Institute for East European Studies - Archive
2010
Dezember 2010
OEI-Informationen 4/2010 erschienen
Kürzlich erschien die Ausgabe 4/2010 der OEI-Informationen. Sie informiert aktuell über Forschung, Veranstaltungen und Publikationen des Osteuropa-Instituts Regensburg. U.a. enthält sie einen Überblick über die Hochschulschriften- und Projektedatenbank zur osteuropäischen Geschichte und berichtet vom Start der neuen Online-Publikation „OEI Policy Issues Online". In einem Gastbeitrag anlässlich des 80. Geburtstags des Südost-Instituts beschäftigt sich dessen Direktor, Prof. Dr. Ulf Brunnbauer, mit dem Thema „Südosteuropäische Geschichte heute. Räumliche Verflechtung, Vergleich und Transnationalität".
December 2010
Articles by Jürgen Jerger and Michael Knogler
The article on EU enlargement and economic and monetary union (Jürgen Jerger) and an article on labor markets in the new EU member states (Michael Knogler) were published in a conference volume of the Colloquium Opole 2009, released in Opole 2010.
December 2010
OEI output on RePEc and SSRN
In order to increase the visibility of the scientific output produced by the Department of Economics, Migration and Integration of the OEI, the Working Papers and Policy Papers series are disseminated via RePEc and SSRN. For further information see the institutional profile on RePEc and the individual pages of the OEI affiliates on SSRN.
December 2010
The new Spotlight Ukraine November 2010 is now available.
November 2010
New OEI working paper by Sascha O. Becker, Katrin Boeckh, Christa Hainz, and Ludger Woessmann
In working paper No. 290 (also published as Mitteilung No. 60) with the title "The Empire Is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Values and Human Interactions a Decade after the Habsburg Empire" the authors try to answer the question: Do empires affect human values and behavior long after their demise? The paper hypothesizes that the Habsburg Empire, which was characterized by a localized and well-respected administration, increased people's trust in local state services. After the fall of the Habsburg Empire, in several Eastern European countries, communities on both sides of the long-gone Habsburg border have been sharing common formal institutions for 90 years now. In border specifications that restrict identification to individuals living inside a restricted band around the former border, the authors find that historical Habsburg affiliation increases current trust and reduces corruption in local public services.
Publications
November 2010
Jews passing through – a new publication by Roman Smolorz
Roman Smolorz presents a study of the history of Jews in occupied post-war Germany, dealing with various political and ideological options they had, especially Zionism. New facts and figures about the formation of the Jewish Community in Regensburg make this study relevant for local & regional historiography as well.
November 2010
New OEI Working Paper by Richard Frensch and Achim Schmillen, forthcoming in Economic Systems
In Working Paper No. 288, Richard Frensch and Achim Schmillen attempt to identify Balassa-Samuelson effects with innovative trade-based variety measures to differentiate between tradables and non-tradables sector productivities. Different from earlier empirical studies, this method does not suffer from errors-in-variables measurement errors leading to downward-biased estimates. Using a pairwise regression approach, the authors find stable and very robust Balassa-Samuelson effects over all specifications. OEI Working Paper 288 presents an already revised version that has been accepted for publication in the March 2011 special issue of Economic Systems on Variety and Quality of Trade in Development and Transition.
November 2010
Historical Contribution on Forced Migrations in Ukraine by Katrin Boeckh
Forced migrations of peoples and ethnicities are a phenomenon much more common in the history of Eastern Europe than in its western part. Katrin Boeckh now presented a case study on the forced migrations in Ukraine after World War II and their political implications, which was published in the journal Bohemia, vol. 50 (2010), No. 1, under the title „Zwangsmigration und Zivilisation im Stalinismus. Die Westukraine nach 1944/45".
November 2010
New Memorandum by Michael Knogler
The impact of the global crisis on labor markets in the new EU member states (EU10) is determined - apart from stages in the business cycle - by welfare-state institutions. Most notably the labor-force participation rate is extremely low among older workers in EU10. An overview of social protection in the case of unemployment in OEI Memorandum No. 49 shows that sickness or disability pension and early retirement schemes rather than unemployment benefits account for this phenomenon.
October 2010
New Spotlight Ukraine
The new Spotlight Ukraine October 2010 is now available.
October 2010
New OEI Working Paper by Evžen Kočenda and Jan Hanousek
In Working Paper No. 291 Evžen Kočenda and Jan Hanousek analyze the long-term effects of divesture and ownership change on corporate performance. They employ a unique data set for a large number of Czech firms spanning the period 1996-2005. They employ a propensity score matching procedure do deal with endogeneity problems. Their results, which are generally in line with the positive effects of divestiture found in the developed-market literature, show that the initial effects of divestiture are positive but after a certain point they quickly diminish over time.
