Does downward nominal wage rigidity dampen wage increases?

Focusing on the compression of wage cuts, many empirical studies find a high degree of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR). However, the resulting macroeconomic effects seem to be surprisingly weak. This contradiction can be explained within an intertemporal framework in which DNWR not only prevents nominal wage cuts but also induces firms to compress wage increases. We analyze whether a compression of wage increases occurs when DNWR is binding by applying Unconditional Quantile Regression and Seemingly Unrelated Regression to a data set comprising more than 169 million wage changes. We find evidence for a compression of wage increases and only very small effects of DNWR on average real wage growth. The results indicate that DNWR does not provide a strong argument against low inflation targets. --Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity,Wage Stickiness,Wage Compression,Unconditional Quantile Regression

Does Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity Dampen Wage Increases?

Focusing on the compression of wage cuts, many empirical studies find a high degree of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR). However, the resulting macroeconomic effects seem to be surprisingly weak. This contradiction can be explained within an intertemporal framework in which DNWR not only prevents nominal wage cuts but also induces firms to compress wage increases. We analyze whether a compression of wage increases occurs when DNWR is binding by applying Unconditional Quantile Regression and Seemingly Unrelated Regression to a data set comprising more than 169 million wage changes. We find evidence for a compression of wage increases and only very small effects of DNWR on average real wage growth. The results indicate that DNWR does not provide a strong argument against low inflation targets.downward nominal wage rigidity, wage stickiness, wage compression, unconditional quantile regression

Real wage cyclicality of newly hired workers

Several recent marcoeconomic models rely on rigid wages. Especially wage rigidity of newly hired workers seems to play a crucial role, since the decision of opening a vacancy or not is mainly influenced by their real wages. However, so far little empirical evidence exists on how real wages of newly hired workers react to business cycle conditions. This paper aims at filling this gap for a large economy, namely Germany, by analyzing the cyclical behavior or real wages of newly hired workers while controlling for "cyclical up- and downgrading" in employer/employee matches. For the analysis two endogenous variables are used: either the "typical" (e.g. modal) real wages paid to entrants into particular jobs of particular firms or entrants' individual real wages. The results show that entry-wages are not rigid, but considerably respond to business cycle conditions. This finding strengthens Pissarides' (2009) dismissal of theories based on cyclically rigid hiring wages. Furthermore, I show that the procyclicality of the employment / population ratio is (nearly) identical to the procyclicality of real entry-wages

Verbalabstrakta im Altirischen: Verbalnomina und verwandte Kategorien

In origin, Old Irish verbal nouns are verbal abstracts that have been grammaticalized in the course of the history of the Irish language and have become a fixed part of the verbal paradigm. On the other hand, verbal abstracts in Old Irish – like in other languages – can undergo various semantic changes and can then be lexicalized in a new meaning, as subject noun, object noun, result noun, locatival noun, instrumental noun and action noun. The article examines this twofold development and, in a case study on ingrimm ‘persecution’, tries to assess the suitability of criteria like subjective genitive, article and pluralization for the differentiation of verbal noun, verbal abstract and lexicalized action noun

Permanente und mobile Hochwasserschutzsysteme

Dieser Aufsatz ist Teil des folgenden Sammelbandes: Innovationen im Spezialtiefbau : Fachseminar am 05. Dezember 2013 an der Technischen Universität Berlin. – Hrsg.: Bernd Kochendörfer. - (Bauwirtschaft und Baubetrieb : Berichte ; 2). – Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2013 ISBN 978-3-7983-2663-7 (print) ISBN 978-3-7983-2664-4 (online) URN urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-44427 [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-44427]Spundwände können alte Deiche stabilisieren und wieder standsicher machen. Beim Neubau von Deichen bieten sich viele Einsatzmöglichkeiten für die Spundwand. Spundwandlösungen sind besonders wirtschaftlich, der Einbau erfolgt sehr schnell. Spundwände gewähren eine hohe Lebensdauer – der Wartungsaufwand und die Unterhaltskosten sind gering. Die Spundwand bietet viele Kombinationsmöglichen mit permanenten und temporären Aufsatzkonstruktionen. Es gibt eine Vielzahl praktischer Lösungen, die zugleich elegant und von hohem ästhetischem Anspruch sind

From potential to real entrepreneurship

"Not everyone who plans to set up a firm succeeds in doing so. This paper focuses on the phase before a firm is founded, the pre-nascent stage of the entrepreneurship process. Based upon cross-sectional data from the German section of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the specific aim of this paper is to shed some light on the selection that takes place during the entrepreneurial process and to explain empirically demographic and cognitive characteristics and differences between latent nascent entrepreneurs, nascent entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs. The results clearly reveal that there are both significant differences between and common determinants of the three phases of the entrepreneurial process. Education, the readiness to take risks, and role models are very important determinants during all phases. However, the regional environment and the age of the entrepreneur have quite a differentiating impact during the entrepreneurial process." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))Unternehmensgründung, Unternehmer, Unternehmensgründung - Planung, unternehmerische Qualifikation, Risikobereitschaft, Qualifikation, Berufsrolle, regionale Disparität, altersspezifische Faktoren

Wage Rigidity in Germany

The interaction between inflation and unemployment has concerned researchers and politicians for a long time. But is there really a compulsory trade-off between inflation and unemployment? The author pursues this and other questions concerning wage rigidity. The first and major part of the book focuses on downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR). It provides an overview on causes, extent, and implications of DNWR, deals with the macroeconomic consequences of DNWR, and analyzes whether or not DNWR affects workers differently. The second part of the book deals with real wage rigidity of newly hired workers over the business cycle. It provides a brief overview on previous research and recent developments, and it presents empirical evidence on the cyclicality of real entry-wages in Germany.Die Interaktion zwischen Inflation und Arbeitslosigkeit beschäftigt Forscher und Politiker bereits eine längere Zeit. Doch existiert tatsächlich ein Zielkonflikt zwischen Inflation und Arbeitslosigkeit? Der Autor geht dieser und anderen Fragen, die sich mit Lohnstarreit beschäftigen, nach. Der erste und gewichtigste Teil des Buches beschäftigt sich mit Abwärtsnominallohnstarrheit. Er bietet einen Überblick über Ursachen, Ausmaß und Implikationen dieser Starrheit, betrachtet ihre makroökonomischen Konsequenzen und untersucht inwiefern die Starrheit Arbeitnehmer unterschiedlich betrifft. Der zweite Teil des Buches beschäftigt sich mit der Reallohnrigidität neu eingestellter Arbeitnehmer über den Konjunkturzyklus. Der Buchteil bietet einen kurzen Überblick bisheriger empirischer Untersuchungen und neuester Entwicklungen und stellt empirische Evidenz zur Zyklizität von Einstiegslöhnen in Deutschland bereit

Consistency of Probabilistic Context-Free Grammars

We present an algorithm for deciding whether an arbitrary proper probabilistic context-free grammar is consistent, i.e., whether the probability that a derivation terminates is one. Our procedure has time complexity $\\\\mathcal O(n^3)$ in the unit-cost model of computation. Moreover, we develop a novel characterization of consistent probabilistic context-free grammars. A simple corollary of our result is that training methods for probabilistic context-free grammars that are based on maximum-likelihood estimation always yield consistent grammars