Latest Publications
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Employee referral programs (ERPs) are randomly introduced in a grocery chain. Larger referral bonuses increase referrals and decrease referral quality, though the increase in referrals from having an ERP is modest. However, the overall effect of having an ERP is substantial, reducing attrition by roughly 15% and decreasing firm labor costs by up to almost 3%. This occurs, partly, because referrals stay longer than nonreferrals, but, mainly, because all workers stay longer in treated than control stores, even among stores where no referrals are made. The most-supported mechanism for these indirect effects is that workers value being involved in hiring.
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(2019): Teachers’ Diagnostic Support System (TDSS) : A Socio-Technical Approach Addressing Diversity in the Classroom Book of Abstracts EARLI 2019. Aachen: RWTH Aachen, 2019, pp. 130
Dealing with individual differences in the classroom challenges vocational teachers in their daily work. These challenges even start before demanding decisions on instructional strategies and methods have to be made. In order to provide individualized or differentiated forms of instruction, teachers face the problem of assessing student’s individual characteristics (learning needs and prerequisites) and situational states (learning experiences and learning progress). In order to support teachers in gathering and processing complex diagnostic information during class, we have developed a client-server based software prototype running on mobile devices: the Teachers' Diagnostic Support System (TDSS). The poster presentation delineates implications for system requirements drawn from a literature review, describes the implemented system functions, and reports first results of a usability study. As an outlook, the presentation outlines how our system may assist teachers’ daily tasks of diagnosing student learning and taking appropriate instructional measures.
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(2019): Mangelnde Praxisorientierung in der beruflichen Lehrerbildung in der Ukraine und der Lösungsansatz der Nationalen Vadym Hetman Universität Kiew PILZ, Matthias, ed., Kathrin BREUING, ed., Stephan SCHUMANN, ed.. Berufsbildung zwischen Tradition und Moderne : Festschrift für Thomas Deißinger zum 60. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2019, pp. 243-260. ISBN 978-3-658-24459-0. Available under: doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-24460-6_15
Berufliche Bildung und berufliche Lehrerbildung sind für die Ukraine vor allem in Verbindung mit der sehr hohen Akademikerquote bei einem gleichzeitigen eklatanten Mangel an ‚blue collar‘ Arbeitern aktuell hochrelevante Themen. Die Verbesserung der Qualität beruflicher Bildung steht seit Jahren auf der politischen Agenda des Landes. Eine Anhebung des Niveaus der beruflichen Lehrerbildung kann dabei als eine wichtige Stellschraube dienen. Aus struktureller Sicht fehlt es der beruflichen Lehrerbildung in der Ukraine vor allem an praxisorientierten Elementen. Einen Erklärungsansatz hierfür bieten die Untersuchungen von Pierre Bourdieu zur Reproduktion der sozialen Ungleichheit des meritokratischen Frankreichs. Es lässt sich in einer pädagogischen Interpretation seiner Ergebnisse zeigen, wie eine Höherachtung allgemeiner Bildung gegenüber beruflicher Bildung erklärt werden und zu einer Lehrplangestaltung führen kann, die vor allem auf allgemeine Inhalte und Menschenbildung ausgerichtet ist. Die Ukraine weist einige relevante Parallelitäten zum von Bourdieu untersuchten Frankreich auf. Dies legt die Annahme nahe, dass die in Bourdieus Studien aufgedeckten Logiken in ähnlicher Weise auch für die Ukraine gelten und eine mögliche Ursache dafür sind, dass allgemeinbildende Anteile in der beruflichen Lehrerbildung an ukrainischen Hochschulen einen hohen Stellenwert genießen, während praxisorientierte Elemente in nur geringem Ausmaß vorzufinden sind.
