@phdthesis{vonKaphengst2019,
  author    = {von Kaphengst, Dragana},
  title     = {Project's management quality in development cooperation},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-43099},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-430992},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xvii, 237},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {In light of the debate on the consequences of competitive contracting out of traditionally public services, this research compares two mechanisms used to allocate funds in development cooperation—direct awarding and competitive contracting out—aiming to identify their potential advantages and disadvantages. The agency theory is applied within the framework of rational-choice institutionalism to study the institutional arrangements that surround two different money allocation mechanisms, identify the incentives they create for the behavior of individual actors in the field, and examine how these then transfer into measurable differences in managerial quality of development aid projects. In this work, project management quality is seen as an important determinant of the overall project success. For data-gathering purposes, the German development agency, the Gesellschaft f{\"u}r Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), is used due to its unique way of work. Whereas the majority of projects receive funds via direct-award mechanism, there is a commercial department, GIZ International Services (GIZ IS) that has to compete for project funds. The data concerning project management practices on the GIZ and GIZ IS projects was gathered via a web-based, self-administered survey of project team leaders. Principal component analysis was applied to reduce the dimensionality of the independent variable to total of five components of project management. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis identified the differences between the separate components on these two project types. Enriched by qualitative data gathered via interviews, this thesis offers insights into everyday managerial practices in development cooperation and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of the two allocation mechanisms. The thesis first reiterates the responsibility of donors and implementers for overall aid effectiveness. It shows that the mechanism of competitive contracting out leads to better oversight and control of implementers, fosters deeper cooperation between the implementers and beneficiaries, and has a potential to strengthen ownership of recipient countries. On the other hand, it shows that the evaluation quality does not tremendously benefit from the competitive allocation mechanism and that the quality of the component knowledge management and learning is better when direct-award mechanisms are used. This raises questions about the lacking possibilities of actors in the field to learn about past mistakes and incorporate the finings into the future interventions, which is one of the fundamental issues of aid effectiveness. Finally, the findings show immense deficiencies in regard to oversight and control of individual projects in German development cooperation.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{CaliendoSchmidl2016,
  author    = {Caliendo, Marco and Schmidl, Ricarda},
  title     = {Youth unemployment and active labor market policies in Europe},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  number    = {125},
  issn      = {1867-5808},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-43695},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-436950},
  pages     = {32},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {Since the economic crisis in 2008, European youth unemployment rates have been persistently high at around 20\% on average. The majority of European countries spends significant resources each year on active labor market programs (ALMP) with the aim of improving the integration prospects of struggling youths. Among the most common programs used are training courses, job search assistance and monitoring, subsidized employment, and public work programs. For policy makers, it is of upmost importance to know which of these programs work and which are able to achieve the intended goals - may it be the integration into the first labor market or further education. Based on a detailed assessment of the particularities of the youth labor market situation, we discuss the pros and cons of different ALMP types. We then provide a comprehensive survey of the recent evidence on the effectiveness of these ALMP for youth in Europe, highlighting factors that seem to promote or impede their effectiveness in practice. Overall, the findings with respect to employment outcomes are only partly promising. While job search assistance (with and without monitoring) results in overwhelmingly positive effects, we find more mixed effects for training and wage subsidies, whereas the effects for public work programs are clearly negative. The evidence on the impact of ALMP on furthering education participation as well as employment quality is scarce, requiring additional research and allowing only limited conclusions so far.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{ArniCaliendoKuennetal.2014,
  author    = {Arni, Patrick and Caliendo, Marco and K{\"u}nn, Steffen and Zimmermann, Klaus F.},
  title     = {The IZA evaluation dataset survey},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  number    = {122},
  issn      = {1867-5808},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-43520},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-435204},
  pages     = {22},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {This reference paper describes the sampling and contents of the IZA Evaluation Dataset Survey and outlines its vast potential for research in labor economics. The data have been part of a unique IZA project to connect administrative data from the German Federal Employment Agency with innovative survey data to study the out-mobility of individuals to work. This study makes the survey available to the research community as a Scientific Use File by explaining the development, structure, and access to the data. Furthermore, it also summarizes previous findings with the survey data.},
  language  = {en}
}