Externe referierte Aufsätze

2D:4D and Self-Employment: A Preregistered Replication Study in a Large General Population Sample

The 2D: 4D digit ratio, the ratio of the length of the second finger to the length of the fourth finger, is often considered a proxy for testosterone exposure in utero. A recent study reported, among other things, an association between the left-hand 2D:4D and self-employment in a sample of 974 adults. In this preregistered study, we replicate the 2D:4D results on a sample of more than 2100 adults ...

Top of the Class: The Importance of Ordinal Rank

This article establishes a new fact about educational production: ordinal academic rank during primary school has lasting impacts on secondary school achievement that are independent of underlying ability. Using data on the universe of English school students, we exploit naturally occurring differences in achievement distributions across primary school classes to estimate the impact of class rank. ...

Cohort Changes in the Level and Dispersion of Gender Ideology after German Reunification: Results from a Natural Experiment

Modernization theorists’ ‘rising tide hypothesis’ predicted the continuous spread of egalitarian gender ideologies across the globe. We revisit this assumption by studying reunified Germany, a country that did not follow a strict modernization pathway. The socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) actively fostered female employment and systematically promoted egalitarian ideologies before reunification ...

Parental Well-Being in Times of Covid-19 in Germany

We examine the effects of Covid-19 and related restrictions on individuals with dependent children in Germany. We specifically focus on the role of day care center and school closures, which may be regarded as a “disruptive exogenous shock” to family life. We make use of a novel representative survey of parental well-being collected in May and June 2020 in Germany, when schools and day care centers ...

Non-migrants’ and Migrants’ Interethnic Relationships: The Third Party Role of Cohabiting Partners

Considering both non-migrant and migrant couples, this paper studies the effect of cohabiting life partners’ attitudes, resources, and social network compositions on their spouse’s interethnic friendships and acquaintances. Thus, partners are conceptualized as important “third parties” for interethnic relationship formation. Analysing representative German household panel data, I find that partner ...

Gendered Employment Trajectories and Individual Wealth at Older Ages in Eastern and Western Germany

This study examines the association between employment trajectories and retired men’s and women’s individual wealth at older ages in the two distinct welfare state contexts of Eastern and Western Germany. Because of the increasing re-marketization of retirement provisions, wealth is becoming increasingly important for retirees’ economic well-being. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study ...

The Variability of Occupational Attainment: How Prestige Trajectories Diversified within Birth Cohorts over the Twentieth Century

This study develops and applies a framework for analyzing variability in individuals’ occupational prestige trajectories and changes in average variability between birth cohorts. It extends previous literature focused on typical patterns of intragenerational mobility over the life course to more fully examine intracohort differentiation. Analyses are based on rich life course data for men and women ...

The Effectiveness of FX Interventions: A Meta-Analysis

There is ample empirical literature centering on the effectiveness of foreign exchange intervention (FXI). Given the mix of objectives and country-heterogeneity, the general lack of consensus thus far is no surprise. We shed light on this debate by conducting the first comprehensive meta-analysis in the FXI literature, with 279 reported effects that stem from 74 distinct empirical studies. We cover ...

Coronavirus and Care: How the Coronavirus Crisis Affected Fathers’ Involvement in Germany

Background: Some have hypothesized that the coronavirus crisis may result in a retraditionalization of behaviour. This paper examines this hypothesis by analyzing how the time fathers and mothers spent with their children changed during the first lockdown in the case of Germany.Methods: Data for this investigation come from the German Socio-Economic Panel. The outcome variable is the time spent on ...

Die Corona-Krise kommt mit Wucht zurück

Erholung verliert an Fahrt – Wirtschaft und Politik weiter im Zeichen der Pandemie

Infolge der Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der Corona-Pandemie ist die deutsche Wirtschaftsleistung in der ersten Jahreshälfte drastisch gesunken, vor allem in den Monaten März und April. Schon im Mai setzte eine kräftige Gegenbewegung ein, die sich in nahezu allen Branchen bis zum aktuellen Rand fortsetzte. Dieser Erholungsprozess dürfte an Fahrt verlieren. Die Institute erwarten daher nach einem Rückgang ...

Ein höheres Inflationsziel für die EZB?

Comparing Regulatory Designs for the Transmission of Offshore Wind Energy

Offshore wind plays an ever-increasing role for the global transition to renewable energy. For offshore wind energy to be successful, cost-effective transport of the produced electricity to shore is necessary. The development and operation of the offshore transmission asset is costly and regulated differently across the globe. In most countries, the TSO is responsible for the transmission and develops ...

Transmission Network Investment Using Incentive Regulation: A Disjunctive Programming Approach

A well-planned electric transmission infrastructure is the foundation of a reliable and efficient power system, especially in the presence of large scale renewable generation. However, the current electricity market designs lack incentive mechanisms which can guarantee optimal transmission investments and ensure reliable integration of renewable generation such as wind. This paper first proposes a ...

Great Green Transition and Finance

European governments are struggling to regain economic strength in the coronavirus pandemic as in many countries the number of new infections seems to gradually subside. Growth rates deep in the red call for a reconstruction programme when the crisis is finally manageable and economic activity can resume. Amidst this, there are again infl uential groups that claim “this is not the time to insist on strict ...

Comparing Coal Phase-Out Pathways: The United Kingdom’s and Germany’s Diverging Transitions

Political decisions and trends regarding coal use for electricity generation developed differently in the UK and Germany, despite being subject to relatively similar climate protection targets and general political and economic conditions. The UK agreed on a coal phase-out by 2024. In Germany, a law schedules a coal phase-out by 2038 at the latest. This paper investigates reasons for the different ...

The Political Economy of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Does Performance on the SDGs Affect Re-Election?

While the economic voting hypothesis is a well-researched approach to explain behavior at the ballot box, a broader perspective of economic, social and environmental issues regarding a government’s chances to get re-elected is still missing in the literature. In this context, this paper makes use for the first time of the Agenda 2030 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the comprehensive ...

The Effect of Exposure to Long Working Hours on Alcohol Consumption, Risky Drinking and Alcohol Use Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis from the WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-Related Burden of Disease and Injury

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) are developing Joint Estimates of the work-related burden of disease and injury (WHO/ILO Joint Estimates), with contributions from a large network of experts. Evidence from mechanistic data suggests that exposure to long working hours may increase alcohol consumption and cause alcohol use disorder. In this paper, we ...

Linear and Nonlinear Granger Causality between Electricity Production and Economic Performance in Mexico

Understanding the Granger causality directions between electricity production (EP) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is helpful for policymakers in order to design, redesign, and implement effective energy policies. Although there are plenty of studies on this issue, no consistent conclusion about said relationship exists. In this paper, we provide an updated analysis for the case of Mexico in the context ...

Political Corruption in the Execution of Public Contracts

This paper presents a novel theoretical framework to explain the occurrence of corruption in public procurement. It extends the agency cost-padding model by Laffont and Tirole (1992) to allow for the principal to be a partially selfish politician who can design the contract auditing policy. It is found that a benevolent politician, by choosing a sufficiently strict auditing, deters the contracting ...