Projects

The post-doctoral position focuses on the empirical analysis of the intersection of work and family life. The main focus will be on the effects of occupational characteristics (e.g. occupational demands, occupational overlaps in couples) on the well-being of household members as well as the individual and occupational determinants of domestic division of labor. A particular focus here is on the consideration of paternal involvement.
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The graduate school "Navigating the Chaos of Innovation and Transformation" (NACHOS) at Otto von Guericke University investigates how innovations can be successful from a technical, economic and social perspective. The aim is to research and link social, cultural and economic factors in the introduction of innovations. A particular focus is on the active involvement of employees, customers and society in the innovation process.
NACHOS is a joint project of the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics and the Faculty of Human Sciences and pursues an integrated approach. It uses perspectives and methods from the humanities and economics to specifically examine the social and cultural factors of innovation and their interaction with economic or technical aspects.
The guiding question is how an innovation can be technically, economically and socially successful and how these three dimensions relate to each other in order to ultimately improve the conditions for the success, adaptation and dissemination of innovations. Methodological approaches from the economic and human sciences are combined for this purpose.
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This research project investigates the effects of unemployment on the subjective well-being of affected individuals and of people in their social environment. For this purpose, data from social surveys such as the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and comparable surveys from other countries, as well as time-use and well-being studies (such as the American Time Use Survey), are analyzed.
Previous work in this project has examined, for example, how participants in public employment programs feel compared to unemployed and regularly employed individuals; how entering retirement affects satisfaction and whether it matters if one was employed or unemployed just before retirement; and for which groups in the labor market employment protection legislation and restrictions on fixed-term contracts have positive or negative effects on well-being.
A particular focus of this research project is on the multidimensionality of well-being. In addition to cognitive measures, affective well-being indicators are also analyzed. Previous findings show that unemployment has a negative impact on cognitive well-being but not on affective well-being.
Further research will focus on analyzing in more detail the determinants of affective well-being and their interaction with experiences of unemployment.

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The economic literature generally recognizes three main components of well-being. Cognitive well-being (evaluative measures), affective well-being (emotional experience) and eudaimonic (sense of purpose). While many papers have been written about the relationship between income and cognitive well-being, generally finding a positive relationship, evidence for the relationship between affective well-being is less numerous and occasionally contradictory.
This project aims to establish the relationship between income and affective well-being using multiple datasets and estimation methods to identify common patterns. The primary analysis will be based on datasets containing Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) data, which is a method originally developed by Daniel Kahneman and colleagues. Participants record what they were doing over the course of a day in a time-use diary and also report their emotional experience in those (or some of these) episodes. The diaries are typically filled out shortly after the end of the day covered by the diary. This allows researcher to get a detailed picture of the emotional experience of participants with minimal recall bias. The analysis may be supplemented with datasets containing other types of data on affective well-being, such as Experience sampling Method (ESM) data, where respondents are contacted at various points throughout the day and asked to report their emotional experience in that particular moment.
Core questions to be addressed with these analyses are:
Are there systematic differences between how affective and cognitive well-being relate to income?
Are there plateaus in relationship or does the association change substantially beyond some level of income?
Following the purely descriptive analyses, this project will continue with a first tentative investigation of the reasons for the established relationships. Such as by analyzing differences in the time use of respondents across income levels.

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Many developed countries have made it an explicit policy goal to support equal sharing of childcare and household responsibilities as well as market work. Differences in labor supply of men and women typically emerge after the birth of the first child and often remain permanently. Thus, the birth of the first child marks a critical transition. Consequently, policy instruments targeting this time have the potential to change long-run outcomes substantially by preventing the gap from opening up in the first place. In this context, parental benefits have received special attention because depending on the particular regulations embedded in the benefit scheme, they have the potential to counteract or reinforce specialization according to traditional gender roles and naturally directly target the crucial transition into parenthood.
This project analyzes how different parental benefit schemes affect the division of labor by couples. Initially the focus will be on the German parental benefit called “Elterngeld” and specifically the ElterngeldPlus regulations. However, the project can be extended to analyze other aspects of the parental benefit scheme or reform suggestions. To this end, the project employs different research methodologies, including the analysis of data from existing large scale household surveys and data gained from experiments specifically designed for this project.
Besides analyzing the consequences of specific regulations, a second focus of this project is to investigate the circumstances which may prevent the regulations from reaching their full potential impact, such as insufficient information provision regarding the actual incentives incorporated in the benefit scheme.

