@phdthesis{Wulff2018,
  author    = {Wulff, Alexander},
  title     = {Essays in macroeconomics and financial market imperfections},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-42995},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-429956},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {X, 142},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {This dissertation consists of four self-contained papers that deal with the implications of financial market imperfections and heterogeneity. The analysis mainly relates to the class of incomplete-markets models but covers different research topics. The first paper deals with the distributional effects of financial integration for developing countries. Based on a simple heterogeneous-agent approach, it is shown that capital owners experience large welfare losses while only workers moderately gain due to higher wages. The large welfare losses for capital owners contrast with the small average welfare gains from representative-agent economies and indicate that a strong opposition against capital market opening has to be expected. The second paper considers the puzzling observation of capital flows from poor to rich countries and the accompanying changes in domestic economic development. Motivated by the mixed results from the literature, we employ an incomplete-markets model with different types of idiosyncratic risk and borrowing constraints. Based on different scenarios, we analyze under what conditions the presence of financial market imperfections contributes to explain the empirical findings and how the conditions may change with different model assumptions. The third paper deals with the interplay of incomplete information and financial market imperfections in an incomplete-markets economy. In particular, it analyzes the impact of incomplete information about idiosyncratic income shocks on aggregate saving. The results show that the effect of incomplete information is not only quantitatively substantial but also qualitatively ambiguous and varies with the influence of the income risk and the borrowing constraint. Finally, the fourth paper analyzes the influence of different types of fiscal rules on the response of key macroeconomic variables to a government spending shock. We find that a strong temporary increase in public debt contributes to stabilizing consumption and leisure in the first periods following the change in government spending, whereas a non-debt-intensive fiscal rule leads to a faster recovery of consumption, leisure, capital and output in later periods. Regarding optimal debt policy, we find that a debt-intensive fiscal rule leads to the largest aggregate welfare benefit and that the individual welfare gain is particularly high for wealth-poor agents.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Weiss2018,
  author    = {Weiß, Katharina},
  title     = {Three Essays on EFRAG},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-415355},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {II, 180},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {This cumulative doctoral thesis consists of three papers that deal with the role of one specific European accounting player in the international accounting standard-setting, namely the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG). The first paper examines whether and how EFRAG generally fulfills its role in articulating Europe's interests toward the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). The qualitative data from the conducted interviews reveal that EFRAG influences the IASB's decision making at a very early stage, long before other constituents are officially asked to comment on the IASB's proposals. The second paper uses quantitative data and investigates the formal participation behavior of European constituents that seek to determine EFRAG's voice. More precisely, this paper analyzes the nature of the constituents' participation in EFRAG's due process in terms of representation (constituent groups and geographical distribution) and the drivers of their participation behavior. EFRAG's official decision making process is dominated by some specific constituent groups (such as preparers and the accounting profession) and by constituents from some specific countries (e.g. those with effective enforcement regimes). The third paper investigates in a first step who of the European constituents choose which lobbying channel (participation only at IASB, only at EFRAG, or at both institutions) and unveils in a second step possible reasons for their lobbying choices. The paper comprises quantitative and qualitative data. It reveals that English skills, time issues, the size of the constituent, and the country of origin are factors that can explain why the majority participates only in the IASB's due process.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Stolley2018,
  author    = {Stolley, Florian},
  title     = {Four essays on altruism and compliance},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-42801},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-428013},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {ix, 129},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {There are numerous situations in which people ask for something or make a request, e.g. asking a favor, asking for help or requesting compliance with specific norms. For this reason, how to ask for something in order to increase people's willingness to fulfill such requests is one of the most important question for many people working in various different fields of responsibility such as charitable giving, marketing, management or policy making. This dissertation consists of four chapters that deal with the effects of small changes in the decision-making environment on altruistic decision-making