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Bringing Together Community Organizations and Social Science Research: The “Mentoring of Refugees” Project

The Project “Mentoring of Refugees” (MORE) implements a randomized controlled trial (RCT) into an existing survey on refugees in Germany. The treatment is the participation in a mentoring relationship with a local resident, which is organized by a non-profit organization. The project aims at analyzing whether mentoring programs between refugees and local residents impact refugees’ integration trajectories. ...

Can We Compare Conceptions of Democracy in Cross-Linguistic and Cross-National Research? Evidence from a Random Sample of Refugees in Germany

This study addresses the heated academic and public debate on the compatibility and comparability of refugees’ and host societies’ democratic values. Comparative values research has long capitalized on global similarities and differences in support for Western democratic values. We argue that such cross-cultural comparisons of culturally diverse groups are challenged by (1) different conceptions of ...

On the Accuracy of Gravity-RAS Approaches Used for Inter-Regional Trade Estimation: Evidence Using the 2005 Inter-Regional Input–Output Table of Japan

In contrast to international trade, it is still difficult to find regionaltrade statistics within a nation. Given that the gravity model con-tinues to be very popular, we test two gravity-RAS approaches usedfor interregional trade estimation: a standard one and an extendedversion, which additionally estimates intra-regional flows. We assessthe accuracy with the help of two measures and for different ...

The Impact of Carbon Disclosure Mandates on Emissions and Financial Operating Performance

We examine whether a disclosure mandate for greenhouse gas emissions creates stakeholder pressure for firms to subsequently reduce their emissions. For UK-incorporated listed firms such a mandate was adopted in 2013. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that firms affected by the mandate reduced their emissions – depending on the specification – by an incremental 14-18% relative to a control ...

On the Role of Population-based Surveys and Citizen Dialogues in Selecting Social Indicators

The Effect of Retirement on Health - Evidence from Administrative Data

We combine unique data that include all practitioner health diagnoses based on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) collected from all publicly insured individuals in Germany with a sizable cohort specific pension reform to study the causal effect of an increase in the retirement age on health. For the analysis, we use a cohort specific regression discontinuity design. The...

The Effect of Air Quality Alerts on School Absenteeism - Evidence from New York City

This study examines the relationship between air quality alerts and school absenteeism in New York City. Examining the effects of the alerts in school attendance is relevant because it helps us understand parents' avoidance behavior in situations of exacerbated exposure to air contaminants. Causality arises by exploiting the deterministic nature of the alerts with regression discontinuity...

2D:4D Does Not Predict Economic Preferences: Evidence from a Large, Representative Sample

The digit ratio (2D:4D) is considered a proxy for testosterone exposure in utero, and there has been a recent surge of studies testing whether 2D:4D is associated with economic preferences. Although the results are not conclusive, previous studies have reported statistically significant correlations between 2D:4D and risk taking, altruism, positive reciprocity, negative reciprocity and trust. Many “researcher ...

2D:4D and Self-Employment Using SOEP Data: A Replication Study

The 2D:4D digit ratio, the ratio of the length of the 2nd digit to the length of the 4th digit, is often considered a proxy for testosterone exposure in utero. A recent study by Nicolaou et al. (2018) reported an association between the left-hand 2D:4D and self-employment (in a sample of about 1,000 adults). In this pre-registered study we replicate these results on a new and larger sample of about ...

Identifying Effective Combinations of Economic Policy Measures for the Coronavirus Recession in Europe

As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe in early 2020, the European Central Bank as well as national governments in the euro area enacted or announced numerous economic policy measures to counteract the severe economic consequences of the resulting lockdowns. In this paper, the immediate effect of the announcements on government bond and stock markets are estimated in a panel study. The ...