Peter Huber

Austrian Institute of Economic Research | WIFO · Regional Development and Structural Change

n this paper, corporate social responsibility (CSR) adoption is measured by the implementation of SA8000 certification. This is one of the internationally most widely used social accountability standards for retailers, brand companies, suppliers and other organizations.

We analyze the long-term impact of the resettlement of the Sudetenland after World War II on residential migration. This event involved expulsion of ethnic Germans and an almost complete depopulation of an area of a country and its rapid resettlement by 2 million Czech inhabitants. Results based on a regression discontinuity design show a highly pe...

Der durch die COVID-19-Pandemie ausgelöste Wirtschaftseinbruch traf die österreichischen Bundesländer unterschiedlich hart. Das ist vor allem der unterschiedlichen Krisenbetroffenheit der einzelnen Branchen und Unterschieden in der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur geschuldet. Neben dem Tourismus verzeichneten weite Teile des (Einzel )Handels und der...

In the federal budget draft for 2021, improving gender equality is not explicitly mentioned as a budget policy priority. Still, there is evidence that the gender equality deficits in Austria are still high and that greater equality can contribute to the eco-nomic success of a country. Analysing the impact of gender equality policy measures on GDP a...

Homeownership is believed to cause higher unemployment. This is because homeowners face higher mobility costs that limit their job search to local labor markets. Empirical tests of this prediction have yielded mixed results so far, possibly due to the endogeneity of homeownership. This paper proposes that the privatization of public housing in Cent...

This paper uses individual-level data covering 30 transition countries that account for over one-quarter of the worldwide immigrant stock to assess the impact of risk aversion on willingness to migrate. It extends the previous literature by allowing the effect of risk aversion to depend on the level of risk in the sending country. Consistent with t...

Homeownership is believed to cause higher unemployment. This is because homeowners face higher mobility costs that limit their job search to local labor markets. Empirical tests of this prediction have yielded mixed results so far, possibly due to the endogeneity of homeownership. This paper proposes that the privatization of public housing in Cent...

We study whether the positive effects of homeownership on political participation and social capital, found in developed market economies, extend to post-communist countries. We use the privatization of publicly-owned housing in post-communist countries as an exogenous source of variation of homeownership status to identify its impact on political...

We study whether the positive effects of homeownership on political participation and social capital, found in developed market economies, extend to post‐communist countries. We use the privatization of publicly‐owned housing in post‐communist countries as an exogenous source of variation of homeownership status to identify its impact on political...

Gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting aim to increase equality and equal opportunities between women and men. In contrast to the majority of evaluations of gender equality, which analyse legal, socio-political and distributionrelevant aspects, the aim of this research project is to estimate the economic benefits of increasing gender equality on...

We analyse the correlation of various measures of social capital with the willingness to migrate in 28 post-communist and five western European comparison countries using the Life in Transition Survey. Memberships in clubs and civil society organisations are substantially lower in post-communist countries that in the Western European countries this...

Financial support from the Czech Science Foundation, Grant No. 15-17810S, and the hospitality of Spolek in Brno is gratefully acknowledged. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Using ELFS data from 2004 to 2014 we analyse labour migration as an adjustment mechanism to asymmetric regional labour demand shocks shortly before, during and after the Great Recession in the EU. The results suggest that in this period migration was rather responsive to regional economic conditions, but also point to a substantial heterogeneity ac...

This paper develops a model based on statistical discrimination theories which predicts that higher educated immigrants have better and less educated immigrants have worse employment prospects in ethnically more diverse regions. Evidence consistent with this hypothesis is found in an empirical analysis. These results, however, also show that even t...

Homeownership is believed to cause higher unemployment. This is because homeowners face higher mobility costs that limit their job search to local labour markets. Empirical tests of this prediction have yielded mixed results so far, possibly due to the endogeneity of homeownership. This paper documents that the privatisation of public housing in Ce...

This paper analyzes the selection of workers to informal and formal sector employment in Tajikistan. It estimates multinomial selection bias correction model to assess the impact of observable and unobservable characteristics on the self-selection of workers into the formal and informal sector and on sector specific wages using individual level dat...

We analyse the impact of regional and sectoral labour market characteristics as determinants of the supply of employer financed training using a unique data set on employer provided training in Vienna. According to the results labour turnover has a robust negative impact and employment density a slightly less robust but also negative impact on the...

This paper provides evidence on the role of firm size and firm age for firm level net job creation in the Austrian economy between 1993 and 2013 and during the Great Recession. We propose a new estimation strategy based on a two-part model to decompose behavioral differences between exiting and surviving firms. Young firms contribute most to net jo...

