Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik

Open Access Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Volume 236 Issue 4 -

Issue of Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik

Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available July 8, 2016

Frontmatter

Page range: i-iii

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Original Papers

June 14, 2016

It’s About Connections – How the Economic Network of the German Federal Government Affects the Top Earners’ Average Income Tax Rate

Katrin Scharfenkamp

Page range: 427-453

Abstract

Building on arguments to political incomes, career concerns and elitist networks, this study assumes that an increasing percentage of highly incentivized former executive board members within the German Federal Government (1957–2012) will decrease the top earners’ average income tax rate during the subsequent year. Conversely, the percentage of lower incentivized former supervisory board members is assumed to increase the top earners’ average income tax rate. Both effects are assumed to be enforced if the ruling parties have strong support in the German Bundestag. The empirical results significantly confirm the unconditional effect for former executive board members and the conditional effect for former supervisory board members. Corresponding to sociological findings (see Hartmann 2002, Der Mythos von den Leistungseliten. Frankfurt a.M., Campus) and building on Barro’s (1973, The Control of Politicians: An Economic Model. Public Choice 14(1): 19–42) approach to the selfish maximization of political income and arguments regarding career concerns from principal agent theory (see, e. g. Fama 1980, Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm. Journal of Political Economy 88, 288–307), this study assumes a strong incentive for former executive board members in the German Federal Government (1957–2012) to maximize their political income by lowering the top earners’ average income tax rate (1958–2013) due to their social elitist homogeneity and career concerns in terms of future job opportunities in business corporations. Conversely, former supervisory board members are assumed to increase the top earners’ average income tax rate due to their differing social backgrounds. Despite possible career concerns, they are assumed to increase the top earners’ average income tax rate in order not to lose their previously gained ideological credibility. Both effects are assumed to be enforced if the ruling parties have more than or equal to 55 % of seats in the German Bundestag. By running OLS and Tobit regressions, the empirical results confirm an unconditional decreasing effect of a higher percentage of previous executive board members and a conditional increasing effect of a higher percentage of previous supervisory board members on the top earners’ average income tax rate.

June 11, 2016

A Flexible Link Function for Discrete-Time Duration Models

Wolfgang Hess, Gerhard Tutz, Jan Gertheiss

Page range: 455-481

Abstract

This paper proposes a discrete-time hazard regression approach based on the relation between hazard rate models and excess over threshold models, which are frequently encountered in extreme value modelling. The proposed duration model employs a flexible link function and incorporates the grouped-duration analogue of the well-known Cox proportional hazards model and the proportional odds model as special cases. The theoretical setup of the model is motivated, and simulation results are reported, suggesting that the model proposed performs well. The simulation results and an empirical analysis of US import durations also show that the choice of link function in discrete hazard models has important implications for the estimation results, and that severe biases in the results can be avoided when using a flexible link function.

July 8, 2016

Forward or Backward Looking? The Economic Discourse and the Observed Reality

Jochen Lüdering, Peter Winker

Page range: 483-515

Abstract

Is academic research anticipating economic shake-ups or merely reflecting the past? Exploiting the corpus of articles published in the Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik) for the years 1949 to 2010, this pilot study proposes a quantitative framework for addressing these questions. The framework comprises two steps. First, methods from computational linguistics are used to identify relevant topics and their relative importance over time. In particular, Latent Dirichlet Analysis is applied to the corpus after some preparatory work. Second, for some of the topics which are closely related to specific economic indicators, the developments of topic weights and indicator values are confronted in dynamic regression and VAR models. The results indicate that for some topics of interest, the discourse in the journal leads developments in the real economy, while for other topics it is the other way round.

Data Observer

Open Access February 23, 2016

A Unique Research Data Infrastructure for Educational Research and Beyond: The National Educational Panel Study

Daniel Fuß, Jutta von Maurice, Hans-Günther Roßbach

Page range: 517-528

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Abstract

The article provides an insight into the conceptual and methodological framework as well as the research data infrastructure of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). The NEPS study has been set up to build a profound empirical basis for the description and analysis of educational processes and competence development across the life span. Its large-scale database consists of longitudinal information from more than 60,000 target respondents – distributed over six different starting cohorts ranging from newborns to adults – and from relevant context persons such as parents or teachers. The complex multicohort sequence design schedules annual or even semiannual survey waves including a broad spectrum of competence assessments. All data are thoroughly prepared, documented, and disseminated free of charge in the form of regularly expanded Scientific Use Files. In addition to some background information about NEPS in general, this paper primarily focuses on issues of data collection, data structure, data availability, and the requirements for different types of data access. The number of more than 1,000 data users involved in over 700 research projects so far serves to highlight the potential of NEPS as a unique research data infrastructure for educational research and beyond.

Book Review

July 8, 2016

Eswaran, Mukesh: Why Gender Matters in Economics, Winner of the 2015 PROSE Award in Textbook/Social Sciences

Miriam Beblo

Page range: 529-531

About this journal

The Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik) is a scientific journal published in Germany since 1863. The journal publishes papers in all fields of economics and applied statistics. A specific focus is on papers combining theory with empirical analyses. Papers providing conclusions for economic policy in Europe are particularly welcome. Nevertheless, distinguished papers dealing exlusively with economic theory, empirical models, or economic history, will not be excluded from consideration.

The editors invite replication studies focusing on the robustness of empirical findings. The section Data Observer presents articles on data sets available for empirical research and institutions providing research data. The journal also publishes special issues, short comments, and book reviews. All freely accessible contributions, including the Data Observer articles, can be found via the website's article search functionality.

Journal of Economics and Statistics now also at Twitter.

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Starting 2023, the Journal of Economics and Statistics will be transferred to Diamond Open Access on a year-by-year basis. All articles will thus immediately appear under the Creative Commons license CC-BY. There will be no publication costs for the authors.
The Open Access transformation is based on Subscribe-to-Open, an alternative model that enables the full Open Access transformation of journals through the continuation of existing subscriptions. The prerequisite for successful transformation is that subscriptions are continued to the same extent as before. The editors of the Journal of Economics and Statistics and the publisher De Gruyter would therefore like to thank all subscribers for their support, which has made the transformation to Open Access possible.

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Call for Papers

Special Issue on "Sports Economics"

Guest Editors: Bernd Frick, Paderborn University; Thomas Peeters, Erasmus University Rotterdam; Rob Simmons, Lancaster University

Timeline: Submission of full papers November 30, 2023

Further details

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Special Issue on "Advancing Agent-Based Economics"

Guest Editors: Michael Neugart, Technical University of Darmstadt) and Frank Westerhoff, University of Bamberg

Timeline: Submission of full papers December 31, 2023

Further details

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Special Issue on "Central Bank Digital Currency"

Guest Editors: Katrin Assenmacher, European Central Bank and Michael Frenkel, WHU

Timeline: Submission of full papers January 08, 2024

Further details

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