The International Institutional Comparisons Department focuses on the following areas:
The International Institutional Comparisons Department carries out empirical studies that deal primarily with international or institutional comparisons or econometric analyses of the impacts that emanate from institutions. The research helps to strengthen the methodological foundations of DICE. Many studies are based on the material gathered in DICE. Its main research areas are international migration, Institutions and economic growth.
Policy-oriented research into migration is one of the Ifo Institute’s main cross-departmental research areas, which will be developed into the Centre of Excellence for Migration and Integration (CEMIR). Work by the International Institutional Comparisons Department, the International Trade, Human Capital and Innovation and Social Policy and Labour Markets Departments will be integrated and linked up. The International Institutional Comparisons Department is conducting research in this field in an international consortium (Temporary Migration, integration and the role of Policies – TEMPO) and is coordinating the department’s research in the field of migration and the development of a Centre of Excellence, a project for which funding was successfully secured in the competitive procedure of the Leibniz Association (SAW procedure 2012).
In addition, the department conducts research that always has an institutional connection to labour market problems and health-care economics. With its breadth of research, the department has expert knowledge in many institutional areas of the DICE database. Many of the research projects are conducted in close co-operation with external economists, particularly with the department’s research professors Stephan Klasen (University of Göttingen), Giovanni Peri (University of California, Davis), Thomas Stratmann (George Mason University, Virginia, USA) and Andreas Wagener (University of Hanover). Research co-operation within Ifo specifically occurs in the area of migration.
As the European economy grows closer together, regulations in the public sector are becoming crucial factors in selecting investment locations. The individual national regulation systems are highly complex, insufficiently transparent or comparable for outsiders, and are also undergoing constant change. The lack of comparable and analytically conceived information on the institutional regulations in the European Union and their member states is considerable. Ifo is helping to eliminate this deficiency with the construction and expansion of the DICE database, freely accessible via the Ifo Website to German and international users.
DICE (and the association publication and research activity) were assessed as “excellent” in the last evaluation. Building on this, funding was granted to DICE for expansion in an SAW-2008 project. The personnel capacities that have been built up as a result of this financing will be maintained. DICE Database
The CESifo DICE Report is a quarterly journal that has been published by the department since 2003. It is aimed at academics and practitioners that deal, in their internationally oriented activities, with comparisons of institutions, particularly in the countries of Europe. CESifo DICE Report
A comparative international analysis of institutional regulations is a characteristic of the research studies all Ifo departments. The policy inferences that Ifo researchers draw in their studies always include international comparisons. An intern control system (“Eurocontrol”) ensures the integration of international comparisons in all Ifo expertise. The department of International Institutional Comparisons is responsible for this control system.
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