October 2010
OEI Working Paper forthcoming in Economics Letters
OEI Working Paper No. 283 (April 2010), entitled "The Fixed Wage Puzzle: Why Profit Sharing Is So Hard to Implement," and jointly written by Jürgen Jerger and Jochen Michaelis (University of Kassel) was accepted for publication in Economics Letters. The paper asks, why profit sharing arrangements are relatively rare and offers a solution of this fixed wage puzzle by adopting a perspective of bounded rationality. Specifically, the authors can show that share arrangements that fulfill plausible constraints are not generally acceptable to both firms and unions.
September 2010
OEI launches new publication series “OEI Policy Issues online”
Starting in September 2010, the OEI presents its new publication series „OEI Policy Issues online". The “OEI Policy Issues online” discuss current policy-relevant topics from the field of OEI research and address the wider interested public at national and international level. Backed by regularly updated graphs and tables, the site provides the reader with background knowledge on the topic and offers a critical discussion and comments on recent developments. Links to underlying documentation and literature, as well as links to further reading and other relevant sites complement the service to the reader. The first issue of „OEI Policy Issues online" analyses the new Reform Program of the Ukrainian Government and is available at the OEI homepage.
September 2010
OEI-Informationen 3/2010 published
Recently, the OEI published issue 3/2010 of the German-language OEI-Informationen. The issue contains up-to-date information on the OEI’s research, events and publications. For instance it gives an overview over teaching activities by OEI researchers during the winter term 2010/2011 and reports on Achim Schmillen’s research visit to the University of California, Berkeley. In a comment Manuela Troschke from the Department of Economics discusses the topic “Ukraine: New Government – New Reforms – New Economy?”
September 2010
Spotlight Ukraine
The new Spotlight Ukraine September 2010 is now available.
September 2010
Article of Michael Knogler in Ukraine-Analysen
In a contribution to the current issue of Länderanalysen Ukraine Michael Knogler investigates patterns and determinants of growth in Ukraine in a medium-term and a long-term perspective. During 2000-2008, high growth in Ukraine was supported by favorable external conditions and was mainly demand-driven. In addition to capital deepening, long-term growth will require maintaining robust total factor productivity, i.e. transfer of technology and efficient allocation of resources. Poor economic and political framework conditions are the main development barriers in Ukraine. The article suggests some main areas of reforms to overcome these obstacles. http://www.laender-analysen.de/ukraine/pdf/UkraineAnalysen79.pdf
August 2010
New OEI Working Paper by Christian Dreger and Jarko Fidrmuc
In Working Paper No. 289 Christian Dreger and Jarko Fidrmuc investigate the likely sources of exchange rate dynamics in selected CIS countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) over the last decade (1999-2010). Evidence is based on country VARs augmented by a regional common factor structure (FAVAR model). The impact of global shocks on the developments of exchange rates has increased, in particular, if financial shocks are considered. Because of the financial crisis, regional shocks have become more important at the expense of global shocks.
July 2010
New Working Paper by Ekaterina Selezneva
In Working Paper 287 Ekaterina Selezneva investigates whether male or female perceptions of potential mismatches between socially imposed patriarchal family gender roles and the actually performed ones influence their reported life satisfaction. It is concluded that for the period 1994 - 1998, the relative unhappiness of women is likely to be caused by their increasing earning powers relative to men or their overload with housekeeping activities in households with children. During the second sub-period, 2000 - 2004, a change in women's preferences over time-use and income shares is observed, suggesting a tendency towards wishing for their emancipation.
July 2010
New OEI Working Paper by Enzo Weber
Capital formation, exports and FDI are often seen as major sources of economic growth in emerging markets. Enzo Weber's OEI Working Paper No. 286
analyses the impacts of these aggregates on economic development in Eastern European countries. In a structural multivariate cointegrated time series framework, the fundamental innovations are identified by empirically and theoretically motivated short- and long-run restrictions. Impulse responses and variance decompositions reveal quite different growth effects in various countries. Generally, strong reliance on exports goes along with higher GDP. This effect is more prevalent in Eastern Europe compared to Asia Pacific, where capital accumulation played a key role. Furthermore, FDI bears substantial potential for fostering economic growth. It is shown that the recent worldwide recession clearly hit Eastern Europe through the export channel, whereas the recovery is mainly supported by positive demand shocks.