Die Nationale Vadym Hetman Universität Kiew strengt im Rahmen eines Erasmus+ Kapazitätsaufbauprojektes Verbesserungen der beruflichen Lehrerbildung in Form einer verstärkten Praxisorientierung an, um die Lehramtsanwärter/-innen besser auf ihren Beruf vorzubereiten. Ihre Umsetzung wird als konkreter, beispielhafter Lösungsansatz auf der Mikroebene für die Problematik der mangelnden Praxisorientierung erläutert. -
(2019): Belastungserleben von angehenden Lehrpersonen der Sekundarstufe II in der Schweiz und in Deutschland HOLTSCH, Doreen, ed., Maren OEPKE, ed., Stephan SCHUMANN, ed.. Lehren und Lernen auf der Sekundarstufe II : gymnasial- und wirtschaftspädagogische Perspektiven : Festschrift anlässlich der Emeritierung von Prof. Dr. Franz Eberle. Bern: hep, der bildungsverlag, 2019, pp. 430-440. ISBN 978-3-0355-1538-1
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(2019): Bewertungstransparenz im Referendariat Zeitschrift für Pädagogik. 2019, 65(3), pp. 378-400. ISSN 0514-2717. eISSN 0044-3247. Available under: doi: 10.3262/ZP1903378
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dc.contributor.author: Schölzel, Christian
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(2019): Passive, Aggressive or Creative? : Adjustment Strategies of Companies Affected by Sanctions VAN TULDER, Rob, ed., Alain VERBEKE, ed., Barbara JANKOWSKA, ed.. International Business in a VUCA World : The Changing Role of States and Firms. Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 2019, pp. 131-156. Progress in International Business Research. 14. ISBN 978-1-83867-256-0. Available under: doi: 10.1108/S1745-886220190000014009
The probability of sanctions’ effectiveness increases not only due to their severity for the target country’s economy but is also a function of adherence to their principles by enterprises from senders’ countries. Sanctions avoidance and increasing investments in the target country (the observed behavior of many companies facing the European Union (EU) sanctions against Russia which were imposed in 2014) mitigate the impact of these restrictive measures. In this chapter we show (by analyzing adaptation strategies of EU enterprises affected by sanctions imposed on Russia by EU) how particular types of strategies affect the effectiveness of sanctions and what factors determine the choice of their respective behavior. We draw our conclusions from the online survey of more than 1,000 responses from British, French, German, Italian, and Polish enterprises. We find that while administrative burdens make conformance to sanctions more likely, market dependency and non-tangible assets in the target country induce strategies that challenge sanction policies. We conclude that the EU–Russian sanctions dispute incentivizes European companies to increase their engagement in Russia. These so-called defiance strategies diminish the real economic effect of the sanctions and generate a new equilibrium which outlasts the lifting of these restrictive measures and has negative long-term political implications.
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(2019): Research Productivity in Business Economics : A Reply German Economic Review. De Gruyter. 2019, 10(2), pp. 249-252. ISSN 1465-6485. eISSN 1468-0475. Available under: doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0475.2009.00469.x
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dc.contributor.author: Fabel, Oliver; Hein, Miriam
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dc.contributor.editor: Hauschildt, Ursel; Gonon, Philipp
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Dieses Buch vermittelt relevante Aspekte der Rechnungslegung in katholischen Bistümern. Deren wichtigste Einnahmequelle sind neben Staatsleistungen und Zuschüssen die Kirchensteuern. Zusätzlich zu ihrer Kernaufgabe, der Verkündigung des Evangeliums, leisten die Kirchen wichtige Beiträge für die Gemeinschaft. Doch der demographische Wandel und Kirchenaustritte wirken sich langfristig negativ auf die finanzielle Lage aus. Als wichtige Gegenmaßnahme gilt die Schaffung von mehr Transparenz: Wie die katholische Kirche ihr Rechnungswesen von der Kameralistik auf die Doppik umstellt, Jahresabschlüsse erstellt und veröffentlicht, zeigen die Beiträge in diesem Buch. Im Vordergrund stehen Ansatz und Bewertung, aber auch Umstellungsfragen und die Modernisierung der Governance-Strukturen. Die dargestellten Aspekte zur Rechnungslegung sind zumindest teilweise anwendbar für andere katholische Rechtsträger wie Bischöfliche Stühle, Domkapitel, Orden, Stiftungen und Kirchengemeinden sowie für Rechtsträger der evangelischen Kirche.
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20 years ago, Zweifel, Felder and Meier (1999) established the by now famous “red-herring” hypothesis, according to which population ageing does not lead to an increase in per capita health care expenditures (HCE) because the observed positive correlation between age and health care expenditures (HCE) in cross-sectional data is exclusively due to the facts that mortality rises with age and a large share of HCE is caused by proximity to death. This hypothesis has spurned a large and still growing literature on the causes and consequences of growing HCE in OECD countries, but the results of empirical studies have been rather mixed. In light of the imminent population ageing in many of these countries it is still being discussed whether unfunded social health insurance systems will be sustainable, in particular as long as they promise to provide universal and unlimited access to medical care including the latest advances. In this paper, we present a critical survey of the empirical literature of the past 20 years on this topic and draw some preliminary conclusions regarding the policy question mentioned above. In doing so we distinguish four different versions of the red herring hypothesis and derive the logical connections between them. This will help to understand what empirical findings are suitable to derive predictions on the future sustainability of HCE.
