Publikationen

We collect information about more than 5000 Prussian politicians, digitize administrative data on the provision of health-promoting public goods, and gather local-level information on workers’ movements to study why elites in industrializing countries implement policies that improve the health of the poor. Using county-level variation in elite structure, we present OLS and IV estimates, suggesting that elites improve access to health services due to pressure exerted by workers’ movements. By contrast, policies that prevent disease outbreaks are implemented without such pressure. Analyses of roll- call votes substantiate the findings of the county-level analysis.

We investigate the role of perceived co-worker attractiveness for performance by analysing a rich dataset on the perceptions and behaviours of work groups in a research project at a German university. The findings show that the higher the perceived attractiveness of co-workers, the lower the task performance, but only in opposite-sex constellations. The performance drop is noticeable in two-person scenarios in which the individual performance level is reduced by roughly 15% if the opposite-sex co-worker is perceived as highly attractive. Our analysis of potential mechanisms supports the idea of underperformance due to cognitively demanding self-regulation reflected in increased emotional arousal.

Im Beitrag wird die Entwicklung eines Fragebogens berichtet, mit welchem sich lernerseitige Partizipationsmöglichkeiten aus der Perspektive von Lernenden und Lehrenden erfassen lassen. Die faktoranalytische Prüfung basiert auf Daten von Schüler:innen (n1 = 314) sowie Lehrpersonen (n2 = 97) der Sekundarstufen I und II. Für die beiden Perspektiven sowie für unterschiedliche Felder lernerseitiger Einflussmöglichkeiten kann jeweils konsistent die folgende dreifaktorielle Skalenstruktur empirisch ermittelt werden: (1) Selbstbestimmte Teilhabe, (2) Bedingte Mitsprache und (3) Fremdbestimmung. Die Analysen weisen insgesamt auf angemessene Modellparameter und Skalenreliabilitäten hin. In deskriptiver Hinsicht zeigen sich in den Daten erwartungskonforme Muster: (a) die befragten Schüler:innen geben der lehrpersonenseitigen Fremdbestimmung durchgängig höhere Zustimmungswerte als den beiden Ausprägungen partizipativer Einflussnahme; (b) die lernerseitig wahrgenommenen Partizipationsmöglichkeiten variieren zwischen verschiedenen unterrichtlichen Gestaltungsfeldern in ihrer jeweiligen Höhe; (c) Lehrpersonen schätzen die lernerseitigen Einflussmöglichkeiten teils deutlich höher ein als dies die Lernenden selbst tun. Mit dem vorgestellten Instrument bietet sich die Möglichkeit, lernerseitige Partizipationsmöglichkeiten differenziert empirisch zu erfassen und zu untersuchen.

Gender segregation of occupations and entire industries is widespread. The segregation could be the result of perceived job-specific productivity differences between men and women. It could also result from the belief that homogeneous teams perform better or from in-group bias of male or female recruiters. We investigate these explanations in two samples: students and personnel managers. The subjects bet on the productivity of teams that are homogeneous with respect to gender at the outset and then either remain homogeneous or become diverse. The teams work on tasks that differ with respect to gender stereotypes. We obtain similar results in both samples. Women are picked more often for the stereotypically female task, and men are picked more often for the stereotypically male task. Subjects believe that gender-diverse teams perform better, especially in the task with complementarities, and they display an own-gender bias. Elicited expectations about the bets of others reveal that subjects expect the gender stereotypes of tasks but underestimate others’ bets on diversity.

We propose a novel estimation approach for the covariance matrix based on the l1-regularized approximate factor model (AFM). Our sparse approximate factor (SAF) covariance estimator allows for the existence of weak factors and hence relaxes the pervasiveness assumption generally adopted for the standard AFM. We prove the consistency of the covariance matrix estimator under the Frobenius norm as well as the consistency of the factor loadings and the factors. Our Monte Carlo simulations reveal that the SAF covariance estimator has superior properties in finite samples for low and high dimensions and different designs of the covariance matrix. Moreover, in an out-of-sample portfolio forecasting application, the estimator uniformly outperforms alternative portfolio strategies based on alternative covariance estimation approaches and modeling strategies including the 1/N-strategy.