This study analyses the main transmission mechanisms relevant for the absorption and propagation of asymmetries within the EU and EMU, putting a specific focus on Europe's real economy. In particular, the report aims to assess how the economic shock that triggered the financial and economic crisis has been transmitted and at least partially absorbe...

Cities in Transition focuses on the sustainability transitions initiated in 40 European cities. The book presents the incredible wealth of insights gathered through hundreds of interviews and questionnaires. Four key domains—local energy systems, local green spaces, local water systems and local labour markets—have been the focus of the field resea...

presentation

We empirically analyze the impact of relative deprivation on the intended duration of stay of potential cross-border commuters and migrants. A theoretical model lends support to the hypothesis that deprivation affects the intended duration of stay of migrants in a U-shaped fashion, but does not affect potential commuters. Empirical evidence from on...

We examine the effects of Eastern and Northern enlargement of the EU on regional business-cycle synchronization and sector specialization. Difference-in-difference estimates show that cyclical synchronicity decreased and differences in sector structure increased in acceding region-pairs after Eastern enlargement. For Northern enlargement, results a...

We investigate the effect of the relative welfare dependence of immigrants on attitudes toward further immigration of different groups of the population in a pooled cross-section of 24 European countries for the 2004–2010 period. Explicitly controlling for the dependence of immigrants and natives on welfare benefits we find that in countries with h...

analyse the importance of national migration policy and labour market institutions for immigrants’ labour market integration. Results indicate that the sending country structure of immigrants to a country, its ethnic diversity and its wage bargaining institutions as well as product market regulation are the most important national institutions impa...

According to difference-indifference estimates business cycle synchronisation and similarity in sector structures between acceding and pre-existing regions reduced after Eastern Enlargement. Results for Northern enlargement are more ambiguous. In both enlargements, however, region pairs affected by enlargement with highly synchronised business cycl...

This book brings together the work of researchers in Eastern and Western Europe, who analyze competitiveness, social exclusion and sustainability from a range of perspectives. It examines the key challenges faced by the EU in its efforts to establish a socially inclusive and greener path to growth and develops policy recommendations to simultaneous...

We use recent advances in the statistical analysis of Oaxaca–Blinder decompositions for non-linear models to analyse the contribution of individual variables to total gender differences in training participation and duration. Results suggest that effects stemming from the intra-household division of labour contribute significantly to gender differe...

This article explores how the full liberalization of migration as a consequence of Austria's European economic area (EEA) accession in 1994 impacted on the education structure of migrants to Austria. To identify the effects of this policy change, use is made of the fact that only migrants from EEA member states were affected, while third country ci...

Based on questionnaires conducted among PES organizations as well as Pacts and LEIs (Pacts/LEIs) in 40 cities of 12 EU member states and 2 non-EU member states – we take stock of the preconditions for conducting local labour market policies in an urban context in Europe and analyse the development of both regional PES organisations as well as Pacts...

Peter Huber, Ulugbek Rahimov: Formal and Informal Sector Wage Differences in Transition Economies: Evidence from Tajikistan Analyzing the self-selection of workers into formal and informal sector employment in Tajikistan, a poor transition economy, with higher informal sector than formal sector wages and an informal sector employment share exceedin...

We study the reasons for differences in welfare benefit receipt between immigrants and natives in 16 EU countries using Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions of a Heckman model. Differences in welfare benefit receipt diminish or disappear altogether after controlling for differences in characteristics of the two groups. The largest part of this is explaine...

We use new migration modelling and projection techniques in order to quantify the effect of migration in the context of ageing societies in Europe over the forthcoming decades. Using new empirical results, data and projections of migration flows developed in the framework of the WWWforEUROPE project, we inform the policy discussion concerning the r...

We augment the existing literature on regional convergence by uncovering a number of stylized facts on the heterogeneity of regional convergence processes in the absence of currency devaluation as a key policy instrument, and use them to highlight reform strategies that are most likely to be conducive to a successful catching-up of the periphery co...

We ask how reform of migration law intended to increase the selectivity of migration (the so-called integration agreement regulation in 2003) in Austria impacted on the education structure of migrants to Austria. To identify the effects of this reform, we use the fact that it applied only to migrants from third countries and not those from EEA-coun...

We survey the literature on welfare state reform in the EU. We argue that the often postulated trade-off between efficiency and equality thus does not apply in general. Countries looking for growth-friendly social policies should primarily focus providing equal opportunities and avoid exclusion or discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity or...

