Topic Survey Methodology and Data-Science

Schooling and Self-Control

While there is an established positive relationship between self-control and education, the direction of causality remains a matter of debate. We make a contribution to resolving this issue by exploiting a series of Australian and German educational reforms that increased minimum education requirements as a source of exogenous variation in education levels. Instrumental variables estimates suggest ...

New Trade Models, Same Old Emissions?

This paper investigates the elusive role of productivity heterogeneity in new trade models in the trade and environment nexus. We contrast the Eaton-Kortum and the Melitz models with firm heterogeneity to the Armington and Krugman models without heterogeneity. We show that if firms have a constant emission share in terms of sales — as they do in a wide range of trade and environment models — the three ...

Heteroskedastic Proxy Vector Autoregressions: An Identification-Robust Test for Time-Varying Impulse Responses in the Presence of Multiple Proxies

We propose a test for time-varying impulse responses in heteroskedastic structural vector autoregressions that can be used when the shocks are identified by external proxy variables as a group but not necessarily individually. The test is robust to the identification scheme for identifying the shocks individually and can be used even if the shocks are not identified individually. The asymptotic analysis ...

Data Fusion to Compensate for Insufficient Survey Coverage: Example of the German National PKT-Model

This paper presents a data fusion approach combining German National Travel Survey data with aggregate transport indicators such as passenger counts in order to generate annual passenger kilometers travelled (PKT) for the German National Transport Statistics. To cover all travel adequately, the model combines two MiD data sets (a 24-hour-trip diary and an overnight journey questionnaire) and includes ...

The Long Way to Tax Transparency: Lessons from the Early Publishers of Country-by-Country Reports

In this paper, we analyse a sample of voluntarily published country-by-country reports (CbCRs) of 35 multinational enterprises (MNEs). We assess the value added and the limitations of qualitative and quantitative information provided in the reports based on a comparison to individual MNEs’ annual financial reports and aggregate CbCR data provided by the OECD. In terms of data quality, we find that ...

Stabilized Benders Decomposition for Energy Planning under Climate Uncertainty

Study on the Effectiveness of COVID-Aid on Firms

The study investigates the impact of COVID-related State aid measures (COVID-aid) on firms’ performance in selected EU countries, distinguishing among different categories of (pre-crisis) firm size, economic sector, and type of financial instrument received. The current analysis covers three countries with available National State Aid Registries, namely Italy, Poland, and Spain, which enable precise ...

Bridging Distance: Transnational and Local Family Ties in Refugees’ Social Support Networks

This study examines the familial ties in the social support network of refugees in Germany. It investigates whether distance to family plays a role in the provision of emotional and informational support and how this relationship is moderated by social network services (SNS). Using data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees (N = 5237), the paper provides evidence for a family-centred network. Increasing ...

Complementarities between Algorithmic and Human Decision-making: The Case of Antibiotic Prescribing

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to improve human decisions in complex environments, but its effectiveness can remain limited if humans hold context-specific private information. Using the empirical example of antibiotic prescribing for urinary tract infections, we show that full automation of prescribing fails to improve on physician decisions. Instead, optimally delegating a share of decisions ...

Individual Differences in Short-term Social Dynamics: Theoretical Perspective and Empirical Development of the Social Dynamics Scale

People have a need to form and maintain fulfilling social contact, yet they differ with respect to with whom they satisfy the need and how quickly this need is deprived or overly satiated. These social dynamics across relationships and across time are theoretically delineated in the current article. Furthermore, we developed a questionnaire to measure individual differences in three aspects of such ...