Structure, trends and determinants of growth and welfare indices:Cluster analysis of time-dependent and multivariate data

对货币和非货币经验福利分配的分析对福利理论和经济增长理论都至关重要。基本方面是福利分配中子群体的出现，跨时间动态以及相关决定因素的发现。为了从经验上研究这些问题，转换制度模型是基本的计量经济学工具。Ho 3260/3-1项目的一个主要目标是进一步发展制度转换模型的统计机制，这是分析福利分配所必需的。实际分析与Kl 1260/9-1和Vo 1592/3-1项目一起进行。目前申请延期拨款的跨学科应用的一个主要重点是对预期寿命、教育或人类发展指数（HDI）等货币和非货币福利指数中的子群体进行联合建模和分析。对于这种多变量数据，混合分量的形式（主要是多变量正态分布）往往不能很好地与可能代表数据中群体的潜在聚类的形状相对应。因此，主要的新方法目标是进一步发展合并方法，即允许客观地将混合或隐马尔可夫模型的组成部分合并为联合聚类的方法。进一步的应用重点是区域趋同，特别是在欧盟东扩的背景下。这里将使用Ho 3260/3-1项目中开发的时间非齐次隐马尔可夫模型。最后，开发了用于分析增长率分布和决定因素的方法应使用。

The analysis of monetary and nonmonetary empirical welfare distributions is of central importance both to the theory of welfare as well as to economic growth theory. Basic aspects are the occurrence of subgroups in the welfare distribution, the inter-temporal dynamics as well as the discovery of relevant determinants. To investigate these issues empirically, switching-regime models are basic econometric tools. A major goal of the project Ho 3260/3-1 was to further develop the statistical machinery of regime-switching models which is required for the analysis of welfare distributions. The actual analysis was conducted together with the projects Kl 1260/9-1 and Vo 1592/3-1. A major focus of interdisciplinary applications within the current grant request for extension is on joint modeling and analysis of subgroups within monetary and nonmonetary welfare indices like life expectancy, education or the Human Development Index (HDI). In case of such multivariate data, the form of the mixture component (mainly the multivariate normal distribution) often does not correspond well to the shape of potential clusters which may represent groups in the data. Therefore, the major new methodological goal is to further develop merging methods, i.e. methods which allow to objectively merge components of the mixture or hidden Markov model into joint clusters. A further applied emphasis is on regional convergence, in particular within the context of the eastern expansion of the EU. Here, the time-inhomogeneous hidden Markov models which were developed within the project Ho 3260/3-1 shall be applied. Finally, the developed methodology shall be used for the analysis of the distribution and determinants of growth-rates.