and compliance behavior. Most notably, written communication as an influencing factor is the focus of the first three chapters. The starting point was the question how to devise a request in order to maximize its chance of success (Chapter 1). The results of the first chapter originate the ideas for the second and third chapter. Chapter 2 analyzes how communication by a neutral third-party, i.e. a text from the experimenters that either reminds potential benefactors of their responsibility or highlights their freedom of choice, affects altruistic decision-making. Chapter 3 elaborates on the effect of thanking people in advance when asking them for help. While being not as closely related to the other chapters as the three first ones are, the fourth chapter deals as well with the question how compliance (here: compliance with norms and rules) is affected by subtle manipulations of the environment in which decisions are made. This chapter analyzes the effect of default settings in a tax return on tax compliance. In order to study the research questions outlined above, controlled experiments were conducted. Chapter 1, which analyzes the effect of text messages on the decision to give something to another person, employs a mini-dictator game. The recipient sends a free-form text message to the dictator before the latter makes a binary decision whether or not to give part of her or his endowment to the recipient. We find that putting effort into the message by writing a long note without spelling mistakes increases dictators' willingness to give. Moreover, writing in a humorous way and mentioning reasons why the money is needed pays off. Furthermore, men and women seem to react differently to some message categories. Only men react positively to efficiency arguments, while only women react to messages that emphasize the dictator's power and responsibility. Building on this last result, Chapter 2 attempts to disentangle the effect of reminding potential benefactors of their responsibility for the potential beneficiary and the effect of highlighting their decision power and freedom of choice on altruistic decision-making by studying the effects of two different texts on giving in a dictator game. We find that only men react positively to a text that stresses their responsibility for the recipient by giving more to her or him, whereas only women seem to react positively to a text that emphasizes their decision power and freedom of choice. Chapter 3 focuses on the compliance with a request. In the experiment, participants are asked to provide a detailed answer to an open question. Compliance is measured by the effort participants spend on answering the question. The treatment variable is whether or not they see the text "thanks in advance." We find that participants react negatively by putting less effort into complying with the request in response to the phrase "thanks in advance." Chapter 4 studies the effect of prefilled tax returns with mostly inaccurate default values on tax compliance. In a laboratory experiment, participants earn income by performing a real-effort task and must subsequently file a tax return for three consecutive rounds. In the main treatment, the tax return is prefilled with a default value, resulting from participants' own performance in previous rounds, which varies in its relative size. The results suggest that there is no lasting effect of a default value on tax honesty, neither for relatively low nor relatively high defaults. However, participants who face a default that is lower than their true income in the first round evade significantly and substantially more taxes in this round than participants in the control treatment without a default.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{SarnesNitu2018,
  author    = {Sarnes-Nitu, Juliane},
  title     = {Mit der Schuldenbremse zu nachhaltigen Staatsfinanzen?},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-413804},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {294},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {The core question of this paper is: Does the debt brake secure fiscal sustainability in Germany? To answer this question, we will first examine the effects of the introduction of the debt brake on the German federal states in the period 2010-16. For this purpose, the observed consolidation performance and the consolidation incentive or pressure experienced by the federal states were evaluated with the help of a scorecard specifically developed for this purpose. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze how the scorecard factors affect the consolidation performance of the federal states. It found that nearly 90\% of the variation was explained by the independent variables budgetary position, debt burden, revenue growth and pension burden. Thus the debt brake likely played a subordinate role in the 2009-2016 consolidation episode. Subsequently, the data collected in 65 expert interviews was used to analyze the limits of the new fiscal rule, and to determine which potential risks could hinder or prevent the debt brake in the future: municipal debt, FEUs, contingent liabilities in the form of guarantees for financial institutions and pension obligations. The frequently expressed criticism that the debt brake impedes economic growth and public investments is also reviewed and rejected. Finally, we discuss potential future developments regarding the debt brake and the German public administration as well as future consolidation efforts of the L{\"a}nder.},
  language  = {de}
}
@phdthesis{Sakowski2018,
  author    = {Sakowski, Fabian},
  title     = {Bodennutzung in der New Economic Geography},
  series = {Potsdamer Schriften zur Raumwirtschaft},
  journal   = {Potsdamer Schriften zur Raumwirtschaft},
