This paper analyses the South African trade data from1992 until 2006 by means of a Grubel-Lloyd index, a measurement of marginal intra-industry trade and a revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indicator. During this period a lot happened that influenced the South African trade policy, e.g. the political transition in 1994, the formation of the World Trade Organisation in 1995, the rise of China as trading power, etc. The purpose is not only to analyse the current structure of South African trade, but also to examine its structural change over time. As a result this paper shows that South Africa is principally a supplier of natural resources to both industrialised and emerging economies. With respect to its African neighbours South Africa has a more advantageous trading position. More general this paper shows that an indicator reaches significant different values, if different trading partners or industries are analysed.(author´s abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

The paper investigates the relation between effective demand, income distribution and unemployment empirically. Its aim is to evaluate Keynesian, Kaldorian and neoclassical hypotheses about the determination of labor market variables. To do so, a vector autoregression model consisting of capital accumulation, capacity utilization, the profit share, unemployment and the growth of labor productivity is estimated. A general post-Keynesian model following the lines of Kalecki and Kaldor is presented and provides the specification for a structural VAR. The model is estimated for the USA, UK and France. (authors' abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

kein Abstract vorhanden / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

We analyze sector specific shocks in productivity and demand in 19 manufacturing sectors of the Austrian economy. Based on a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model with long run restrictions developed by Gali (1999) we extract technology and non-technology shocks from sectoral and aggregate data and study their patterns and relationship by means of a principal components analysis. We find a close association of sectoral and macroeconomic non-technology shocks but only a very weak association for technology shocks. Impulse-response analysis indicates that for almost all manufacturing sectors and the Austrian economy productivity growth rates experience an immediate increase to positive technology shocks while the hours worked decline. We therefore confirm Gali's results on the level of manufacturing industries. Finally, we use the identified shocks as explanatory variables in fixed effect regressions on growth rates of employment, output and investment. We find that our shocks are closely associated to employment growth and output growth but not to growth in investment. The effect of technology shocks is different on the level of manufacturing industries and the aggregate economy. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

The aim of this paper is to estimate the effect of FDI and trade openness on wages in the CEECs in the post-transition era. We utilize a cross-country sector-specific eceonometric analysis based on one-digit level panel data for manufacturing industry in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, for the period of 2000-2004. The results suggest that the increases in productivity are reflected in wages only to a modest extent, even in the long-term, leading to a steady decline in the share of labor in manufacturing industry in almost all sub-sectors in all countries. Meanwhile, the high significant and negative effect of unemployment on wages shows that the labor market is flexible in terms of wage flexibility. FDI has a positive effect on wages only in the capital and skill intensive sectors. The results also show that the increase in trade with EU did not lead to positive prospects for wages in manufacturing industry, contrary to the expectations of pro-market policies and traditional trade theory. The long-term net effect of exports and imports is negative, suggesting that integration of CEECs to EU via trade liberalization have worked at the expense of labor. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

We prove a version of the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing, which applies to Kabanov's approach to foreign exchange markets under transaction costs. The financial market is modelled by a d x d matrix-valued stochastic process Sigma_t_t=0^T specifying the mutual bid and ask prices between d assets. We introduce the notion of ``robust no arbitrage", which is a version of the no arbitrage concept, robust with respect to small changes of the bid ask spreads of Sigma_t_t=0^T. Dually, we interpret a concept used by Kabanov and his co-authors as "strictly consistent price systems". We show that this concept extends the notion of equivalent martingale measures, playing a well-known role in the frictionless case, to the present setting of bid-ask processes Sigma_t_t=0^T. The main theorem states that the bid-ask process Sigma_t_t=0^T satisfies the robust no arbitrage condition if it admits a strictly consistent pricing system. This result extends the theorems of Harrison-Pliska and Dalang-Morton-Willinger to the present setting, and also generalizes previous results obtained by Kabanov, Rasonyi and Stricker. An example of a 5-times-5-dimensional process Sigma_t_t=0^2 shows that, in this theorem, the robust no arbitrage condition cannot be replaced by the so-called strict no arbitrage condition, thus answering negatively a question raised by Kabanov, Rasonyi and Stricker. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

This note analyzes a simple Cournot model where firms choose outputs and capacities facing varying demand and price-cap regulation. We find that binding price caps set above long-run marginal cost increase (rather than decrease) aggregate capacity investment. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers / Research Institute for Regulatory Economics

Zahlreiche Arbeiten im Bereich der Entrepreneurship-Forschung versuchen aus unterschiedlichen disziplinären Perspektiven zu erklären, warum manche Menschen Opportunities wahrnehmen und unternehmerisch tätig werden und andere nicht. Dies wird in der Literatur als "Opportunity Recognition" (OR) bezeichnet und weitgehend als Kernelement im entrepreneurialen Prozess beschrieben. Aufgrund dieser Bedeutung von Opportunity Recognition entwickelten sich zahlreiche Erklärungsansätze, die als ökonomische, psychologische oder sozio-kognitive Perspektiven in die Entrepreneurship-Forschung eingeführt wurden. Die vorherrschende Trennung in disziplinenspezifische Erklärungsansätze hat zwar ihre Berechtigung, liefert jedoch bisher unbefriedigend integrative Erkenntnisse. In Abgrenzung zu anderen Arbeiten betrachtet dieser Beitrag Opportunity Recognition auf Basis subjektiver Theorien von Entrepreneuren. Der integrative Ansatz der subjektiven Theorien bietet das Potential disziplinenübergreifend Hinweise auf mögliche Einflussfaktoren der OR in subjektiven Theoriebeständen zu untersuchen. Ziel der Arbeit ist zu erforschen, welche inhaltlichen und strukturellen Charakteristika subjektive Theorien von Entrepreneuren aufweisen und inwiefern sich Logiken und/oder Strategien für die Identifikation einer Opportunity in ihnen widerspiegeln. Dazu wurde eine empirische Rekonstruktion der Strukturlogik subjektiver Theorien von Entrepreneuren auf Basis von narrativen Interviews und objektiv-hermeneutischen Interpretationsverfahren durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit liefern vielfältige Erkenntnisse hinsichtlich der Strukturen und Inhalte von subjektiven Theorien von Entrepreneuren sowie ihrer Entwicklung. Sie verweisen auf die zentrale Bedeutung sozialer Interaktionskontexte des Entrepreneurs, sowohl für die Ausprägung subjektiver Theoriebestände im Allgemeinen als auch für die Schärfung von Opportunities und ihrer Verwertung im Speziellen. Zudem wird deutlich, dass sich subjektive Theoriebestände hinsichtlich ihres Abstraktions- und Komplexitätsgrades sowie ihrer zeitlichen Stabilität maßgeblich unterscheiden. Die Erkenntnisse der vorliegenden Arbeit lassen Zweifel an der Sinnhaftigkeit einer auf ein analytisches Konstrukt "Opportunity" fokussierten Forschung aufkommen. Als Alternative wird das umfassendere Konzept der subjektiven Unternehmertheorie vorgeschlagen, das die Relevanz mentaler Modelle von Unternehmern und das ihnen inhärente Integrationspotential für unterschiedliche Einflussfaktoren und Erklärungsansätze für OR verdeutlicht. (Autorenref.)

In this paper we examine the extent of international trade synchronization during periods of international trade collapses and US recessions. Using dynamic correlations based on monthly trade data for the G7 economies over the period 1961-2011, our results suggest rather idiosyncratic patterns of international trade synchronization during collapses of international trade and US recessions. During the great recession of 2007-2009, however, international trade experienced the most sudden, severe and globally synchronized collapse. (author's abstract)

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