The paper theoretically examines the standing of Ukrainian educational qualifications, especially technical and vocational education and training (TVET). It assumes that the existing low social standing of TVET is related to the meritocratic principle. In this sense, this study does not examine the case of Ukraine as an example to illustrate meritocracy but rather examines the case of Ukraine using the concept of meritocracy. It briefly shows how, on the ideal typical level, the merit principle in education-based meritocracies acts as a driver for the dysfunctional devaluation of TVET. After an overview of the Ukrainian education system, the paper examines the shift towards meritocratic logic in Ukraine. It then analyses how this shift influences the Ukrainian education system, educational aspirations, and recruitment strategies in the business world. The paper concludes that the widespread belief in meritocratic principles is an important influencing factor regarding the social devaluation of TVET in Ukraine.

Purpose:

Our study focuses on stress contagion in vocational school classes, examining how students’ stress experiences affect their spatial classmates. For this purpose, we apply a novel formal network model that allows us to differentiate between endogenous and exogenous peer effects in the stress contagion process. Using the network model, we investigate effects on students’ stress levels, considering the stress and coping experiences of spatial peers as well as didactic-methodological context factors.

Methods:

We test our statistical model using secondary data collected in a study involving 53 students from two classes at a public German vocational training school. The students’ experiences of stress (time pressure, pressure to succeed) and coping strategies (understanding of the subject matter, self-confidence) were captured using the experience sampling method, while classroom characteristics (e.g., teacher instruction, cooperative work) were recorded through video-based analysis of lessons. Utilizing the panel data, we employ maximum likelihood estimation to assess the spatial peer effects model for both classrooms.

Results:

Among other findings, all model specifications revealed significant peer effects for both stress measures, indicating that the higher the stress experience of immediate peers in the classroom, the higher the individual stress experienced by the students. Concerning the considered context factors, we found, for example, that increased cooperative work leads to higher levels of stress experience.

Conclusion:

From a substantive perspective, our results underscore the role of peer-to-peer contagion in the vocational classroom and thus suggest a nuanced examination of cooperative practices. From a research methodology perspective, our approach illustrates how various methods (such as experience sampling, video-based classroom observation, and spatial network information) complement and enrich each other, highlighting the added value of our network analytical approach.

How do people attribute responsibility when an outcome is not caused by an individual but results from a decision chain involving several people? We study this question in an experiment, in which five voters sequentially decide on how to distribute money between them and five recipients. The recipients can reward or punish each voter, which we use as measures of responsibility attribution. In the aggregate, we find that responsibility is attributed mostly according to the voters’ choices and the pivotality of the decision, but not for being the initial voter. On the individual level, we find substantial heterogeneity with three overall patterns: Little to no responsibility attribution, pivotality-driven, and focus on choices. These patterns are similar when praising voters for good outcomes and blaming voters for bad outcomes.

We propose how to bid in first-price auctions when a bidder knows the own value but not how others will bid. To do this, we introduce a methodology to show how to make choices in strategic settings without assuming common knowledge or equilibrium behavior. Accordingly, we first eliminate environments that are believed not to occur and then find a robust rule that performs well in the remaining environments. We test our bids using data from laboratory experiments and the field and find that our bids outperform those made by real bidders.

The study aims to identify profiles of trainee teachers in terms of their stress and work experiences and to uncover profile differences in regard to dropout intentions and perceived relationships between trainee teachers and their mentors. Based on data from 1,756 German trainee teachers, three distinct stress and work experience profiles could be identified. Trainee teachers with high levels of stress and negative work experiences exhibit higher dropout intentions and experience their relationship with their mentors as less transparent, fair and trusting, and more ambivalent compared to trainee teachers with low levels of stress and positive work experiences. The results underline the importance of the relationship between mentors and trainee teachers for the professional development of future teachers.