  number    = {7},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-426-5},
  issn      = {2190-8702},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-413737},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xiv, 290},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Mit der New Economic Geography (NEG) kann die Verteilung von Unternehmen und Arbeitskr{\"a}ften auf Regionen modellhaft diskutiert werden. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, welche r{\"a}umlichen Verteilungen der mobilen Arbeitskr{\"a}fte und Unternehmen in einem NEG-Modellansatz resultieren, wenn die Gr{\"o}ße einer Region und damit der ihr zur Verf{\"u}gung stehende Boden, die zu {\"u}berwindende Distanz f{\"u}r den G{\"u}tertransport innerhalb der Regionen, sowie Bodennutzungskonkurrenzen zwischen Wohnen, Industrie und Landwirtschaft ber{\"u}cksichtigt werden. Auch wird der Frage nachgegangen, welche Wohlfahrtswirkungen hierbei resultieren.},
  language  = {de}
}
@phdthesis{Pavleski2018,
  author    = {Pavleski, Stefan},
  title     = {Arbeitslosigkeit in S{\"u}dosteuropa im Kontext der EU-Integration},
  series = {Potsdam Economic Studies},
  journal   = {Potsdam Economic Studies},
  number    = {7},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-421-0},
  issn      = {2196-8691},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-404287},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xxi, 263},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Diese Arbeit besteht aus drei Aufs{\"a}tzen. Der erste Aufsatz („Die Arbeitsmarktpolitik in S{\"u}dosteuropa: Von der Transformation bis zur EU-Integration") er{\"o}rtert die wirtschaftlichen und politischen Rahmenbedingungen in S{\"u}dosteuropa und die damit einhergehenden Entwicklungen auf den jeweiligen Arbeitsm{\"a}rkten seit 1991. Im Fokus steht dabei der Einfluss der Arbeitslosigkeit (als systemunabh{\"a}ngiges Problem) auf den EU-Integrationsprozess in den jugoslawischen Nachfolgestaaten und Albanien. Welchen Einfluss haben der qualifikatorische und regionale Mismatch auf die Arbeitslosigkeit in Kroatien? Um diese Frage zu beantworten, wird im zweiten Kapitel dieser Arbeit („Arbeitslosigkeit im Transformationsprozess: Qualifikatorischer und regionaler Mismatch in Kroatien") der Mismatch sowohl statisch mit Mismatch-Indikatoren als auch dynamisch im Rahmen der Matching-Funktion er{\"o}rtert. Unter Anwendung von Paneldaten f{\"u}r neun Berufsgruppen und 21 Regionen im Zeitraum zwischen Januar 2004 und Juni 2015 wird in diesem Kapitel mithilfe von Fixed-Effects-Modellen dieser Einfluss gesch{\"a}tzt. F{\"u}hrt die Anpassung der Arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetze an die EU-Standards zu einer Verbesserung der Arbeitsmarktergebnisse in den Staaten S{\"u}dosteuropas? Mit Hilfe von Paneldaten f{\"u}r den Zeitraum 1996-2014 wird f{\"u}r f{\"u}nf s{\"u}dosteurop{\"a}ische Staaten (Albanien, Kroatien, Mazedonien, Montenegro und Serbien) dieser Einfluss im Rahmen eines Differenz-in-Differenzen-Modells im dritten Aufsatz („Unvollst{\"a}ndige Integration: Eine Differenz-in-Differenzen-Analyse der s{\"u}dosteurop{\"a}ischen Arbeitsm{\"a}rkte") gesch{\"a}tzt.},
  language  = {de}
}
@phdthesis{Mielke2018,
  author    = {Mielke, Jahel},
  title     = {Coordination on Green Investment},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-42745},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427459},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {viii, 209},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {To reach its climate targets, the European Union has to implement a major sustainability transition in the coming decades. While the socio-technical change required for this transition is well discussed in the academic literature, the economics that go along with it are often reduced to a cost-benefit perspective of climate policy measures. By investigating climate change mitigation as a coordination problem, this thesis offers a novel perspective: It integrates the economic and the socio-technical dimension and thus allows to better understand the opportunities of a sustainability transition in Europe. First, a game theoretic framework is developed to illustrate coordination on green or brown investment from an agent perspective. A model based on the coordination game "stag hunt" is used to discuss the influence of narratives and signals for green investment as a means to coordinate expectations towards green growth. Public and private green investment impulses - triggered by credible climate policy measures and targets - serve as an example for a green growth perspective for Europe in line with a sustainability transition. This perspective also embodies a critical view on classical analyses of climate policy measures. Secondly, this analysis is enriched with empirical results derived from stakeholder involvement. In interviews and with a survey among European insurance companies, coordination mechanisms such as market and policy signals are identified and evaluated by their impact on investment strategies for green infrastructure. The latter, here defined as renewable energy, electricity distribution and transmission as well as energy efficiency improvements, is considered a central element of the transition to a low-carbon society. Thirdly, this thesis identifies and analyzes major criticisms raised towards stakeholder involvement in sustainability science. On a conceptual level, different ways of conducting such qualitative research are classified. This conceptualization is then evaluated by scientists, thereby generating empirical evidence on ideals and practices of stakeholder involvement in sustainability science. Through the combination of theoretical and empirical research on coordination problems, this thesis offers several contributions: On the one hand, it outlines an approach that allows to assess the economic opportunities of sustainability transitions. This is helpful for policy makers in Europe that are striving to implement climate policy measures addressing the targets of the Paris Agreement as well as to encourage a shift of investments towards green infrastructure. On the other hand, this thesis enhances the stabilization of the theoretical foundations in sustainability science. Therefore, it can aid researchers who involve stakeholders when studying sustainability transitions.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Kraft2018,