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Many economic decisions of individuals are made in the context of a family, either because they are explicitly made collectively or because individual household members take the other family members into account when making their decisions. Family policy measures can influence these decisions by changing the framework conditions under which the decisions are made. For example, the right to a childcare place for young children could increase labor market participation and lifetime earnings and reduce poverty in old age. In addition, some family policy measures also aim to change the family structure itself and therefore also influence the lives of individuals through this channel. For example, when parental allowance was introduced, an increase in the birth rate was mentioned as an explicit goal. Various family policy measures are to be evaluated in this project. The explicitly stated goals of the various measures as well as other target variables such as labor market participation, employment levels, individual well-being, gender equality and child development will be taken into account.
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This project deals with the incentives and effects of sabotage behavior in competitive situations. In general, results from theoretical models, laboratory data and field data can be found in the literature. The field data comes mainly from analyses and statistics on behavior in sporting competitions. In these, rule-breaking and unsportsmanlike behavior is evaluated as sabotage behavior. A significant disadvantage in the analysis of this data arises from the fact that team competitions are often examined and the conditions relating to the direct added value of unsportsmanlike behavior are difficult to identify. At this point, it is planned to analyze data from gallop races, as both the prize and the competition situation are clearly defined. Furthermore, the riders in the competitions are lone fighters and usually make their decisions in short moments, from which a direct (relative) advantage is then generated. In addition, my contacts in this area enable me to obtain data and even video recordings of the relevant situations. I am currently in contact with partners from my network in Europe to arrange data access. The first study is being designed for 2026 with data from the British Horseracing Authority.
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The project deals with the question of whether behavioral differences between East and West Germany are still as pronounced more than 30 years after reunification as they were shortly afterwards. This is to be investigated with the help of behavioral experiments in the innovation sample of the Socio-Economic Panel. To this end, an application for third-party funding was prepared and submitted to the DFG in order to acquire the personnel and material resources for this project. As part of the preparations, a pilot study was also carried out to investigate differences in reported behavior. The results are summarized in a working paper, which will be submitted for review and publication.
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The dissertation will examine the decision-making behavior of actors in the healthcare system. In particular, the effects on the doctor-patient relationship, health outcomes and economic implications will be examined. The focus will be on behavior-based economic analysis.

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An online survey with two information treatments will be used to investigate whether the population in Germany believes that a German pioneering role in climate protection efforts will lead to an increase in agreement on an internationally binding climate protection treaty. In the current literature, there are initial theoretical findings that unilateral efforts actually make the likelihood of a successful climate agreement at international level less likely. In an online survey that is as representative as possible, the aim is therefore to investigate whether people in Germany in general, and with knowledge of these findings in particular, believe that a pioneering role in climate protection efforts leads to an increase in the likelihood of successful climate negotiations. The online survey was conducted and the data is currently being analyzed and a working paper is being prepared, which will then be submitted for review and publication in 2026.
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Even more than three decades after reunification, differences in social behavior between East and West Germans persist. Using data from anonymized income tax statistics, we investigate whether an alignment in prosocial behavior patterns can be observed, focusing on charitable giving. Consistent with previous results from laboratory experiments and analysis of survey data, we find that differences in overall giving behavior persist. Furthermore, our analyses show that the differences within birth cohorts do not converge, but that there are even signs of divergence. On the other hand, younger birth cohorts who were socialized after reunification show smaller differences than older cohorts who were socialized in two different systems. Our results support the hypothesis that the age structure and its development over time impede the convergence of prosocial behavior patterns. Initially, the ageing effect has a stronger impact than the socialization effect. Over time, the natural change in cohort structure (differences between cohorts) should lead to a reduction in differences in social behavior. The fact that this has not (yet) been observed is due to the fact that the older cohorts are growing apart faster than younger generations. If this process is extrapolated accordingly, the demise of older cohorts will result in greater convergence in the population cross-section.
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This project investigates why unemployed individuals report lower emotional well-being than employed individuals—even during leisure time. Previous research (e.g., Knabe, Schöb, Rätzel, and Weimann, Economic Journal, 2010) showed that unemployment reduces life satisfaction not only through income loss or lack of work-related purpose, but also because leisure itself becomes less enjoyable—a phenomenon known as the “saddening effect” of unemployment.
The project aims to unpack and quantify the channels through which this saddening effect arises. Using time-use and well-being diary data from the UK Time Use Survey (UKTUS 2014–2015), American Time Use Survey (ATUS 2010–2013, 2021), and German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP 2012–2015), we analyze how unemployed and employed individuals experience emotional well-being across different daily activities.
The empirical strategy combines mediation analysis and Oaxaca–Blinder decompositions.
Preliminary results from the UKTUS data confirm a significant saddening effect of unemployment, particularly for men and during core leisure activities. However, differences in income, activity duration, or education explain little of this gap. The most consistent factor is that unemployed individuals spend more of their leisure time alone, which strongly reduces the emotional payoff from non-work activities.
By integrating evidence from multiple countries and datasets, the project seeks to clarify the mechanisms behind the emotional costs of unemployment and to identify potential policy levers for mitigating its psychological burden.

