"We analyze the effects of the unprecedented rise in trade between Germany and 'the East' - China and Eastern Europe - in the period 1988-2008 on German local labor markets. Using detailed administrative data, we exploit the cross-regional variation in initial industry structures and use trade flows of other high-income countries as instruments for regional import and export exposure. We find that the rise of 'the East' in the world economy caused substantial job losses in German regions specialized in import-competing industries, both in manufacturing and beyond. Regions specialized in export-oriented industries, however, experienced even stronger employment gains and lower unemployment. In the aggregate, we estimate that this trade integration has caused some 493,000 additional jobs in the economy and contributed to retaining the manufacturing sector in Germany. We also conduct our analysis at the individual worker level, and find that trade had a stabilizing overall effect on employment relationships." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

The Rise of the East and the Far East: German Labor Markets and Trade Integration

https://www.dice.hhu.de/fileadmin/redaktion/Fakultaeten/Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche_Fakultaet/DICE/Discussion_Paper/065_Fonseca_Normann.pdf

Explicit vs. Tacit Collusion – The Impact of Communication in Oligopoly Experiments

This paper estimates the impact of competition policy on total factor productivity growth for 22 industries in twelve OECD countries over 1995 to 2005. We find a positive and significant effect of competition policy as measured by created indexes. We provide results based on instrumental variables estimators and heterogeneous effects to support the causal nature of the established link. The effect is particularly strong for specific aspects of competition policy related to its institutional setup and antitrust activities. It is also strengthened by good legal systems, suggesting complementarities between competition policy and the efficiency of law enforcement institutions.

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Competition policy and productivity growth: an empirical assessment

This paper discusses the general characteristics of online markets from a competition theory perspective and the implications for competition policy. Three important Internet markets are analyzed in more detail: search engines, online auction platforms, and social networks. Given the high level of market concentration and the development of competition over time, we use our theoretical insights to examine whether (a) leading Internet platforms have non-temporary market power and, based on this analysis, (b) whether any specific market regulation beyond general competition law rules is warranted in these three online markets.

/pdf/google-facebook-amazon-ebay-is-the-internet-driving-4pb5gz8unr.pdf

Google, Facebook, Amazon, eBay: Is the internet driving competition or market monopolization?

A model is developed highlighting interactions between firm-level union-employer bargaining and industry-level oligopolistic price-setting, combining models of parametric conjectural variation oligopoly and asymmetric Nash-bargaining. Wages can only be bargained up if product market behavior is noncompetitive or if unions act on an industry-wide basis. If bargaining is efficient, wages are monotonically increasing in product market collusion, but the relationship may be reversed if bargaining covers only the wage. The relationship between profit markets and wages and some macroeconomic implications are explored. Copyright 1989 by Royal Economic Society.

Union-oligopoly bargaining

This paper is the first to investigate both the technical and cost efficiency of more than 1500 German general hospitals. More specifically, it deals with the question how hospital efficiency varies with ownership, patient structure, and other exogenous factors, which are neither inputs to nor outputs of the production process. The empirical results for the years from 2001 to 2003 indicate that private and non-profit hospitals are on average less cost efficient and less technically efficient than publicly owned hospitals. The hospital rankings based on estimated efficiency scores turn out to be negatively correlated with average length of stay, which is highest in private hospitals. The results are derived by conducting a Stochastic Frontier Analysis assuming both Cobb-Douglas and translog production technologies and using a newly available and multifaceted administrative German data set.

Cost and technical efficiency of German hospitals: does ownership matter?

