In this paper, we review the most common specifications of discrete-time stochastic volatility (SV) models and illustrate the major principles of corresponding Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based statistical inference. We provide a hands-on ap proach which is easily implemented in empirical...

This paper makes three contributions to the literature on the effects of collective bargaining on the performance of German establishments. We include the analysis of firms' efficiency and we model productivity and efficiency simultaneously. Confronted with 25 % observations with missing values,...

Using representative micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) for the year 2002, we analyse non-take-up behaviour of Social Assistance (SA) in Germany. According to our simulation as much as 67 percent of the eligible population did not claim SA in that year which is slightly...

With the 2008 reform of business taxation (Unternehmensteuerreform 2008) a preferential treatment of retained earnings for non-incorporated companies was introduced: Earnings may be retained at a preferential tax rate (29.8%) and will be subjected to supplementary tax (26.4%) when they will be...

We estimate the elasticity of corporate taxable income with respect to the effective corporate tax rate on the basis of a pseudo-panel constructed from corporate tax return micro data for the period 1998-2001, a period which saw the introduction of a major corporate tax reform in Germany....

This note shows that German real GDP follows a trend-stationary process. Both tests which have trend-stationarity as the alternative hypothesis as well as tests that have it under the null hypothesis prefer the trend-stationary model. Explicit consideration of breaks in the trend is not...

This paper illustrates the effects of item-nonresponse in surveys on the results of multivariate statistical analysis when estimation of productivity is the task. To multiply impute the missing data a data augmentation algorithm based on a normal/Wishart model is applied. Data of the German IAB...

It is argued that the observed return rates on capital at firm-level have an upward bias if firms are producing with unobserved intangible capital. Using EUKLEED, a comprehensive firm level data base for Germany, this theoretical preposition is proved empirically. Furthermore, making unobserved...

In our analysis we discuss several dynamic panel data estimators proposed in the literature and assess their performance in Monte Carlo simulations. It is a well known fact that the natural choice, the least squares dummy variable estimator is biased in the context of dynamic estimation. The...

Results from portfolio models for credit risk tell us that loan concentration in certain industry sectors can substantially increase the value-at-risk (VaR). The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether a tractable "infection model" can provide a meaningful estimate of the impact of...