Vierteljährliche Entstehungsrechnung des Bruttoinlandsprodukts für Ostdeutschland: Sektorale Bruttowertschöpfung
Data regarding the development of macroeconomic production and employment are essential for the political decision process. Especially timely available information is a critical issue. Reliable short run data are not reported for East Germany yet. Because of data limitations for the past quarterly sectoral series of production and employment are derived from annual national accounts data using a set of indicators by branches. Indicators have been tested and cover working hours and sales, among others. For the period from 1992 to 2001 quarterly series for sectoral GDP are derived. A flash estimator for the overall macroeconomic performance is obtained through aggregation.
Methodenexpertise zur Analyse der Auswirkungen der internationalen Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise auf die Wirtschaft im Land Brandenburg: Gutachten im Auftrag des Ministeriums für Wirtschaft des Landes Brandenburg
Die Wirtschaftskrise der Jahre 2008/2009 hat auch die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung in den ostdeutschen Bundeslandern negativ beeinflusst. Am Beispiel des Landes Brandenburg wird dargestellt, wie diese Wirkungen mit Hilfe amtlicher Statistiken analysiert werden konnen. Erforderlich erscheint dies vor allem auch deswegen, weil nur durch eine ausreichende Informationsbasis geeignete wirtschaftspolitische Masnahmen getroffen werden konnen. Die Methodenstudie untersucht daruber hinaus, welche nicht-amtlichen Daten und weiteren Informationsquellen herangezogen werden konnen, um die Folgen der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise auf die okonomische Entwicklung im Bundesland Brandenburg analysieren zu konnen. - Neben der Erhebung vorhandener amtlicher und nicht-amtlicher Daten werden Ansatze vorgestellt und diskutiert, die es ermoglichen, diese im Kontext der Fragestellung zu analysieren. Insbesondere werden Methoden der aggregierten Konjunkturbeobachtung und -prognose auf Lander- und Kreisebene, zur Beurteilung und zum Vergleich der Struktur und Wettbewerbsfahigkeit einzelner Standorte, zur Ableitung erwarteter gesamtwirtschaftlicher Strukturtrends und zur Analyse einzelbetrieblicher Daten in die Studie einbezogen.
Strategy and Manipulation in Medieval Elections
There are many goals in developing electoral protocols, including a desire for a system which is transparent, in that it is clear what the rule or procedure to follow is; nonmanipulable, in that it is not in a person’s best interest to misrepresent their preferences; honest, in the sense that it elects the ‘right’ candidate; and not open to strategizing, i.e., bribery or collusion. However, these desiderata are in tension with each other: Often, transparent electoral procedures are the least strategy resistant, and many honest procedures encourage manipulation. Thus a balance between these different goals must be sought. In modern times, since the seminal result on vote manipulation, the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem [5, 6], much attention has been devoted to developing voting rules where manipulation is never in the best interest of the voters [4] or which are computationally too complex for the average bounded agent to be able to manipulate [1]. This focus on computational aspects of electoral methods is one of the hallmarks of modern studies on voting. But pursuit of these goals is not restricted to modern times: Those participating in elections in the Middle Ages also sought transparency, non-manipulability, honesty, and strategyproofness in so far as these properties can be consistently expressed in a single procedure. However, given the lack of computational sophistication in the Middle Ages, alternate approaches were needed in order to promote honesty, discourage strategizing, etc. These approaches can be classified as either external (constraints introduced outside of the electoral procedure, such as incentives for coming to consensus quickly) or internal (constraints introduced within the electoral procedure, such as voting rules which cannot be manipulated without adverse effects, or which are too difficult for the average bounded agent to manipulate). Surveying examples of both approaches in the context of medieval ecclesiastical and secular elections provides an interesting comparison to modern electoral procedures. Elections in the Middle Ages were used for the same reasons that they are today: To select suitable candidate(s) for a particular office, duty, or obligation. However, it is important to note that the term electio was used in the Middle Ages in a broader sense than our modern ‘election’. Its primary sense was ‘selection’ or ‘choice’, and only secondarily ‘election’ in the modern sense. Thus, many records which purportedly discuss elections are not discussing elections of the type which interests us. We can identify four categories of medieval electoral processes: (1) Election by an external authority having no direct interest in the election; (2) Indirect election, where electors name other electors who then select or elect the officials; (3) Election by lot; and (4) Election by ballot. Elections of the first and third types are generally computationally uninteresting; the first type corresponds to dictatorial voting rules, and the third type collapses to probability theory. In general, interesting voting methods are found only in the fourth type, election by ballot, though they can also occur in indirect election.