Publications

Repeated interactions provide an evolutionary explanation for one-shot human cooperation that is counterintuitive but orthodox1,2,3. Intergroup competition4,5,6,7 provides an explanation that is intuitive but heterodox. Here, using models and a behavioural experiment, we show that neither mechanism reliably supports cooperation. Ambiguous reciprocity, a class of strategies that is generally ignored in models of reciprocal altruism, undermines cooperation under repeated interactions. This finding challenges repeated interactions as an evolutionary explanation for cooperation in general, which further challenges the claim that repeated interactions in the past can explain one-shot cooperation in the present. Intergroup competitions also do not reliably support cooperation because groups quickly become extremely similar, which limits scope for group selection. Moreover, even if groups vary, group competitions may generate little group selection for multiple reasons. Cooperative groups, for example, may tend to compete against each other8. Whereas repeated interactions and group competitions do not support cooperation by themselves, combining them triggers powerful synergies because group competitions constrain the corrosive effect of ambiguous reciprocity. Evolved strategies often consist of cooperative reciprocity with ingroup partners and uncooperative reciprocity with outgroup partners. Results from a behavioural experiment in Papua New Guinea fit exactly this pattern. They thus suggest neither an evolutionary history of repeated interactions without group competition nor a history of group competition without repeated interactions. Instead, our results suggest social motives that evolved under the joint influence of both mechanisms.

This article systematically reviews 94 accounting and finance studies that address the real effects of financial reporting. Whereas the effects of financial reporting on capital suppliers’ decisions traditionally have received much attention, recent research has generated new important insights into the feedback effects of financial reporting on the reporting firms’ real activities (e.g., investments or allocation and use of resources). We identify the consequences of financial reporting for (1) the reporting firm, (2) its peer firms, and (3) the input and output markets. We also highlight the effects of firms’ internal controls over financial reporting and consider how accounting and auditing regulations influence and contribute to real effects. The studies we review are consistent in their findings that high-quality financial reporting is positively associated with the efficiency of the reporting firm’s resource allocation. Many studies also suggest a positive association between high-quality financial reporting and an efficient allocation of resources in the real sector, which can also benefit other market participants like consumers or employees. The article concludes with an outlook on fruitful research opportunities.

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.

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A vast literature has examined how perceptions of mobility shape demand for redistribution. These studies generally refer to contemporaneous tax policies demanded by those directly impacted. But social mobility is often measured as changes across generations. To account for these intergenerational effects, our analysis focuses on educational policies. We examine how social mobility at the district level explains legislative support for inclusive education policies. We first develop an electoral competition model where voters are altruistic parents, politicians are office seeking and the future economic status of the children is affected both by the degree of income mobility and by public education policies. We then analyze a newly compiled dataset of roll-call votes on California education legislation matched with electoral district levels of income mobility. In line with the model, our analysis suggests that upward mobility in a district negatively predicts legislative support for redistributive education bills.

The use of immersive virtual reality (IVR) offers a variety of design possibilities for action-oriented teaching and learning that enables the promotion of specific knowledge and skills. In order to use IVR applications as an effective teaching and learning medium, it is important to understand the potential advantages and disadvantages of this technology compared to other media. This raises the question of what type of learning environment is most effective in promoting specific knowledge and skills. To answer these questions, a systematic review of research on learning with IVR in an educational context was conducted using the PRISMA method (Liberati et al., 2009; Page et al., 2021). The study analyzed 30 relevant research articles to compare the relative effectiveness of IVR-based learning and its impact on learner engagement, as outlined in the ICAP framework (Chi & Wylie, 2014). The results indicate that IVR has a positive impact on learning compared to other types of media. The study suggests that IVR technology is suitable for learning environments that prioritize active learner engagement and practical application, such as active manipulation and constructive creation. In summary, the results offer more insights into the advantages of using IVR to accomplish particular learning objectives.

Exploiting the random allocation of asylum seekers to different locations in Germany, we study the impact of native attitudes, proxied by voting behaviors, on refugees’ integration. We find that in municipalities with more voting for the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party, refugees have worse social integration. These impacts are largest for groups targeted by AfD campaigns. Refugees are also more likely to suffer from harassment and right-wing attacks in areas with greater AfD support. Positive interactions with locals are also less likely and negative opinions about immigration spillover to supporters of other parties in these areas. On the other hand, stronger support for pro-immigrant parties enhances social integration.

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dc.contributor.author: Heister, Michael

While the COVID-19 pandemic had a large and asymmetric impact on firms, many countries quickly enacted massive business rescue programs which are specifically targeted to smaller firms. Little is known about the effects of such policies on business entry and exit, investment, factor reallocation, and macroeconomic outcomes. This paper builds a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous and financially constrained firms in order to evaluate the short- and long-term consequences of small firm rescue programs in a pandemic recession. We calibrate the stationary equilibrium and the pandemic shock to the U.S. economy, taking into account the factual Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) as a specific policy. We find that the policy has only a modest impact on aggregate output and employment because (i) jobs are saved predominately in the smallest firms that account for a minor share of employment and (ii) the grant reduces the reallocation of resources towards larger and less impacted firms. Much of the reallocation effects occur in the aftermath of the pandemic episode. By preventing inefficient liquidations, the policy dampens the long-term declines of aggregate consumption and of the real wage, thus delivering small welfare gains.

