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Evaluation des Rahmenlehrplans für den Bildungsgang «dipl. Betriebswirtschafter/in HF», Bericht zur zweiten Befragungswelle 2015
(2016)KOF StudiesDie vorliegende Studie untersucht, ob der Rahmenlehrplan des Bildungsgangs «dipl. Betriebswirtschafter/in Höhere Fachschule» an den Höheren Fachschulen für Wirtschaft (RLP HFW) den Anforderungen der Studierenden und Arbeitgebern gerecht wird. Dabei sollen Schwachstellen identifiziert werden, die auf Verbesserungspotential im Rahmen einer Revision des RLP HFW hinweisen.Report -
What determines international and inter-sectoral knowledge flows? The impact of absorptive capacity, technological distance and spillovers
(2016)KOF Working PapersThis paper studies determinants of knowledge flows as measured with patent forward citations that occur between 'input' and 'output sector-countries'. We look at the impact of absorptive capacity of a focal sector-country, knowledge spillovers and technological distance between sector-countries on further knowledge flows. For this purpose, we develop a knowledge flow matrix similar to input-output tables in trade where patent citations ...Working Paper -
Does it really make a difference? Health care utilization with two high deductible health care plans
(2016)KOF Working PapersDeductibles are commonly used to tame increasing health care costs. Numerous studies find that higher deductibles reduce health care utilization. In this paper we compare utilization in Switzerland between two health care plans with deductibles of 1,500 CHF and 2,500 CHF (1CHF approx. 1$) per calendar year. While there is a minimum deductible level in Switzerland, individuals are free to increase their deductible and thereby reduce their ...Working Paper -
Innovation and Firm Growth over the Business Cycle
(2016)KOF Working PapersThis paper investigates how the macroeconomic business cycle impacts the empirical relation between firms’ innovations and their sales growth rates. Based on firm-level panel data over the time period 1995-2014, the paper finds no visible sales growth differentials between firms in booming economic environments. In the economically difficult times of recessions, by contrast, innovative firms show significantly higher sales growth rates ...Working Paper -
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Preventing violence: Community-based approaches to early warning and early response
(2016)CSS Mediation ResourcesReport -
Taming volatile high frequency data with long lag structure: An optimal filtering approach for forecasting
(2016)KOF Working PapersWe propose a Bayesian optimal filtering setup for improving out-of-sample forecasting performance when using volatile high frequency data with long lag structure for forecasting low-frequency data. We test this setup by using real-time Swiss construction investment and construction permit data. We compare our approach to different filtering techniques and show that our proposed filter outperforms various commonly used filtering techniques ...Working Paper -
Research and Development as an Initiator of Fixed Capital Investment
(2016)KOF Working PapersThis paper investigates the causal relationship between firms? research and development expenditures (R&D) and their investments into fixed capital. The literature provides two contrasting views in this respect. The first view holds that a firm?s research activity causes, via the creation of inventions, subsequent investment into fixed capital, as the firm needs additional capacities to produce the new goods or services that follow from ...Working Paper -
On the Initialization of Adaptive Learning in Macroeconomic Models
(2016)KOF Working PapersWe review and evaluate methods previously adopted in the applied literature of adaptive learning in order to initialize agents’ beliefs. Previous methods are classified into three broad classes: equilibrium-related, training sample-based, and estimation-based. We conduct several simulations comparing the accuracy of the initial estimates provided by these methods and how they affect the accuracy of other estimated model parameters. We ...Working Paper