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We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how locus of control operates through people’s preferences and beliefs to influence their decisions. Using the principal–agent setting of the delegation game, we test four key channels that conceptually link locus of control to decision-making: (i) preference for agency, (ii) optimism and (iii) confidence regarding the return to effort, and (iv) illusion of control. Knowing the return and cost of stated effort, principals either retain or delegate the right to make an investment decision that generates payoffs for themselves and their agents. Extending the game to the context in which the return to stated effort is unknown allows us to explicitly study the relationship between locus of control and beliefs about the return to effort. We find that internal locus of control is linked to the preference for agency, an effect that is driven by women. We find no evidence that locus of control influences optimism and confidence about the return to stated effort, or that it operates through an illusion of control.
In this visualization, the authors show changes in family patterns by different race groups across two cohorts. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (born from 1957 to 1965) and 1997 (born from 1980 to 1984), the authors visualize the relationship-parenthood state distributions at each age between 15 and 35 years by race and cohort. The results suggest the rise of cohabiting mothers and the decline of married and divorced mothers among women born from 1980 to 1984. Black women born from 1980 to 1984 were more likely to experience single/childless and single/parent status compared with Black women born from 1957 to 1965. Although with some visible postponement in the recent cohort, white women in both cohorts were more likely to experience married/parent status than other race groups. The decline in married/parent status across the two generations was sharpest among Hispanic women. These descriptive findings highlight the importance of identifying race when discussing changes in family formation and dissolution trends across generations.
‘Modern talking’
(2024)
Despite growing interest, we lack a clear understanding of how the arguably ambiguous phenomenon of agile is perceived in government practice. This study aims to alleviate this puzzle by investigating how managers and employees in German public sector organisations make sense of agile as a spreading management fashion in the form of narratives. This is important because narratives function as innovation carriers that ultimately influence the manifestations of the concept in organisations. Based on a multi-case study of 31 interviews and 24 responses to a qualitative online survey conducted in 2021 and 2022, we provide insights into what public sector managers, employees and consultants understand (and, more importantly, do not understand) as agile and how they weave it into their existing reality of bureaucratic organisations. We uncover three meta-narratives of agile government, which we label ‘renew’, ‘complement’ and ‘integrate’. In particular, the meta-narratives differ in their positioning of how agile interacts with the characteristics of bureaucratic organisations. Importantly, we also show that agile as a management fad serves as a projection surface for what actors want from a modern and digital organisation. Thus, the vocabulary of agile government within the narratives is inherently linked to other diffusing phenomena such as new work or digitalisation.
The growing use of digital tools in policy implementation has altered the work of street-level bureaucrats who are granted substantial discretionary power in decision-making. Digital tools can constrain discretionary power, like the curtailment thesis proposed, or serve as action resources, like the enablement thesis suggested. This article assesses empirical evidence of the impact of digital tools on street-level work and decision-making in service-oriented and regulation-oriented organisations based on a systematic literature review and thematic qualitative content analysis of 36 empirical studies published until 2021. The findings demonstrate different effects with regard to the role of digital tools and the core tasks of the public administration, depending on political and managerial goals and consequent system design. Leading or decisive digital tools mostly curtail discretion, especially in service-oriented organisations. In contrast, an enhanced information base or recommendations for actions enable decision-making, in particular in regulation-oriented organisations. By showing how street-level bureaucrats actively try to resist the curtailing effects caused by rigid design to address individual circumstances, for instance by establishing ways of coping like rule bending or rule breaking, using personal resources or prioritising among clients, this study demonstrates the importance of the continuation thesis and the persistently crucial role of human judgement in policy implementation.
Das Risiko, durch einen Suizid im Gefängnis zu versterben, ist erhöht. Während der COVID-19-Pandemie wurden zum Infektionsschutz zahlreiche Maßnahmen, die beispielsweise eine deutliche Minderung der Kontakt- und Behandlungsangebote zur Folge hatten, eingeführt. Im Rahmen eines Kohortenvergleichs der Suizide und ausgewählter Merkmale der Suizident:innen in den Zeiträumen vom April 2017 bis zum Dezember 2019 sowie vom April 2020 bis zum Dezember 2022 wird untersucht, ob es eine Veränderung der Suizide während der Pandemie gab. Im Ergebnis zeigen sich eine Zunahme der Suizide während der Pandemie, insbesondere in den ersten 14 Tagen der Haft, und eine Zunahme der Suizide von Suizident:innen mit erhöhter Vulnerabilität. Keine Unterschiede wurden in den allgemeinen Risikomerkmalen für Suizide im Gefängnis festgestellt. Es ergeben sich Hinweise auf eine suizidpräventive Wirkung der Kontakt- und Behandlungsangebote. Daraus ergibt sich die Notwendigkeit, intensivere Präventionsangebote für Gefangene mit erhöhter Vulnerabilität bzw. geringerer Resilienz anzubieten.