July 2010
New Spotlight Ukraine
The new Spotlight Ukraine July 2010 is now available.
June 2010
Paper by Ekaterina Selezneva is forthcoming in Economic Systems
A revised version of the OEI Working Paper No. 279 is forthcoming in Economic Systems. In "Surveying transitional experience and subjective well-being: income, work, family," Ekaterina Selezneva reviews subjective well-being studies on income, work and family life with a particular attention to transition countries. The main differences with respect to developed countries appear to be the results of uncertainty and fast changing conditions, and their effect upon the perception of subjective economic conditions, and on the formation of expectations. A short summary of more than 70 studies involving subjective well-being and attitude indicators on data from economies in transition is included as well.
June 2010
Short Article by Katrin Boeckh
Historian Katrin Boeckh examines the conditions for the development of a civil society in 20th century Ukraine in a short article.
The essay was published in a conference volume about the Ukraine and the end of the Communist Regime release in Ternopil' 2010.
June 2010
New Memorandum by Ekaterina Sprenger and Volkhart Vincentz
Central and Eastern European Countries have been severely affected by the 2008 financial crisis. Several ways of contagion of the financial turmoil worked at different strengths in the different countries. Although the disparities of the effects of the financial crisis are rather large, there are a number of common explanatory features.
Mechanisms of transmission of the global financial crisis to the CEECs and its effects on these countries are discussed in the OEI Memorandum No. 48.
June 2010
New OEI Working Paper by Achim Schmillen
The assumption that national labor markets are homogenous across tradable and non-tradable goods is common in multisector (open-economy) macro models and crucial for the prominent Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis. The OEI Working Paper No. 285 by Achim Schmillen tests it with a novel method to distinguish the tradable and non-tradable sectors grounded in economic theory, modern empirical methods and a large and detailed macro data set. It finds that both the internal relationship between productivity and wages in the tradable and non-tradable sectors postulated by the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis and its external transmission mechanism are rejected.
Publications
June 2010
The new Spotlight Ukraine June 2010 is now available.
June 2010
New OEI Working Paper by Katharina Eck
In Working Paper No. 284, Katharina Eck explores the question how international trade can lead to economic growth. The starting point of her considerations is that technical progress is regarded as the only source of sustained economic growth. Consequently international trade will only affect economic growth if it influences the rate of technical progress. Via theoretical models and empirical evidence Katharina Eck argues that international trade fosters the production of ideas in industrial countries and the use of ideas in developing countries which is crucial for technical progress. Finally she shows in a separate analysis that the variety of imported capital goods in a country can contain information on its growth aspects.
May 2010
New research results on the Moscovite image of war in the age of tsar Ivan IV Groznyj (1530–1584)
These days the proceedings of the international conference on the history of the conflict between the main Baltic powers on the domination of the eastern part of the Baltic Sea at the beginning of the new era, which took place in november 2007 in St. Petersburg State University, were published in Moscow. In this book (“Baltijskij vopros v kontse XV–XVI vv. Sbornik nauchnykh statej” [The Baltic question at the end of the 15th and in the course of the 16th centuries. Collection of scientific articles]), edited by Aleksandr I. Filjushkin, you can find the treatise of Reinhard Froetschner, M.A., “Recepcija oficial’nogo moskovskogo „obraza vojny“ na periferii carstva i ego transformacija vsledstvie poraženija v Livonskoj vojne (na materiale povestvovatel’nych istočnikov iz Pskova konca XVI veka)” [The reception of the official Muscovite image of war at the periphery of the tsardom and its transformation as consequence of the defeat in the Livonian War in the mirror of narrative sources from Pskov from the end of the 16th century] (S. 275–291).
May 2010
New OEI Kurzanalyse by Michael Knogler: Employment adjustment und labour market measures in the new EU Member States
Kurzanalyse Nr. 46 summarizes the impact of the global financial crisis on employment and unemployment in the new EU Member Staates. Like in Germany job losses have been mitigated so far by recourse to increased internal flexibility in the form of shorter working hours. Some countries try to alleviate the impact of economic slowdown on the labour markets through labour market measures in the context of the European Economic Recovery Plan. pdf
April 2010
New OEI Working Paper by Michael Knogler
OEI Working Paper Nr. 282 paper investigates patterns and determinants of growth in Ukraine in a medium-term and a long-term perspective. During 2000-2008, high growth in Ukraine was supported by favourable external conditions and was mainly demand-driven. In addition to capital deepening, long-term growth will require maintaining robust total factor productivity, i.e. transfer of technology and efficient allocation of resources. Poor economic and political framework conditions are the main development barriers in Ukraine. The paper suggests some main areas of reforms to overcome these obstacles.