Since gaining independence, Ukraine has recognised the need to reform its vocational education and training (VET) system to better align with new economic realities. This necessity was largely driven by the country's increasing openness to the world and its desire to integrate with the European Union, which became especially pronounced after the Euromaidan protests in 2014. As a result, the government has pursued policies that are more closely aligned with the European Union. This led to greater international cooperation in the sphere of VET in Ukraine. The study on which this article reports analyses the impact of international organisations and cooperation programmes, as well as actions, initiatives and projects, on the changes and reforms in the Ukrainian VET system from 2013 to 2022 on normative and institutional levels. We adopt a theoretical framework that explains the areas and instruments of influence on policymaking in education used by international organisations. The method applied in the study is interviews with experts from international projects and initiatives currently active in Ukraine. Our findings indicate that international cooperation programmes have had a significant impact on the development of vocational education in Ukraine, particularly in areas such as the governance of the VET system, public‐private partnerships, quality assurance, qualifications frameworks, and digitalisation.

stratEst is a software package for strategy frequency estimation in the freely available statistical computing environment R (R Development Core Team in R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, 2022). The package aims at minimizing the start-up costs of running the modern strategy frequency estimation techniques used in experimental economics. Strategy frequency estimation (Stahl and Wilson in J Econ Behav Organ 25: 309–327, 1994; Stahl and Wilson in Games Econ Behav, 10: 218–254, 1995) models the choices of participants in an economic experiment as a finite-mixture of individual decision strategies. The parameters of the model describe the associated behavior of each strategy and its frequency in the data. stratEst provides a convenient and flexible framework for strategy frequency estimation, allowing the user to customize, store and reuse sets of candidate strategies. The package includes useful functions for data processing and simulation, strategy programming, model estimation, parameter testing, model checking, and model selection.

Immersive virtual reality (IVR) based simulation and training is gaining increasing importance in vocational education and training (VET). However, while IVR is primarily investigated and utilized in technical domains, its implementation and the resulting effects in commercial education remain largely unexplored. Moreover, the experience of motion sickness is a widely reported phenomenon while using IVR, which can interfere with cognitive processes and should therefore be considered more closely in terms of learning and instruction. This explorative study focuses on domain-specific knowledge acquisition in vocational apprenticeship for retailers and the accompanying side effects on students’ wellbeing in an IVR-based learning environment. For this purpose, an IVR-based scenario in a virtual supermarket was developed and tested with trainees in the field of retail at a German commercial vocational school. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, we compared the effects of IVR-based and conventional instruction on domain-specific knowledge acquisition in a sample of first-year trainees ( N  = 79). The findings indicate an advantage of IVR in the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge ( ɳ²  = .261). Although moderate motion sickness symptoms were reported in the experimental group, no direct links between the experience of motion sickness and learning outcomes could be identified. These findings advance the current knowledge about learning-related effects of IVR-based instruction in the field of VET and provide further understanding about the special conditions of IVR scenarios conducive to learning.

Studien zu schulischen Lehrkräften sowie Befunde aus der Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie belegen, dass das berufliche Verantwortungsgefühl in positivem Zusammenhang mit Motivation und Engagement steht. Die vorliegende Studie in der Zeitschrift Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO) geht deshalb der Fragestellung nach, inwieweit sich Weiterbildner/innen verantwortlich fühlen in Bezug auf unterschiedliche Trainingsresultate. Dazu wurden bei einer Online-Befragung N  = 393 Trainer/innen aus dem Bereich der berufsbezogenen Weiterbildung gebeten, sowohl ihre persönliche Verantwortung als auch die von außen zugewiesene Verantwortung im Rahmen eines konkreten Trainings rückblickend einzuschätzen. Zunächst ergab eine explorative Faktorenanalyse mit Varimax-Rotation für die beiden Verantwortungskonzepte jeweils zwei Faktoren, die Verantwortung für kurzfristige Trainingsergebnisse sowie die Verantwortung für langfristige Trainingsergebnisse . Anschließende Mittelwertvergleiche führten zu dem weiteren Ergebnis, dass bezüglich langfristiger Ergebnisse die persönliche Verantwortung von Trainer/innen geringer ausfällt als die zugewiesene Verantwortung ( p  < 0,001, d  = 0,33). Ferner zeigte sich, dass Trainer/innen hinsichtlich kurzfristiger Ergebnisse wie der Zufriedenheit oder des Lernerfolgs der Teilnehmenden mehr Verantwortung verspüren als für langfristige Trainingsergebnisse wie den Transfer oder die verbesserte Arbeitsleistung der Teilnehmenden ( p  < 0,001, d  = 0,82), was im Einklang steht mit sowohl theoretischen Überlegungen bezüglich der generellen Verantwortlichkeit von Lehrenden im Lernprozess als auch mit einzelnen empirischen Befunden zu Trainer/innen. Mit Blick auf die Weiterbildungspraxis werden schließlich Ansätze diskutiert, wie das Verantwortungsgefühl der Lehrenden gestärkt werden kann.

In this paper, we explore the life cycle consumption-savings problem in a stylized model with a risk-free investment opportunity, a tax-deferred retirement account, and deterministic labor income. Our closed form solutions show that liquidity constraints can be severely binding; in particular in situations with a high growth rate of labor income, in which retirement saving is optimally postponed. With a tax-deferred account, it is always optimal to save in this (illiquid) account first before saving in the (liquid) taxable account in order to satisfy the needs for consumption smoothing. The optimal retirement savings pattern is far from the widespread practice of contributing a fixed fraction of current labor income over the working life to a tax-deferred environment.