Germany's temporary employment sector has seen rapid growth in recent years, with the number of temporary employees rising from 340,000 in 2000 to 824,000 in 2010. While this growth has continued apace in 2011, the temporary work sector remains small in relation to the size of the overall workforce. Indeed, temporary workers represent just 3% of all German employees required to pay social insurance contributions. This puts Germany in fifth place internationally for the size of its temporary employment sector, behind the U.K. and the Netherlands.
ZEW's International Finance and Financial Management department regularly investigates questions concerning international real estate markets. Past topics of investigation include the dynamic interactions between real estate and capital markets, as well as real estate investment trusts (REITs) as an independent investment class. An interview with Prof. Dr. Felix Schindler, who is an expert on such issues, provides us with a survey of current conditions in the German real estate market.
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A special highlight of September’s ZEW Research Seminar was the guest appearance of David Reiley, a principal research scientist at the Internet company Yahoo!. During his talk with ZEW economists, he discussed his recent study on how online advertising affects sales.
The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy three years ago precipitated a global financial crisis whose repercussions can be felt to this day. Prof. Dr. Michael Schröder, head of the research department of International Finance and Financial Management at ZEW, talks about the successes and failures of financial regulation in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse.
Prof. Dr. Michael Schröder is the head of the research department of International Finance and Financial Management at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). His research focuses in particular on the empirical analysis of capital markets, expectation formation in financial markets, socially responsible investments, and the asset management activities of foundations. In 2009 he received his venia legendi in business administration from the University of Stuttgart. In addition to his work at ZEW, Schröder is professor of asset management at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.
Chen Qian from the Chinese Academy of Science, Institute of Policy and Management (IPM), in Beijing is visiting researcher at the ZEW research department "Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management" from October 2011 until September 2012. During her stay at ZEW, she will write her PhD thesis on "A lead market approach towards the diffusion of clean coal technologies in China". Chen Qian is receiving a grant by the Chinese Government Scholarship for Postgraduate Program, which is sponsored by the China Scholarship Council.
Economists are currently being taken to task for the inaccuracy of their forecasts. Some of their most critical voices have come from the natural sciences, where the commentary has been mocking and at times malicious, especially when it comes to assessing research activities in the field of economics. Yet it’s easy to turn the tables: erroneous predictions in the natural sciences are legion and their consequences are, in all likelihood, much more costly than those caused by the misjudgements of economists.
The Supervisory Board of the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, decided to extend Dr. Holger Bonin’s contract as head of the research department "Labour Markets, Human Resources and Social Policy" until September 30, 2016.
Dr. Ebru Voyvoda, Assistant Professor from the Middle East Technical University (METU), Department of Economics, in Ankara will be visiting researcher in the ZEW research department "Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management” from September 2011 until August 2012. During her stay at ZEW, she will work on the development of CGE models for energy policy analyses. Ebru Voyvoda is on a sabbatical year from METU and receives a grant by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey for her research stay at ZEW.
At the end of June the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) hosted its ninth conference on "The Economics of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)", which was attended by 50 scientists from both Europe and North America. The two day conference was organised by ZEW’s ICT research group with financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG).
It‘s not long since the European Central Bank (ECB) enjoyed great respectability on account of its credible independence and stability-orientated monetary politics. Now, however, the ECB is in choppy waters because precisely this independence of (financial) politics could be lost. What is more, its rejection of Greek government bond refinancing is as disconcerting as its disproportionately heavy reliance on the verdicts of rating agencies.
