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Against the background of the increasingly discussed “Linguistic Saving Hypothesis” (Chen, 2013), I studied whether the targeted use of a present tense (close tense) and a future tense (distant tense) within the same language have an impact on intertemporal decision-making. In a monetarily incentivized laboratory experiment in Germany, I implemented two different treatments on intertemporal choices. The treatments differed in the tense in which I referred to future rewards. My results show that individuals prefer to a greater extent rewards which are associated with a present tense (close tense). This result is in line with my prediction and the first empirical support for the Linguistic Saving Hypothesis within one language. However, this result holds exclusively for males. Females seem to be unaffected by the linguistic manipulation. I discuss my findings in the context of “gender-as-culture” as well as their potential policy-implications.
This paper analyzes the effect of new bicycle lanes on traffic volume, congestion, and accidents. Crucially, the new bike lanes replace existing car lanes thereby reducing available space for motorized traffic. In order to obtain causal estimates, I exploit the quasi-random timing and location of the newly built cycle lanes. Using an event study design, a two-way fixed effects model and the synthetic control group method on geo-coded data, I show that the construction of pop-up bike lanes significantly reduced average car speed by 8 to 12 percentage points (p.p.) and up to 16 p.p. in peak traffic hours. In contrast, the results for car volume are modest, while the data does not allow for a conclusive judgment of accidents.
Dieses Papier thematisiert die völkerstrafrechtliche Einordnung rein störender, also nicht zerstörender Cyberoperationen. Nach der erforderlichen Begriffsklärung werden die einzelnen Fragen der Anwendbarkeit des Völkerstrafrechts erörtert und geprüft, welche Tatbestände durch solche Aktionen verwirklicht werden können.
Job satisfaction has been found to impact behavioral choices at the workplace. Since levels of satisfaction are not guaranteed to remain high, understanding the consequences of job dissatisfaction is essential. Hence, I analyze the relationship between a worker’s job satisfaction and her training investments. Based on my theoretical model, I expect a U-shaped relationship if dissatisfied workers attempt to improve the situation or plan to quit. In contrast, there is an overall positive relationship if dissatisfied workers neglect their duties. Using logit regressions with the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey I find tentative evidence that there is on average an overall positive relationship with a 1 standard deviation increase in job satisfaction being associated with a 1.5% increased likelihood of participating in training. A closer inspection of the reasons for training as well as quit intentions reveals some hints of a U-shaped relationship. My results highlight the importance of considering the source of dissatisfaction as there are heterogeneous effects along different job satisfaction facets.
Gruppierung von Daten
(2022)
Dieser Beitrag beinhaltet einen Vergleich zwischen den Methoden der Topologischen Datenanalyse (TDA) und statistischen Clusterverfahren bei der Gruppierung von Daten. Es werden Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede bei der Bildung der Cluster und Zuordnung der statistischen Einheiten identifiziert. Hierzu werden zwei empirische Datensätze aus der Biologie und Medizin herangezogen.
Zusammengefasst haben sich die Verfahren der TDA als ein praktikables Werkzeug bei der Gruppierung von Objekten erwiesen. Vor allem mit dem Mapper-Algorithmus konnten adäquate Cluster erkannt werden. Beim Iris Flower-Datensatz hat die TDA ähnliche Ergebnisse wie die Clusteranalyse erzielt. Der Heart Disease-Datensatz war schwieriger zu behandeln. Die genutzten clusteranalytischen Verfahren waren nicht geeignet, die beiden Gruppen von Patienten korrekt zu identifizieren. Im Vergleich zu den Standardverfahren der Clusteranalyse zeigte sich eine leichte Überlegenheit der topologischen Verfahren.
On Track to Success?
(2022)
Many countries consider expanding vocational curricula in secondary education to boost skills and labour market outcomes among non-university-bound students. However, critics fear this could divert other students from more profitable academic education. We study labour market returns to vocational education in England, where until recently students chose between a vocational track, an academic track and quitting education at age 16. Identification is challenging because self-selection is strong and because students’ next-best alternatives are unknown. Against this back- drop, we leverage multiple instrumental variables to estimate margin-specific treatment effects, i.e., causal returns to vocational education for students at the margin with academic education and, separately, for students at the margin with quitting education. Identification comes from variation in distance to the nearest vocational provider conditional on distance to the nearest academic provider (and vice-versa), while controlling for granular student, school and neighbourhood characteristics. The analysis is based on population-wide administrative education data linked to tax records. We find that the vast majority of marginal vocational students are indifferent be- tween vocational and academic education. For them, vocational enrolment substantially decreases earnings at age 30. This earnings penalty grows with age and is due to wages, not employment. However, consistent with comparative advantage, the penalty is smaller for students with higher revealed preferences for the vocational track. For the few students at the margin with no further education, we find merely tentative evidence of increased employment and earnings from vocational enrolment.
Do internships pay off?
(2022)
We study the causal effect of student internship experience in firms on earnings later in life. We use mandatory firm internships at German universities as an instrument for doing a firm internship while attending university. Employing longitudinal data from graduate surveys, we find positive and significant earnings returns of about 6 percent in both ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrumental variables (IV) regressions. The positive returns are particularly pronounced for individuals and areas of study that are characterized by a weak labor market orientation. The empirical findings show that graduates who completed a firm internship face a lower risk of unemployment during the first year of their careers, suggesting a smoother transition to the labor market.
