This paper develops a sample selection model for fractional response variables, i.e., variables taking values between zero and one. It is shown that the proposed model is consistent with the nature of the fractional response variable, i.e., it generates predictions between zero and one. A...

This research project ranks German regions with help of interregional migration data instead of gross domestic product, household incomes, unemployment or quality of life estimates. Therefore we estimate regional utility differentials for German states and planning regions following the approach...

The standard gravity model of aggregate migration erroneously assumes homogeneity, quasi-symmetry, and (log) linearity. As a result, estimation of the model using, say, the convenient OLS estimator is plagued by omitted-variables and misspecification biases. This paper, therefore, presents...

The paper uses a large survey (GSOEP) to analyze the labor market performance of immigrants in Germany. It finds that new immigrant workers earn on average 20 percent less than native workers with otherwise identical characteristics. The gap is smaller for immigrants from advanced countries,...

The overestimation of willingness-to-pay (WTP) in hypothetical responses is a well-known finding in the literature. Various techniques have been proposed to remove or, at least, reduce this bias. Using about 30,000 responses on WTP for a variety of power mixes from a panel of 6,500 German...

Stylized facts show that migrants more often face overqualified employment than natives. As shown by previous research, one third of the employed foreign born with tertiary education in the EU-15 are overqualified, with levels reaching up to 57.6%, compared to 20.9% among natives. Among the...

The classical Heckman (1976, 1979) selection correction estimator (heckit) is misspecified and inconsistent if an interaction of the outcome variable and an explanatory variable matters for selection. To address this specification problem, a full information maximum likelihood estimator and a...

This paper uses several macroeconomic and financial indicators within a Markov Switching (MS) framework to predict the turning points of the business cycle. The presented model is applied to monthly German real-time data covering the recession and the recovery after the financial crisis. We show...

In a competitive market situation, a symmetric price transmission is expected, and the speed of adjustment of the market should be equal, no matter in which direction input prices are going (up or down). When inputs' prices increase, firms need to pass on costs to avoid negative profit...