It showed a boundary layer dominated regime in the wet range and a regime where dynamics is controlled by soil hydraulic properties in the dry range. The model could successfully be used to determine soil hydraulic properties from the corresponding evaporation experiment by inverse modelling using a Monte-Carlo Levenberg-Marquardt approach. For the lower boundary, light transmission and NIR imaging spectroscopy methods were developed and employed to measure the micro- and macroscopic water distribution in response to transient boundary conditions in a semi-2D sand medium in a Hele-Shaw cell with high temporal and spacial resolution. The analysis showed that coupled multi-phase and dynamic non-equillibrium effects are essential to understand water movement in dynamic capillary fringes, and sub-REV processes play an important role in the dynamics

A new method to determine multi-angular reflectance factor from lightweight multispectral cameras with sky sensor in a target-less workflow applicable to UAV

A new physically based method to estimate hemispheric-directional reflectance factor (HDRF) from lightweight multispectral cameras that have a downwelling irradiance sensor is presented. It combines radiometry with photogrammetric computer vision to derive geometrically and radiometrically accurate data purely from the images, without requiring reflectance targets or any other additional information apart from the imagery. The sky sensor orientation is initially computed using photogrammetric computer vision and revised with a non-linear regression comprising radiometric and photogrammetry-derived information. It works for both clear sky and overcast conditions. A ground-based test acquisition of a Spectralon target observed from different viewing directions and with different sun positions using a typical multispectral sensor configuration for clear sky and overcast showed that both the overall value and the directionality of the reflectance factor as reported in the literature were well retrieved. An RMSE of 3% for clear sky and up to 5% for overcast sky was observed

TESTING FOR EFFICIENCY: A POLICY ANALYSIS WITH PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS

The study evaluates the efficiency of government intervention using a vertical structured model including imperfectly competitive agricultural input markets, the bread grain market, and the imperfectly competitive food industry. To test for policy efficiency the actually observed bread grain policy is compared to a hypothetical efficient policy. To account for the sensitivity of the results in regard to the model parameter values computer-intensive simulation procedures and surface response functions are utilized.agricultural policy, efficient combination of policy instruments, statistical policy analysis, Productivity Analysis,

Two-photon Double Ionization of H2_2 in Intense Femtosecond Laser Pulses

Triple-differential cross sections for two-photon double ionization of molecular hydrogen are presented for a central photon energy of 30 eV. The calculations are based on a fully {\it ab initio}, nonperturbative, approach to the time-dependent Schroedinger equation in prolate spheroidal coordinates, discretized by a finite-element discrete-variable-representation. The wave function is propagated in time for a few femtoseconds using the short, iterative Lanczos method to study the correlated response of the two photoelectrons to short, intense laser radiation. The current results often lie in between those of Colgan {\it et al} [J. Phys. B {\bf 41} (2008) 121002] and Morales {\it et al} [J. Phys. B {\bf 41} (2009) 134013]. However, we argue that these individual predictions should not be compared directly to each other, but preferably to experimental data generated under well-defined conditions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Was the Austrian agricultural policy least cost efficient?

The study evaluates the efficiency of government intervention using a vertical structured model including imperfectly competitive agricultural input markets, the bread grain market, and the imperfectly competitive food industry. To test for policy efficiency the actually observed bread grain policy is compared to a hypothetical efficient policy. To account for the sensitivity of the results in regard to the model parameter values computer-intensive simulation procedures and surface response functions are utilized.agricultural policy; efficient combination of policy instruments; statistical welfare analysis