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(2019): Testing out-of-sample portfolio performance International Journal of Forecasting. 2019, 35(2), pp. 540-554. ISSN 0169-2070. eISSN 1872-8200. Available under: doi: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2018.09.010
This paper studies the quality of portfolio performance tests based on out-of-sample returns. By disentangling the components of the out-of-sample performance, we show that the observed differences are driven largely by the differences in estimation risk. Our Monte Carlo study reveals that the puzzling empirical findings of inferior performances of theoretically superior strategies result mainly from the low power of these tests. Thus, our results provide an explanation as to why the null hypothesis of equal performance of the simple equally-weighted portfolio compared to many theoretically-superior alternative strategies cannot be rejected in many out-of-sample horse races. Our findings turn out to be robust with respect to different designs and the implementation strategies of the tests.
For the applied researcher, we provide some guidance as to how to cope with the problem of low power. In particular, we make use of a novel pretest-based portfolio strategy to show how the information regarding performance tests can be used optimally. -
(2019): Berufsbildung zwischen Tradition und Moderne : Festschrift für Thomas Deißinger zum 60. Geburtstag
Der Sammelband behandelt aktuelle Strömungen und Herausforderungen der beruflichen Bildung. Relevante Fragestellungen der Berufsbildung werden sowohl aus deutscher Perspektive als auch aus der anderer Länder aufgegriffen sowie im Rahmen international vergleichender Analysen erörtert. Das thematische Spektrum der Beiträge reicht von der Lehrerbildung und der anhaltenden Akademisierung über betriebliche Ausbildungsstrategien im Kontext von Globalisierung und Digitalisierung sowie die Struktur, Steuerung und curriculare Ausgestaltung der beruflichen Bildung bis hin zu kultureller Vielfalt und Integration. Systemisch werden sowohl die schulische als auch die betriebliche Berufsbildung sowie der Aus- und Weiterbildungsbereich in deutsch- und englischsprachigen Beiträgen adressiert.
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(2019): Reform perspectives for the Ukrainian VET system : a critical analysis MARHUENDA, Fernando, ed., María José CHISVERT-TARAZONA, ed.. Pedagogical concerns and market demands in VET Proceedings of the 3rd Crossing Boundaries in VET conference Vocational Education and Training Network : VETNET. 2019, pp. 50-56. ISBN 978-1-09-515790-9. Available under: doi: 10.5281/zenodo.2641067
The contribution focuses on current reforms of the Ukrainian VET system, mainly on decentralization and the “import” of a dual system, as well as on the hindrances for successful implementation of these reforms. The context hereby is neoliberalism, which has influenced Ukraine generally, including the development of vocational education, and modernisation theory, which explains the involvement of international organisations in the VET reforms and liberal attempts of the Ukrainian government. The theoretical findings suggests that although Ukraine has a potential to improve its skill formation system, activities so far seem fragmentary and isolated, and they apparently do not take into account the complex environment in which they are meant to function.
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This dissertation consists of three self-contained research papers and has been written during my studies in the Doctoral Programme in Quantitative Economics and Finance at the University of Konstanz. The first paper (Chapter 2) is a joint work with Volker Hahn. We examine the impact of prices with special endings, also referred to as price points, on patterns of microeconomic price adjustment. It includes a comprehensive appendix which lays the foundation for a revised version of the paper. The second paper (Chapter 3) is a single-authored work and studies the interaction between positive trend inflation and real rigidities. The third paper (Chapter 4) is a joint work with Carl Maier in which we focus on information acquisition on posted offer markets.
The research question examined in Chapter 2 is to what extent, if at all, prices with special endings such as $0.99 or $5.00, also referred to as price points, can explain the observed price dynamics at the micro level if one abstracts from conventional sources of price stickiness such as menu costs. We present a macroeconomic model with positive trend inflation in which nominal rigidities result from price points and sticky information. We argue that a model variant that allows for a general distribution of price points is consistent with many stylized facts of price setting found in the micro data. More specifically, it makes empirically reasonable predictions concerning the duration of price spells, the shape of the hazard function, the fraction and the size of price decreases and, in particular, the relationship between price changes and inflation. Our model captures several facts which the Calvo sticky-price model cannot explain and generates plausible aggregate effects of monetary policy.
