Ifo Institute for Economic Research

About: Ifo Institute for Economic Research is a facility organization based out in Munich, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Wage & Monetary policy. The organization has 381 authors who have published 2417 publications receiving 101493 citations. The organization is also known as: Ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research.

The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development

Abstract: The role of improved schooling, a central part of most development strategies, has become controversial because expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions. This paper reviews the role of cognitive skills in pro- moting economic well-being, with a particular focus on the role of school quality and quantity. It concludes that there is strong evidence that the cognitive skills of the population—rather than mere school attainment—are powerfully related to indi- vidual earnings, to the distribution of income, and to economic growth. New empiri- cal results show the importance of both minimal and high level skills, the comple- mentarity of skills and the quality of economic institutions, and the robustness of the relationship between skills and growth. International comparisons incorporating expanded data on cognitive skills reveal much larger skill deficits in developing coun - tries than generally derived from just school enrollment and attainment. The mag- nitude of change needed makes clear that closing the economic gap with developed countries will require major structural changes in schooling institutions.

Political Risk, Institutions and Foreign Direct Investment

Abstract: The paper explores the linkages between political risk, institutions and foreign direct investment inflows. Using different econometric techniques for a data sample of 83 developing countries and the period 1984 to 2003, we identify those indicators that matter most for the activities of multinational corporations. Overall, 12 different indicators for political risk and institutions are employed in the empirical analysis. The results show that government stability, the absence of internal conflict and ethnic tensions, basic democratic rights and ensuring law and order are highly significant determinants of foreign investment inflows.

Unemployment in the OECD Since the 1960s. What Do We Know

Abstract: This paper presents an empirical analysis of unemployment patterns in the OECD countries from the 1960s to the 1990s. Our results indicate the following. First, broad movements in unemployment across the OECD can be explained by shifts in labour market institutions. Second, interactions between average values of these institutions and shocks make no significant additional contribution to our understanding of OECD unemployment changes.

The KOF Globalisation Index – revisited

Abstract: We introduce the revised version of the KOF Globalisation Index, a composite index measuring globalization for every country in the world along the economic, social and political dimension. The original index was introduced by Dreher (Applied Economics, 38(10):1091–1110, 2006) and updated in Dreher et al. (2008). This second revision of the index distinguishes between de facto and de jure measures along the different dimensions of globalization. We also disentangle trade and financial globalization within the economic dimension of globalization and use time-varying weighting of the variables. The new index is based on 43 instead of 23 variables in the previous version. Following Dreher (Applied Economics, 38(10):1091–1110, 2006), we use the new index to examine the effect of globalization on economic growth. The results suggest that de facto and de jure globalization influence economic growth differently. Future research should use the new KOF Globalisation Index to re-examine other important consequences of globalization and why globalization was proceeding rapidly in some countries, such as South Korea, but less so in others. The KOF Globalisation Index can be downloaded from http://www.kof.ethz.ch/globalisation/ .

The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations

Abstract: Using PSID microdata over the 1980-2010, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably over this period. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap, while gender differences in occupation and industry continued to be important. Moreover, the gender pay gap declined much more slowly at the top of the wage distribution that at the middle or the bottom and by 2010 was noticeably higher at the top. We then survey the literature to identify what has been learned about the explanations for the gap. We conclude that many of the traditional explanations continue to have salience. Although human capital factors are now relatively unimportant in the aggregate, women’s work force interruptions and shorter hours remain significant in high skilled occupations, possibly due to compensating differentials. Gender differences in occupations and industries, as well as differences in gender roles and the gender division of labor remain important, and research based on experimental evidence strongly suggests that discrimination cannot be discounted. Psychological attributes or noncognitive skills comprise one of the newer explanations for gender differences in outcomes. Our effort to assess the quantitative evidence on the importance of these factors suggests that they account for a small to moderate portion of the gender pay gap, considerably smaller than say occupation and industry effects, though they appear to modestly contribute to these differences.