In 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to allow over a million asylum seekers to cross the border into Germany. One key concern was that her decision would signal an open-door policy to aspiring migrants worldwide – thus further increasing migration to Germany and making the country permanently more attractive to irregular and humanitarian migrants. This ‘pull-effect’ hypothesis has been a mainstay of policy discussions ever since. With the continued global rise in forced displacement, not appearing welcoming to migrants has become a guiding principle for the asylum policy of many large receiving countries. In this article, we exploit the unique case study that Merkel's 2015 decision provides for answering the fundamental question of whether welcoming migration policies have sustained effects on migration towards destination countries. We analyze an extensive range of data on migration inflows, migration aspirations and online search interest between 2000 and 2020. The results reject the ‘pull effect’ hypothesis while reaffirming states’ capacity to adapt to changing contexts and regulate migration.
Using novel longitudinal data, this paper studies the short- and medium-term effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 on social trust of adolescents in Germany. Comparing adolescents who responded to our survey shortly before the start of the war with those who responded shortly after the conflict began and applying difference-in-differences (DiD) models over time, we find a significant decline in the outcome after the war started. These findings provide new evidence on how armed conflicts influence social trust and well-being among young people in a country not directly involved in the war.
The paper argues that economists’ position-taking in discourses of crises should be understood in the light of economists’ positions in the academic field of economics. This hypothesis is investigated by performing a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) on a prosopographical data set of 144 French economists who positioned themselves between 2008 and 2021 in controversies over the euro crisis, the French political economic model, and French economics. In these disciplinary controversies, different forms of (post-)national academic capital are used by economists to either initiate change or defend the status quo. These strategies are then interpreted as part of more general power struggles over the basic national or post-national constitution and legitimate governance of economy and society.
Background
Many high-income countries are grappling with severe labour shortages in the healthcare sector. Refugees and recent migrants present a potential pool for staff recruitment due to their higher unemployment rates, younger age, and lower average educational attainment compared to the host society's labour force. Despite this, refugees and recent migrants, often possessing limited language skills in the destination country, are frequently excluded from traditional recruitment campaigns conducted solely in the host country’s language. Even those with intermediate language skills may feel excluded, as destination-country language advertisements are perceived as targeting only native speakers. This study experimentally assesses the effectiveness of a recruitment campaign for nursing positions in a German care facility, specifically targeting Arabic and Ukrainian speakers through Facebook advertisements.
Methods
We employ an experimental design (AB test) approximating a randomized controlled trial, utilizing Facebook as the delivery platform. We compare job advertisements for nursing positions in the native languages of Arabic and Ukrainian speakers (treatment) with the same advertisements displayed in German (control) for the same target group in the context of a real recruitment campaign for nursing jobs in Berlin, Germany. Our evaluation includes comparing link click rates, visits to the recruitment website, initiated applications, and completed applications, along with the unit cost of these indicators. We assess statistical significance in group differences using the Chi-squared test.
Results
We find that recruitment efforts in the origin language were 5.6 times (Arabic speakers) and 1.9 times (Ukrainian speakers) more effective in initiating nursing job applications compared to the standard model of German-only advertisements among recent migrants and refugees. Overall, targeting refugees and recent migrants was 2.4 (Ukrainians) and 10.8 (Arabic) times cheaper than targeting the reference group of German speakers indicating higher interest among these groups.
Conclusions
The results underscore the substantial benefits for employers in utilizing targeted recruitment via social media aimed at foreign-language communities within the country. This strategy, which is low-cost and low effort compared to recruiting abroad or investing in digitalization, has the potential for broad applicability in numerous high-income countries with sizable migrant communities. Increased employment rates among underemployed refugee and migrant communities, in turn, contribute to reducing poverty, social exclusion, public expenditure, and foster greater acceptance of newcomers within the receiving society.
We examine how the gender of business owners is related to the wages paid to female relative to male employees working in their firms. Using Finnish register data and employing firm fixed effects, we find that the gender pay gap is—starting from a gender pay gap of 11 to 12%—two to three percentage points lower for hourly wages in female-owned firms than in male-owned firms. Results are robust to how the wage is measured, as well as to various further robustness checks. More importantly, we find substantial differences between industries. While, for instance, in the manufacturing sector, the gender of the owner plays no role in the gender pay gap, in several service sector industries, like ICT or business services, no or a negligible gender pay gap can be found, but only when firms are led by female business owners. Businesses with male ownership maintain a gender pay gap of around 10% also in the latter industries. With increasing firm size, the influence of the gender of the owner, however, fades. In large firms, it seems that others—firm managers—determine wages and no differences in the pay gap are observed between male- and female-owned firms.