Many countries with national health care providers and health insurances regulate the market for pharmaceuticals to steer drug demand and to control expenses. For example, they introduce reference pricing or tiered co-payments to enhance drug substitution and competition. Since 2006, Germany follows an innovative approach by differentiating drug co-payments by the drug's price relative to its reference price. In this two-tier system, prescription drugs are completely exempted from co-payments if their prices undercut a certain price level relative to the reference price. We identify the effect of the policy on the prices of all affected prescription drugs and differentiate the analysis by firm types (innovative, generic, branded generic or importing firms). To identify a causal effect, we use a differences-in-differences approach and additionally exploit the fact that the exemption policy had been introduced successively in the different clusters. We use quarterly data from 2007 to 2010 and find empirical evidence for differentiated price setting strategies by firm types, ranging from price decreases of -13.1% (branded generics firms) to increases of +2.0% (innovators) following the introduction of potential reductions in co-payments. We refer to the latter result as the co-payment exemption paradox. Our competition proxy (no. of firms) suggests a significant but small negative correlation with prices.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/57630/1/690258666.pdf

Pharmaceutical Prices under Regulation: Tiered Co-payments and Reference Pricing in Germany

 Hospital markets are often characterized by price regulation and the existence of different ownership types Using a Hotelling framework, this paper analyses the effect of heterogeneous objectives of hospitals on quality differentiation, profits and overall welfare in a price-regulated duopoly with exogenous symmetric locations In contrast to other studies on mixed duopolies, this paper shows that, in this framework, privatization of the public hospital may increase overall welfare This holds if the public hospital is similar to the private hospital or less efficient and competition is low The main driving force is the single-regulated price which induces under-provision (over-provision) of quality of the more (less) efficient hospital compared with the first best However, if the public hospital is sufficiently more efficient and competition is fierce, a mixed duopoly outperforms both a private and a public duopoly due to an equilibrium price below (above) the price of the private (public) duopoly This medium price discourages over-provision of quality of the less efficient hospital and – together with the non-profit objective – encourages an increase in quality of the more efficient public hospital

/pdf/quality-and-welfare-in-a-mixed-duopoly-with-regulated-prices-443ixuc1r5.pdf

Quality and Welfare in a Mixed Duopoly with Regulated Prices: The Case of a Public and a Private Hospital

Hospital markets are often characterised by price regulation and the existence of different ownership types. Using a Hotelling framework, this paper analyses the effect of heterogeneous objectives of the hospitals on quality differentiation, profits, and overall welfare in a price regulated duopoly with exogenous symmetric locations. In contrast to other studies on mixed duopolies, this paper shows that in this framework privatisation of the public hospital may increase overall welfare. This holds if the public hospital is similar to the private hospital or less efficient and competition is low. The main driving force is the single regulated price which induces under-(over-)provision of quality of the more (less) efficient hospital compared to the first-best. However, if the public hospital is sufficiently more efficient and competition is fierce, a mixed duopoly outperforms both a private and a public duopoly due to an equilibrium price below (above) the price of the private (public) duopoly. This medium price discourages overprovision of quality of the less efficient hospital and - together with the non-profit objective - encourages an increase in quality of the more efficient public hospital.

Quality and welfare in a mixed duopoly with regulated prices: The case of a public and a private hospital

Since 2009, German nursing homes have been evaluated regularly with quality report cards published online. We argue that most of the information in the report cards does not reliably measure quality of care, but a subset of seven measures does. Using a sample of more than 3,000 nursing homes with information on two waves, we find a significant improvement in the nursing home quality from the first to the second evaluation. Both indicators comprising either the two outcome quality measures or the seven measures indicating "risk factors" in the report cards improve. This can be interpreted as evidence that quality disclosure positively affects the (reported) quality in nursing homes.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/107407/1/818697067.pdf

Annika Herr

Papers

Cost and technical efficiency of German hospitals: does ownership matter?

Pharmaceutical Prices under Regulation: Tiered Co-payments and Reference Pricing in Germany

Quality and Welfare in a Mixed Duopoly with Regulated Prices: The Case of a Public and a Private Hospital

Quality and welfare in a mixed duopoly with regulated prices: The case of a public and a private hospital

Does quality disclosure improve quality? Responses to the introduction of nursing home report cards in Germany