April 2010
Article of Michael Knogler in Ifo-Schnelldienst
To the discussion of the impact of the financial crisis on emerging markets Michael Knogler contributes in the current issue of Ifo-Schnelldienst with an article about the East-European model of export-led growth.
Mirow, Thomas / Schnabl, Gunther / Knogler, Michael / Gern, Klaus-Jürgen: "Auswirkungen der Krise auf Schwellenländer: Welches Entwicklungsmodell hat sich bewährt?," Ifo Schnelldienst, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, 2010 vol. 63(06), pages 03-17.
April 2010
The new Spotlight Ukraine April 2010 is now available.
March 2010
Wolfgang Quaisser staff member of the OEI has just recently published a short analysis on different exit-scenarios resulting from the current financial and economic crisis. You may download the paper from:
http://web.apb-tutzing.de/apb/cms/fileadmin/Publikationen/Akademie-Kurzanalysen/APBK-01-2010-WQ-5.pdf
March 2010
A number of emigrants from Eastern Europe, who had operated for the nazi-forces during World War II, have been working for Western and German intelligence service after the war without being further examined. Roman Smolorz pursues in his new Kurzanalysethe question why these emigrants were up to engage themselves against their home countries.
March 2010
IHK Regensburg publishes study by Jürgen Jerger and Michael Knogler
A new study, titled „Zwanzig Jahre Grenzöffnung – Fünf Jahre EU-Osterweiterung. Analysen und Perspektiven für den Wirtschaftsraum Oberpfalz/Kelheim und Westböhmen im europäischen Kontext” and commissioned by the IHK Regensburg, analyses the economic development of the Oberpfalz – Westböhmen region since the fall of the iron curtain. The study was presented on March, 16 at the IHK and published under its series „Standortpolitik“.
study (in German)
March 2010
The new Spotlight Ukraine March 2010 is now available.
March 2010
OEI-economist Annie Tubadji has her theoretical paper: “See the Forest, Not Only the Trees: Culture Based Development (CBD) - Conceptualizing Culture for Sustainable Development Purposes” published in the new joined volume: “Culture as a Tool for Development”, compiled by ACTED, the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development, in partnership with ENTP, the European New Towns Platform and CIR, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences. The publication has just come out, providing a series of theoretical studies and case study analysis on the topic of culture as an input factor for socio-economic processes. More on the topic at http://arcade.acted.org/
February 2010
OEI Working Paper No. 279 overviews happiness and satisfaction studies on income, work and family life domains with a particular attention to the subjective satisfaction patterns found for transitional countries. The main differences in conclusions with respect to the developed economies seem to be a result of uncertainty and fast changing conditions in transitional settings. A short summary for 76 studies involving subjective indicators on data from the economies in transition is included. OEI-Working Paper Nr. 279 can be downloaded at http://www.oei-dokumente.de/publikationen/wp/wp-279.pdf
February 2010
OEI Working Paper No. 281 explores migration movements and remittances patterns in Macedonia since independence and studies the migration policy challenges Macedonia will be likely to face after its entry into the EU. Concerning recent migration movements, considerable outflows from Macedonia are found as well as indications for a serious brain drain. In the light of the EU accession process, the Macedonian government will have to introduce policies which enhance the opportunities of migration and remittances and reduce their risks. OEI-Working Paper Nr. 281 can be downloaded at http://www.oei-dokumente.de/publikationen/wp/wp-281.pdf
February 2010
The new Spotlight Ukraine February 2010 is now available.
February 2010
Recent empirical studies have been searching for evidence on and driving forces for offshoring by analysing parts and components gross trade flows using gravity equations augmented by ad hoc measures of supply-side country differences. In OEI Working Paper No. 280, Richard Frensch suggests that gravity formulations of this sort are potentially mis-specified. The paper suggests an alternative specification rooted in incomplete specialisation. Results support evidence for offshoring activities across Europe, from "old" to "new" EU members, driven by supply-side country differences compatible with models of incomplete specialisation and trade. Specifically, more offshoring of activities from old to new EU-members means predominantly offshoring of new activities rather than extending the scale of already offshored activities. This is in stark contrast to offshoring of activities from old EU-members to east Asia, including China.
OEI-Working Paper Nr. 280 can be downloaded at http://www.oei-dokumente.de/publikationen/wp/wp-280.pdf
January 2010
The new Spotlight Ukraine January 2010 is now available.
