German works councils in the production process

We estimate the effects of works councils on productivity, 1997-2000, using the IAB Establishment Panel, a nationally representative German data set. We recoup the works council effect by estimating translog production functions, stochastic frontier production functions, and a model in first differences. Once we focus on a core sample of establishments with 21 to 100 employees in which the powers of the works council are a datum, it emerges that the positive productivity differential found in recent studies is a chimera. By the same token, neither is the works council effect negative. This result is important in its own right given the sharply opposing findings of past empirical research and the partisan positions these have helped sustain. -- Anhand des IAB-Betriebspanels, eines repräsentativen deutschen Firmendatensatzes, schätzen wir die Produktivitätswirkungen von Betriebsräten für den Zeitraum 1997-2000. Wir ermitteln den Betriebsratseffekt durch Schätzung von Translog-Produktionsfunktionen und Modellen in ersten Differenzen sowie durch stochastische Produktionsrandschätzungen. Wenn wir uns auf eine Kernstichprobe von Betrieben mit 21 bis 100 Beschäftigten konzentrieren, innerhalb derer die Rechte des Betriebsrats sich nicht ändern, erweist sich das in jüngeren Studien gefundene positive Produktivitätsdifferenzial als Chimäre. Allerdings fällt der Betriebsratseffekt auch nicht negativ aus. Diese Erkenntnis ist angesichts der extrem gegensätzlichen Ergebnisse früherer Studien und der darauf aufbauenden konträren Positionen besonders wichtig.Works council,production functions,panel data,Germany

Do Works Councils Inhibit Investment?

Theory suggests that firms confront a hold-up problem in dealing with workplace unionism: unions will appropriate a portion of the quasi rents stemming from long-lived capital. As a result, firms may be expected to limit their exposure to rent seeking by reducing investments, among other things. Although there is some empirical support for this prediction in firm-level studies for the United States, we investigate whether this is also the case in the different institutional context of Germany where the works council is the analogue of workplace unionism. Using parametric and nonparametric methods and establishment panel data, we find no evidence that the formation (dissolution) of a works council has an unfavorable (favorable) impact on investment. -- Theoretische Überlegungen deuten darauf hin, dass Firmen durch Arbeitnehmervertretungen auf Betriebsebene wie Gewerkschaften mit einem ?hold-up?-Problem konfrontiert werden, da letztere sich einen Teil der Quasi-Renten aus langlebigen Kapitalinvestitionen aneignen können. Deshalb mögen die Firmen ihre Anfälligkeit für derartiges ?rent seeking? dadurch verringern, dass sie ihre Investitionen zurückfahren. Während es für diese Hypothese empirische Bestätigungen durch Firmenstudien aus den USA gibt, untersuchen wir, ob dies auch in dem unterschiedlichen institutionellen Umfeld in Deutschland der Fall ist, wo statt Betriebsgewerkschaften Betriebsräte eine ähnliche Rolle spielen können. Unter Verwendung von parametrischen und nichtparametrischen Methoden sowie von Betriebspaneldaten finden wir keine empirischen Hinweise darauf, dass die Errichtung (bzw. Abschaffung) eines Betriebsrates einen negativen (bzw. positiven) Einfluss auf das betriebliche Investitionsverhalten hat.Investment,works councils,rent seeking,Germany,panel data

The Demand for Labor: An Analysis Using Matched Employer-Employee Data from the German LIAB. Will the High Unskilled Worker Own-Wage Elasticity Please Stand Up?

This paper uses matched employee-employer LIAB data to provide panel estimates of the structure of labor demand in Germany, 1993-2002, distinguishing between highly skilled, skilled, and unskilled labor and between the manufacturing and service sectors. Reflecting current preoccupations, our demand analysis seeks also to accommodate the impact of technology and trade in addition to wages. The bottom-line interests are to provide elasticities of the demand for unskilled (and other) labor that should assist in short-run policy design and to identify the extent of skill biases or otherwise in trade and technology.labor demand, own-wage/cross-wage elasticities, trade, technology and organizational change, linked employee-employer data, panel estimates

Works Councils, Labor Productivity and Plant Heterogeneity: First Evidence from Quantile Regressions

Using OLS and quantile regression methods and rich cross-section data sets for western and eastern Germany, this paper demonstrates that the impact of works council presence on labor productivity varies between manufacturing and services, between plants that are or are not covered by collective bargaining, and along the conditional distribution of labor productivity. No productivity effects of works councils are found for the service sector and in manufacturing plants not covered by collective bargaining. Besides demonstrating that it is important to look at evidence based on more than one data set, our empirical findings point to the efficacy of supplementing OLS with quantile regression estimates when investigating the behavior of heterogeneous plants.Labor productivity, works councils, quantile regressions, heterogeneous firms

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

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

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

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