Untersucht werden die von BulwienGesa erhobenen und aufbereiteten jahresdurchschnittlichen Mieten von Wohnungen und die Relation des Wiederverkaufswertes von Eigentumswohnungen zu den Wohnungsmieten (Preis-Miet-Relation) in 401 kreisfreien Städten und Landkreisen für die Jahre 2004–2017. Dabei zeigt sich bei den Wohnungsmieten eine Zunahme der regionalen Streuung im Zeitverlauf vor allem in der auf die Finanzkrise 2007–2009 folgenden Zeit. Bei der Preis-Miet-Relation nimmt die Streuung im Zeitverlauf ab 2010 ebenfalls zu. Im Durchschnitt der Regionen (Landkreise und kreisfreie Städte) steigen über den gesamten Zeitabschnitt die Mieten und in der überwiegenden Zahl der Regionen auch die Preis-Miet-Relation (allerdings erst ab 2010); sie entwickeln sich aber regional stark unterschiedlich. Dies führt auch zur Zunahme der Variationskoeffizienten, also der relativen Streuung der regionalen Mieten und – ab 2010 – auch der regionalen Preis-Miet-Relationen.
Dies deutet auf eine Zunahme der regionalen Disparitäten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland hin. Besondere Divergenzen zeigen sich zwischen den alten und den neuen Bundesländern, wie auch zwischen prosperierenden kreisfreien Städten und deren Umland und ökonomisch schwächeren Städten und Landkreisen.
We demonstrate how the incentives of firms that partially own their suppliers or customers to foreclose rivals depend on how the partial owner can extract profits from the target (tunneling). Compared to a fully vertically integrated firm, a partial owner may obtain only a share of the target’s profit but influence the target’s strategy significantly. We show that the incentives for customer and input foreclosure can be higher, equal, or even lower with partial ownership than with a vertical merger, depending on how the protection of minority shareholders and transfer price regulations affect the scope for profit extraction.
Ticket to Paradise?
(2022)
This paper provides novel evidence on the impact of public transport subsidies on air pollution. We obtain causal estimates by leveraging a unique policy intervention in Germany that temporarily reduced nationwide prices for regional public transport to a monthly flat rate price of 9 Euros. Us-ing DiD estimation strategies on air pollutant data, we show that this intervention causally reduced a benchmark air pollution index by more than six percent. Our results illustrate that public transport subsidies – especially in the context of spatially constrained cities – offer a viable alterna-tive for policymakers and city planers to improve air quality, which has been shown to crucially affect health outcomes.
We use the prolonged Greek crisis as a case study to understand how a lasting economic shock affects the innovation strategies of firms in economies with moderate innovation activities. Adopting the 3-stage CDM model, we explore the link between R&D, innovation, and productivity for different size groups of Greek manufacturing firms during the prolonged crisis. At the first stage, we find that the continuation of the crisis is harmful for the R&D engagement of smaller firms while it increased the willingness for R&D activities among the larger ones. At the second stage, among smaller firms the knowledge production remains unaffected by R&D investments, while among larger firms the R&D decision is positively correlated with the probability of producing innovation, albeit the relationship is weakened as the crisis continues. At the third stage, innovation output benefits only larger firms in terms of labor productivity, while the innovation-productivity nexus is insignificant for smaller firms during the lasting crisis.
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) moves atmospheric carbon to geological or land-based sinks. In a first-best setting, the optimal use of CDR is achieved by a removal subsidy that equals the optimal carbon tax and marginal damages. We derive second-best subsidies for CDR when no global carbon price exists but a national government implements a unilateral climate policy. We find that the optimal carbon tax differs from an optimal CDR subsidy because of carbon leakage, terms-of-trade and fossil resource rent dynamics. First, the optimal removal subsidy tends to be larger than the carbon tax because of lower supply-side leakage on fossil resource markets. Second, terms-of-trade effects exacerbate this wedge for net resource exporters, implying even larger removal subsidies. Third, the optimal removal subsidy may fall below the carbon tax for resource-poor countries when marginal environmental damages are small.
In light of climate change mitigation efforts, revenues from climate policies are growing, with no consensus yet on how they should be used. Potential efficiency gains from reducing distortionary taxes and the distributional implications of different revenue recycling schemes are currently debated. To account for households heterogeneity and dynamic trade-offs, we study the macroeconomic and welfare performance of different revenue recycling schemes using an Environmental Two-Agent New-Keynesian model, calibrated on the German economy. We find that, in the long run, welfare gains are higher when revenues are used to reduce distortionary taxes on capital, but this comes at the cost of higher inequality: while all households prefer labor income tax reductions to lump-sum transfers, only financially unconstrained households are better off when reducing taxes on capital income. Interestingly, we find that over the transition period relevant to meet short-medium run climate targets, labor income tax cuts are the most efficient and equitable instrument.
Subsidizing the geographical mobility of unemployed workers may improve welfare by relaxing their financial constraints and allowing them to find jobs in more prosperous regions. We exploit regional variation in the promotion of mobility programs along administrative borders of German employment agency districts to investigate the causal effect of offering such financial incentives on the job search behavior and labor market integration of unemployed workers. We show that promoting mobility – as intended – causes job seekers to increase their search radius, apply for and accept distant jobs. At the same time, local job search is reduced with adverse consequences for reemployment and earnings. These unintended negative effects are provoked by spatial search frictions. Overall, the unconditional provision of mobility programs harms the welfare of unemployed job seekers.