External refereed essays

Affective and Cardiovascular Responding to Unpleasant Events from Adolescence to Old Age: Complexity of Events Matters

Two studies investigated the overpowering hypothesis as a possible explanation for the currently inconclusive empirical picture on age differences in affective responding to unpleasant events. The overpowering hypothesis predicts that age differences in affective responding are particularly evident in highly resource-demanding situations that overtax older adults' capacities. In Study 1, we used a ...

Measuring Time Use in Surveys: Concordance of Survey and Experience Sampling Measures

It is still unclear to what extent time allocation retrospectively reported in questionnaires reflects people's actual behavior. Addressing this research gap, we analyze the congruence oftime use information assessed through retrospective questionnaires and through experience sampling methodology. Participants completed standard survey questions on time allocation. In addition, a mobile-phone-based ...

Respondent-Driven Sampling

Respondent-driven sampling is a network sampling technique typically employed for hard-to-reach populations (for example, drug users, men who have sex with men, people with HIV). Similarly to snowball sampling, initial seed respondents recruit additional respondents from their network of friends. The recruiting process repeats iteratively, thereby forming long referral chains. Unlike in snowball sampling, ...

Welfare-Related Health Inequality: Does the Choice of Measure Matter?

Using representative microdata from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we show that the welfare measure choice has a substantial impact on the degree of welfare-related health inequality. To assess the sensitivity of welfare-related health inequality measures, we combine a unique set of income and wealth measures with different subjective, cardinalized, and (quasi-)objective health measures. ...

Investor Protection and the Value of Shares: Evidence from Statutory Rules Governing Variations of Shareholders' Class Rights in an Emerging Market

This article uses a quasi-experimental framework provided by recent changes in Russian corporate law to study the effect of investor protection on the value of shares. The legal change analyzed involves the empowerment of nonvoting shareholders to veto unfavorable changes to their class rights. We take advantage of the presence of well-defined treatment and control groups and use the voting premium, ...

Precautionary and Entrepreneurial Saving: New Evidence from German Households

Various studies interpret the positive correlation between income risk and wealth as evidence of significant precautionary savings. However, these high estimates emerge from pooling non-entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, without controlling for heterogeneity. This article provides evidence for Germany based on representative panel data that includes private wealth balance sheets. Entrepreneurs, who face ...

Productivity and Financing of Regional Transport Infrastructure : Introduction

Mergers & Acquisitions and Innovation Performance in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry

The worldwide telecommunications equipment industry has experienced an enormous number of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This article examines the innovation determinants of M&A activity and the consequences of M&A on technological potential and innovation performance. We extend the resource-based theory in elucidating external technology sourcing and provide empirical evidence on the keen reliance ...

Main Bank Power, Switching Costs, and Firm Performance: Theory and Evidence from Ukraine

We examine firms' motivation to change their main bank and how this switch affects loans, interest payments, and firm performance. Applying treatment effect analysis to unique firm-bank matched Ukrainian data, we find that larger and more highly leveraged companies are more likely to switch their main bank. Importantly, firms tend to switch to a new main bank that holds a higher share of equity in ...

The Threat Effect of Participation in Active Labor Market Programs on Job Search Behavior of Migrants in Germany

Purpose. Labor market programs may affect unemployed individuals' behavior before they enroll. The aim of this paper is to study whether such ex ante effects differ according to ethnic origin. Design/methodology/approach. The authors apply a method that relates self-reported perceived treatment rates and job search behavioral outcomes, such as the reservation wage or search intensity, to each other. ...

The IZA Evaluation Dataset: Towards Evidence-Based Labor Policy Making

Purpose. This paper aims to present the IZA Evaluation Dataset, a newly created data source allowing for the evaluation of active labor market policies in Germany. Design/methodology/approach. The paper's approach is a description of the sampling and contents of the IZA Evaluation Dataset and an outline of its research potential. Findings. The evaluation of active labor market policies is often confronted ...

Crude Oil Market Power: A Shift in Recent Years?

We investigate the exertion of market power in the global crude oil market over the past years. Recognizing the difficulty of identifying market power in the crude oil market by empirical studies, we propose a numerical partial equilibrium model formulated as a mixed complementarity problem. Our approach allows for strategic behavior in a Nash-Cournot market, a Stackelberg leader-follower game, an ...

The Complexity of Personality: Advantages of a Genetically Sensitive Multi-group Design

Findings from many behavioral genetic studies utilizing the classical twin design suggest that genetic and non-shared environmental effects play a significant role in human personality traits. This study focuses on the methodological advantages of extending the sampling frame to include multiple dyads of relatives. We investigated the sensitivity of heritability estimates to the inclusion of sibling ...

Ethnicity, Job Search and Labor Market Reintegration of the Unemployed

Purpose: This paper seeks to shed further light on the native-migrant differences in economic outcomes. The aim is to investigate labor market reintegration, patterns of job search, and reservation wages across unemployed migrants and natives in Germany. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on the IZA Evaluation Dataset, a recently collected rich survey of a representative sample of entrants ...

Economic Preferences and Attitudes of the Unemployed: Are Natives and Second Generation Migrants Alike?

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to study the economic effects of risk attitudes, time preferences, trust and reciprocity and to compare natives and second generation migrants. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on the IZA Evaluation Dataset, a recently collected survey of a representative inflow sample into unemployment in Germany. The data include a large number of migrant-specific ...

Ethnic Conflict and Job Separations

We study the effect of the second Intifada - a violent conflict between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors which erupted in September 2000 - and the ensuing demonstrations of Arab citizens of Israel on labor market outcomes of Arabs relative to those of Jewish Israelis. The analysis relies on a large matched employer-employee dataset, focusing on firms that in the pre-Intifada period hired both Arabs ...

The Impact of Home Production on Economic Inequality in Germany

Using representative income and time-use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate non-monetary income advantages arising from home production and analyze their impact on economic inequality. As an alternative to existing measures, we propose a predicted wage approach that relaxes some of the strong assumptions underlying both the standard opportunity cost approach and the housekeeper ...

The Justice of Earnings in Dual-Earner Households

Over recent decades, the rise in female labor market participation and the increase in "atypical" employment arrangements have brought about a steady decline in traditional "male breadwinner" households and an increasing number of dual-earner households. Against this backdrop, the present paper investigates how different household contexts' ranging from traditional "male breadwinner" households to ...

Die abnehmende Bedeutung des Elternhauses: intergenerationale Übertragung von Parteibindungen in Deutschland 1984 bis 2010

Household Survey Panels: How Much Do Following Rules Affect Sample Size?

In household panels, typically all household members are surveyed. Because household composition changes over time, so-called following rules are implemented to decide whether to continue surveying household members who leave the household (e.g. former spouses/partners, grown children) in subsequent waves. Following rules have been largely ignored in the literature leaving panel designers unaware of ...