University of Mannheim

About: University of Mannheim is a education organization based out in Mannheim, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & European union. The organization has 4448 authors who have published 12918 publications receiving 446557 citations. The organization is also known as: Uni Mannheim & UMA.

The political economy of centralization and the European Community

Abstract: Since 1972, the share of central government expenditure in total public expenditure has continued to increase in most industrial countries. In an international cross-section analysis, it has a significant positive effect on the share of government spending in GDP. The actors who have an interest in centralization are analyzed. The dynamics of centralization are attributed to a response asymmetry and two thresholds. “Popitz' law” of the attraction of the larger budget is tested with respect to the EC Commission: high-ranking politicians come mainly from the smaller member states. The voters' attitudes toward European unification are analyzed in a pooled regression. Ten years hence, 80% of our economic legislation, and perhaps even our fiscal and social legislation as well, will be of Community origin (Jacques Delors, Debates of the European Parliament, 6 July, 1988, No. 2-367/140).

Piracy of Digital Products: A Critical Review of the Theoretical Literature

Abstract: Digital products can be copied almost at no cost and are subject to non-commercial copying by final consumers. Because the copy of a copy typically does not deteriorate in quality, copies can become available on a large scale basis - this can be illustrated by the surge of file-sharing networks. In this paper we provide a critical overview of the theoretical literature that addresses the economic consequences of end-user copying. We analyze basic models of piracy, models with indirect appropriation, models with network effects, and models with asymmetric information. We discuss the applicability of the different modeling strategies to a number of industries such as software, video and computer games, music, and movies.

Varying Coefficient Regression Models: A Review and New Developments

Abstract: Summary Varying coefficient regression models are known to be very useful tools for analysing the relation between a response and a group of covariates. Their structure and interpretability are similar to those for the traditional linear regression model, but they are more flexible because of the infinite dimensionality of the corresponding parameter spaces. The aims of this paper are to give an overview on the existing methodological and theoretical developments for varying coefficient models and to discuss their extensions with some new developments. The new developments enable us to use different amount of smoothing for estimating different component functions in the models. They are for a flexible form of varying coefficient models that requires smoothing across different covariates' spaces and are based on the smooth backfitting technique that is admitted as a powerful technique for fitting structural regression models and is also known to free us from the curse of dimensionality.

The Rationality of Everyday Behavior: A Rational Choice Reconstruction of the Theory of Action by Alfred Schütz

Abstract: This article argues that Alfred Schutz, one of the founders of the interpretative paradigm in sociology, developed a theory of action whose basic structure is compatible with subjective expected utility theory (i.e., a specific variant of rational choice theory. Alfred Schutz's view with respect to the characteristics of everyday action—the individual orientation toward routines and structures of relevance—is modeled in terms of subjective expected utility theory. In this perspective, these characteristics appear as the result of an action-preceding rational choice in the process of the cognition of situations, under the conditions of bounded rationality.

Industrial centers and regional growth in the presence of local inputs

Abstract: . A large proportion of regional production takes place in nontraded goods and services. In addition, significant productivity increases can be observed in some segments of this sector. Starting from these two empirical observations we construct a model of growth in a two-region setting with factor mobility. The growth process is based on endogenous technological change in the nontraded input sector, whose output serves as an input in the production of one of the two final goods, the so-called industrial good. We consider two extreme cases, one with locally limited, the other with interregional knowledge spillovers. Conditions are established under which interior solutions with production of local inputs and steady-state growth in both regions result, and others under which we find a core-periphery pattern with growth concentrated in one region only. The stability of the equilibria is discussed by considering the transition processes. Finally, it is shown that catching-up as well as leapfrogging may occur, if new technologies become available.