Real rigidities, i.e. mechanisms dampening the magnitude of price changes conditional on price adjustment, are typically seen as key in explaining the long-lasting effects of monetary policy. In Chapter 3 we show that different sources of real rigidities which are equivalent under zero trend inflation lead to markedly different implications for dynamics of inflation, employment and the effectiveness of monetary policy when inflation follows a positive trend. Our contribution is twofold. First, we use theory and data to infer the degrees of real rigidities by assessing their empirical performance in matching the US inflation dynamics in the context of a New Keynesian model with Calvo pricing. Second, we document a potentially negative impact of trend inflation on the key ability of real rigidities in amplifying the real effects of monetary policy. Although we infer strong degrees of real rigidities from the data, the real effects of monetary disturbances are comparable to a model without real rigidities.
In Chapter 4 we examine the phenomenon of a large number of unsuitable applications on posted offer markets observed in the data. To this end, we propose a microeconomic model in which sellers are capacity constrained and buyers do not know ex ante whether a given offer suits them or not. Buyers endogenously decide to acquire information or to apply despite being uninformed. Our model has clear welfare implications in favor of informed signaling and shows that falling transaction costs can decrease market efficiency. We argue that the generally held view that online markets are more efficient than traditional markets may be misleading. -
(2019): Inequality and the marriage gap Review of Economic Dynamics. 2019, 31, pp. 160-181. ISSN 1094-2025. eISSN 1096-6099. Available under: doi: 10.1016/j.red.2018.06.004
Marriage is one of the most important determinants of economic prosperity, yet most existing theories of inequality ignore the role of the family. This paper documents that the distributions of earnings and wealth are highly concentrated, even when disaggregated into single and married households. At the same time, there is a large marriage gap: married people earn on average 26 percent more income, and they hold 35 percent more net worth. To account for these facts, I develop a general equilibrium model where females and males face uninsurable income risk and make decisions on consumption-savings, labor supply and marriage formation. In a calibrated version of the model, I show that selection into marriage based on productive characteristics, an effective tax bonus for married couples, and stronger bequest motives for households with descendants are key to accounting for the marriage gap in earnings and wealth. A policy experiment of moving from joint tax filing for married couples to separate filing yields output gains and more marital sorting.
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This paper measures the influence of "say on pay" (SoP) - mandatory shareholder votes on top-management compensation - on the market value of corporate voting rights. By exploiting the staggered introduction of SoP regulations across ten major European economies, we show by difference-in-differences (DiD) regressions that the value of voting rights at annual shareholder meetings - extracted from prices of liquid options - has increased for firms with excessive CEO pay, while it has decreased for other companies. Surprisingly, shareholders tend to value advisory SoP votes but not the stricter binding votes. Thus, the option to signal dissent with current compensation via SoP votes is not per se valuable and can actually translate into net costs for shareholders. Finally, the effect of mandatory SoP on voting values is concentrated on the year of introduction and fades out over time. Placebo regressions support the accuracy of our DiD research design.
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(2019): Preferences over income distribution : Evidence from a choice experiment Journal of Economic Psychology. Elsevier. 2019, 74, 102202. ISSN 0167-4870. eISSN 1872-7719. Available under: doi: 10.1016/j.joep.2019.102202
Using a choice experiment in the lab, we assess the relative importance of different attitudes to income inequality. We elicit subjects’ preferences regarding pairs of payoff distributions within small groups, in a firm-like setting. We find that distributions that satisfy the Pareto-dominance criterion attract unanimous suffrage: all subjects prefer larger inequality provided it makes everyone weakly better off. This is true no matter whether payoffs are based on merit or luck. Unanimity only breaks once subjects’ positions within the income distribution are fixed and known ex-ante. Even then, 75% of subjects prefer Pareto-dominant distributions, but 25% of subjects engage in money burning at the top in order to reduce inequality, even when it does not make anyone better off. A majority of subjects embrace a more equal distribution if their own income or overall efficiency is not at stake. When their own income is at stake and the sum of payoffs remains unaffected, 20% of subjects are willing to pay for a lower degree of inequality.
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Many decisions taken in legislatures or committees are subject to lobbying efforts. A seminal contribution to the literature on vote-buying is the legislative lobbying model pioneered by Groseclose and Snyder (1996), which predicts that lobbies will optimally form supermajorities in many cases. Providing the first empirical assessment of this prominent model, we test its central predictions in the laboratory. While the model assumes sequential moves, we relax this assumption in additional treatments with simultaneous moves. We find that lobbies buy supermajorities as predicted by the theory. Our results also provide supporting evidence for most comparative statics predictions of the legislative lobbying model with respect to lobbies' willingness to pay and legislators' preferences. Most of these results carry over to the simultaneous-move set-up but the predictive power of the model declines.