  author    = {Kraft, Frederik},
  title     = {Be Creative, Now!},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-414009},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {VII, 230},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Purpose - This thesis set out to explore, describe, and evaluate the reality behind the rhetoric of freedom and control in the context of creativity. The overarching subject is concerned with the relationship between creativity, freedom, and control, considering freedom is also seen as an element of control to manage creativity. Design/methodology/approach - In-depth qualitative data gathered from at two innovative start-ups. Two ethnographic studies were conducted. The data are based on participatory observations, interviews, and secondary sources, each of which included a three months field study and a total of 41 interviews from both organizations. Findings - The thesis provides explanations for the practice of freedom and the control of creativity within organizations and expands the existing theory of neo-normative control. The findings indicate that organizations use complex control systems that allow a high degree of freedom that paradoxically leads to more control. Freedom is a cover of control, which in turn leads to creativity. Covert control even results in the responsibility to be creative outside working hours. Practical implications - Organizations, which rely on creativity might use the results of this thesis. Positive workplace control of creativity provides both freedom and structure for creative work. While freedom leads to organizational members being more motivated and committing themselves more strongly to their and the organization's goals, and a specific structure also helps to provide the requirements for creativity. Originality/value - The thesis provides an insight into an approach to workplace control, which has mostly neglected in creativity research and proposes a modified concept of neo-normative control. It serves to provide a further understanding of freedom for creativity and to challenge the liberal claims of new control forms.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Konon2018,
  author    = {Konon, Alexander},
  title     = {Essays on career choice under risk and ambiguity},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-416466},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {x, 250, xxxv},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {This dissertation consists of five self-contained essays, addressing different aspects of career choices, especially the choice of entrepreneurship, under risk and ambiguity. In Chapter 2, the first essay develops an occupational choice model with boundedly rational agents, who lack information, receive noisy feedback, and are restricted in their decisions by their personality, to analyze and explain puzzling empirical evidence on entrepreneurial decision processes. In the second essay, in Chapter 3, I contribute to the literature on entrepreneurial choice by constructing a general career choice model on the basis of the assumption that outcomes are partially ambiguous. The third essay, in Chapter 4, theoretically and empirically analyzes the impact of media on career choices, where information on entrepreneurship provided by the media is treated as an informational shock affecting prior beliefs. The fourth essay, presented in Chapter 5, contains an empirical analysis of the effects of cyclical macro variables (GDP and unemployment) on innovative start-ups in Germany. In the fifth, and last, essay in Chapter 6, we examine whether information on personality is useful for advice, using the example of career advice.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{Holtz2018,
  type      = {Master Thesis},
  author    = {Holtz, Johannes Niklas},
  title     = {Civil servants' commitment to change - a factor of success regarding the reform of public budgeting and accounting in the State of Brandenburg?},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  issn      = {2190-4561},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-420792},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {IV, 79},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {This study investigates the reform of the public budgeting and accounting system (Doppik) in Brandenburg. On the one hand, this thesis aims to identify the key variables shaping employees' commitment to change and, on the other hand, to examine the extent employees' commitment to change influences the implementation process of the reform. The results of this study show that the commitment of civil servants towards the Doppik is primarily determined by the content, but also by the context of the reform. Moreover, it is revealed for the case of Brandenburg that civil servants' affective commitment to change has a significant positive influence on the perceived success of the reform implementation. The results of the study are not only of high scientific importance, but also of practical relevance. The recommendations developed in this study offer grounded guidelines on how to successfully implement the Doppik on local level in Brandenburg.},
  language  = {en}
}