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Intergenerational wealth transfers - that is, gifts and inheritances - intensify inequality of opportunity in wealth accumulation and income generation. Such transfers can enable individuals to purchase or retain real estate, start or run a business, or invest in other assets (at possibly higher rates of return). At the same time, these transfers may reduce recipients' own efforts by diminishing their incentive to work - a phenomenon often referred to as the Carnegie effect. This project contributes to the relatively small body of literature that provides empirical evidence for this latter effect.
Earlier studies have restricted their attention to realized labor supply decisions following the receipt of wealth (inheritances, gifts, or lottery wins) or when gifts or inheritances are expected. Most of them support the finding that labor force participation and working hours tend to decline after a transfer is received or expected.
In this project, we analyze rich household survey data from different sources (the Dutch National Bank Household Survey and the HFCS). These datasets provide detailed individual-level information on received inheritances and gifts, including their monetary value, as well as wealth transfer expectations. In addition to labor market status and working hours they also include information regarding retirement expectations. These responses may be particularly informative, as labor supply changes may manifest primarily toward the end of one’s working life. Detailed micro-econometric analyses taking the specific characteristics of each dataset into account then allow us to test if intergenerational transfers alter recipients’ opportunity to work less and retire earlier.

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In this project, we examine whether and to what extent patterns of charitable donations still differ between the two parts of Germany more than 30 years after reunification. Despite significant convergence in living standards and many social attitudes, earlier studies have shown persistent differences in social behavior and solidarity-related values. This project asks whether such differences are also reflected in real-world acts of generosity.
Using anonymized individual data from the German income tax statistics (FAST) for the years 1998–2020, the project analyzes the incidence and amount of charitable donations and compares them between East and West Germany. These administrative data offer a large and detailed sample, allowing robust analysis over time.
Preliminary results suggest that people in East Germany donate less frequently and in smaller amounts than those in West Germany. While income differences initially explained much of this gap, the analysis indicates that over time, the unexplained (likely cultural or attitudinal) component has grown. Overall, the project will produce insights whether solidarity-related behaviors such as charitable giving still display a persistent East–West divide, which would suggest that historical, cultural, and institutional legacies of the socialist period continue to shape social behavior in reunified Germany.

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The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), developed by Daniel Kahneman and colleagues, is a diary-based approach designed to measure people’s emotional well-being throughout the day. Participants divide the previous day into distinct episodes and report how they felt during each one. Researchers then calculate an individual’s overall well-being—what Kahneman has termed “objective happiness”—as the duration-weighted average of emotional experiences across all episodes.
However, it remains unclear whether this is actually how people evaluate their day. In existing well-being research using the DRM, this assumption has rarely been questioned or tested empirically. Other psychological studies, including those by Kahneman himself, suggest that retrospective evaluations of experiences often follow different cognitive rules—such as the peak–end rule (judging experiences by their most intense and final moments) or duration neglect (disregarding how long episodes lasted).
This project examines how people truly aggregate their emotional experiences when evaluating their day. Using novel data from the German Job Seeker Panel (GJSP)—to our knowledge, the first DRM study that also asks respondents to rate their overall emotional experience of the day—we will test which aggregation models best predict people’s overall evaluations. By comparing the predictive power of duration-weighted averages, peak–end models, and other heuristics, this study will provide new insights into how individuals form summary judgments of their daily well-being and improve the interpretation of time-use and well-being data.