This paper addresses the effects of a prohibition of providing non-audit services (NAS) to audit clients. By combining a strategic auditor–client game with a circular market-matching model that has an endogenous number of auditors, we take into account the interdependence between the auditors’ and clients’ incentives, the market structure, and the quality of audited reports. We show that the regulation’s effects depend on the preexisting audit market concentration and the types of blacklisted NAS. In sharp contrast to the effects that regulators desire, a prohibition of providing NAS to audit clients can further increase audit market concentration and decrease the quality of audited reports if the fees that auditors previously earned from providing the blacklisted NAS were relatively high, compared to the reduction in audit costs that result from spillovers. In contrast, a prohibition of the NAS that generate intense spillovers and low NAS fees can have the unexpected—but desired—effect of decreasing market concentration; however, reporting quality also decreases.

While laboratory and field experiments are the major items in the toolbox of behavioral economists, household panel studies can complement them and expand their research potential. We introduce the German Socio-Economic Panel’s Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS), which offers researchers detailed panel data and the possibility to collect personalized experimental and survey data for free. We discuss what SOEP-IS can offer to behavioral economists and illustrate a set of design ideas with examples. Although we build our discussion on SOEP-IS, our purpose is to provide a guide that can be generalized to other household panel studies as well.

We examine labor supply responses to piece rate changes relative to the reference piece rate (RR). In experimental conditions without RR, labor supply increases monotonically with the actual piece rate. In conditions with RR, labor supply increases both when the piece rate rises and falls relative to RR. This non-monotonicity in labor supply responses to piece rate changes around RR is consistent with the effects of framing a given level of income as gain or loss relative to the target level induced by RR: loss aversion makes subjects work more at a given piece rate when the implied income is in the loss rather than gain domain. However, the framing effects disappear when the piece rate could both rise or fall relative to RR.

Mandatory filings for UK hedge funds suggest that managers having worked at the same prior employer invest more similarly in terms of distances of returns. If they overlapped in employment, increasing the chance of social ties, investments become even more similar. The joint effect accounts for up to two thirds of the difference in investing behavior. Results are robust to fund- and manager-level controls as well as to identification concerns. With controls, the same-employer effect is concentrated in the systematic component (beta), whereas the overlap effect is concentrated in the idiosyncratic components (alpha and residuals). Managerial ties make any two funds more similar in their stock holdings. Moreover, portfolios of connected funds outperform their peers in terms of alpha, return volatility, and Sharpe ratio.

We study the general equilibrium implications of the corporate tax shield in a growth economy that taxes household income and firm profits and redistributes tax revenues. Our stylized model predicts that in general equilibrium the tax shield's reduction of the corporate after-tax borrowing rate is counteracted (but not fully eliminated) by an increase in the pre-tax rate.

We characterize intergenerational mobility in Germany using census data on educational attainment and parental income for 526,000 children. Motivated by Germany’s tracking system in secondary education, our measure of opportunity is the A-Level degree, a requirement for access to university. A 10 percentile increase in parental income rank is associated with a 5.2 percentage point increase in the A-Level share. This gradient remained unchanged for the birth cohorts 1980–1996, despite a large-scale expansion of upper secondary education. At the regional level, there exists substantial variation in mobility estimates. Local characteristics, rather than sorting patterns, account for most of these differences.

Several studies have analyzed the outcome of vocational education and training (VET); however, they primarily compared individuals with different qualification levels. This perspective neglects the fact that adolescents can differ in their training courses and transition to the labor market. Thus far, evidence on the consequences of different VET-to-labor market transition patterns is scarce. Therefore, the present study distinguished different VET-to-labor market transition patterns of German trainees and analyzed the long-term consequences on subjective well-being (SWB) later in life. Our results show in-between differences in the SWB of trainees in further life by different VET-to-labor market transition patterns. Compared to individuals with direct VET-to-labor market transitions, individuals who experienced a premature training termination and did not return to institutionalized education were more likely to have lower SWB later in life. Additionally, participating in general or higher education programs after VET seems to be beneficial. However, completing multiple VET programs did not influence SWB. The results underline the importance of strategies to prevent early leaving from education and training.