This report deals with the structure of the service sector in CENTROPE and compares the supply and demand side of tourism industry and its structure. This part also pays attention to issues of cooperation in tourism within CENTROPE. We find that there are obvious disparities in the development of knowledge intensive services between the urban agglo...

This paper shows that applying simple employment-weighted OLS estimation to Davis – Haltiwanger – Schuh (1996) firm level job creation rates taking the values 2 and –2 for entering and exiting firms, respectively, provides biased and inconsistent parameter estimates. Consequently, we argue that entries and exits should be analysed separately and pr...

We ask how two reforms of migration law (EEA accession in 1994 and the integration agreement regulation in 2003) impacted on the education structure of migrants to Austria. To identify the effects of these reforms, we use the fact that EEA accession affected only migrants from EEA countries, while third country citizens were unaffected and that the...

Migration and Regional Convergence in the European Union European migration trends in the last decade have been marked by a number of spectacular changes. In the course of the recent enlargement immigration to some EU15 countries from the CEECs has become remarkable. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the EU27 countries are net immigration countrie...

With demand for investment once again on the rise and foreign trade (in goods) briskly growing across much of 2011, the Länder with a large share of industrial production were favoured over those more focused on services. Upper Austria and Styria again vied for first place in economic growth, followed by Vorarlberg and Lower Austria. In 2011, the r...

I analyze the skill and age structure of commuters in 14 EU countries. Theory implies that commuters can be either more or less able than stayers, but are always less able than migrants and that they are also always older than migrants but younger than stayers. Empirically all types of commuters are younger and have higher education than non-commut...

Cross-border commuters from EU 15 countries have lower over- but higher under-education rates than non-commuters, for cross-border commuters from the new 12 EU member countries the opposite applies. Within-country commuters have lower over- but higher under-education rates than non-commuters in both regions.

Based on a three-equation model for initial firm size, survival, and firm growth we estimate firm-specific transition probabilities between size classes of the firm size distribution. This allows to analyze counterfactual scenarios that assess the impact of changes in exogenous variables on the intra-distribution dynamics of the firm size distribut...

The economic crisis had a deep impact on the CENTROPE Region. In average the CENTROPE countries were harder hit than the EU 27. Moreover the relative growth performance of regions within CENROPE shifted. While before 2008 the new EU countries among the CENTROPE countries experienced (with the exception of Hungary) higher growth rates than Austria,...

I describe the extent and structure of cross-border commuting in the EU 27 to show that this is important only in a small number of border regions with strong linguistic, historic or institutional ties. Cross-border commuters are mostly medium skilled, male manufacturing workers, who have higher over- but lower under-education rates than non-commut...

I analyze the skill structure of commuters in 15 EU countries. Theory suggests that higher returns to education in receiving regions and shorter commuting distances favor positive selection of commuters. Empirically all types of commuters in most EU countries are more skilled than non-commuters. Internal commuters (in particular to capital city reg...

Based on a study conducted for the European Parliament, Bonn 2011 (133 pages)

The literature on international migration has repeatedly emphasized that the extent and structure of migration has an important impact on the competitiveness of regions and countries. This report provides an overview of the extent and the potential effects of high-skill migration to the EU27. It shows how many high-skilled migrants live in the EU,...

This article derives generalized method of moment-based Wald tests for conditional convergence in terms of the second and third central moments (conditional "σ"- and "ζ"-convergence). Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the proposed tests are properly sized and equipped with enough power for sample sizes in excess of 1,000 observations. We apply...

The freedom of movement of persons is one of the core tenets of the European Union. Immigration however is often seen as a cause for concern amongst native workers, as rising labour supply may threaten jobs and create downward pressure on wages. National politicians are increasingly under pressure to guard against it – in times of recession particu...

The study analysed the supply of company-financed training in Vienna. It found a robust negative effect of labour turnover and a less robust negative effect of labour market density on company-financed training. A test of hypotheses on the link between company-financed training and company features arrived at a non-linear dependence of the rate of...

The freedom of movement of persons is one of the core tenets of the European Union. Immigration however is often seen as a cause for concern amongst native workers, as rising labour supply may threaten jobs and create downward pressure on wages. National politicians are increasingly under pressure to guard against it – in times of recession particu...

Dieser Beitrag bietet anhand der Ergebnisse des Ad-hoc-Moduls der Arbeitskr�fteerhebung zur Arbeits- und Lebenssituation von Migrantinnen und Migranten im II. Quartal 2008 einen �berblick �ber die Arbeitsmarktlage der ersten und zweiten Generation und der im Ausland Geborenen in �sterreich. Demnach zeigen sich erhebliche Unterschiede zwischen der e...