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While studies of global life evaluation mainly reaffirm the undesirable impacts of unemployment on subjective well-being, there are only few studies examining its impact on daily emotional experiences. In this project, we attempt to examine the impact of unemployment on different aspects of subjective well-being, particularly the emotional well-being experienced on a day-to-day basis and the channels through which unemployment influences these experiences, using micro data from the UK (UK Time-Use Survey) and the US (American Time-Use Survey). A previous study by Knabe et al. (2010) showed that unemployment is negatively linked to how individuals assess their general life and the level of pleasure they attain while doing an activity, but hardly has an effect on the emotional balance over the course of the day. The conflicting finding was obtained by Krueger and Mueller (2012) who reported that jobless people felt significantly sadder than employed people both in participation of specific activities and on an average of the day.

Building on these previous studies, we will extent this line of research in several dimensions. We take into account the differentiation of time-use and well-being by gender, by days of the weeks and by social contact possibilities. Furthermore, we will provide attempts to identify the origin and magnitude of saddening effect by examining the relationship between social contacts and time composition.

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The phrase "publish or perish” succinctly describes the great importance of publications in academia for careers, promotions, and third-party funding. This empirical project investigates various potential biases related to author/editor institutional affiliation, gender, and location that may impede the efficiency of the publishing process.

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Nowadays, patients in many countries can contact doctors not only in person, but also via video chat or questionnaires. In recent years, and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine methods have become more important than ever in medical care. While these new forms of treatment can improve the accessibility of doctors for immobile patients or for patients in sparsely populated regions, they can also affect the doctor-patient relationship and treatment outcomes. However, very little is known about the impact of telemedicine methods on the quality of healthcare.
In this project, we want to systematically investigate how telemedicine methods influence behavior and treatment outcomes in the doctor-patient relationship. The studies conducted in this project are based on controlled laboratory experiments. In recent years, health economics research has begun to use these types of experiments to test the behavioral effects of various features of the physician-patient decision environment. In the laboratory, ceteris paribus changes in parameters can be made and their effects on individual behavior directly observed. External aspects such as patient or physician characteristics can be isolated, and if the behavior changes, this variation can be attributed to the changed parameter (e.g. the type of online interaction).
In the first of the three subprojects, we initially focus on physicians and isolate the effects that certain online characteristics have on their communication and treatment decisions. In the second subproject, the focus shifts to patients, allowing us to investigate questions that relate directly to patients' reactions to specific online tools. In the third sub-project, the focus is more on the interaction between doctors and patients. Our results should not only provide insights into the design of effective telemedicine tools, but also enrich theoretical research on doctor-patient relationships.
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If anonymous comments affect the behavior of readers substantially, serious political and economic consequences may arise, due to the impact on voting and social behavior. In a series of experimental studies, we examine these effects.

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Member's lack of trust in organizational decision-making ("system disbelief") can have detrimental effects on the productivity of the organization. In series of experimental studies, we examine the dynamics of system disbelief and the conditions that affect it.

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Advancing digitalization makes it possible to increasingly replace or support human decisions with powerful algorithms. Nevertheless, people often avoid using such algorithms, a phenomenon called algorithm aversion. While previous studies have investigated various influencing factors, it remains unclear how the initial human-computer interaction influences this aversion. Since attitudes towards algorithms can emerge and change during the interaction, targeting and analyzing these interactions offers an opportunity to develop strategies to reduce aversion. This will be investigated experimentally by analyzing how the way information about the algorithm is presented influences perception.
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The 2015 refugee crisis brought nearly one million refugees to Germany, fuelling anti-foreigner sentiments. Using county-level special data extracts from the German Federal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt), this project explores the effects of this refugee immigration on the rate of victimization of non-refugee foreigners in bodily injury crimes with German suspects in Germany.

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In a field experiment, we partnered up with a property management agency to test whether ambient scents have an impact on the perception of a rental apartment as well as the willingness to rent the apartment. We further test whether ambient scents influence the perceptions of the realtor and the property management agency.
This project aims to test for scientific support of practitioners' claims that ambient scent positively influences business outcomes in retail markets.

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We compare the wage-effort relationship in a game with a two-tier hierarchy (twelve employees who are subordinate to one employer) to that in a game with a three-tier hierarchy (nine employees who are subordinate to three managers, who are subordinate to one employer). In both games, the employer has one work relationship with each of the other participants. Each of these participants first receives a wage offer from the nearest higher hierarchical level. In the three-tier hierarchy, the manager has to split a wage budget that the employer assigns to pay the employees’ wages. Managers and employees then engage in a costly production process, from which only the employer can receive earnings. We find wage secrecy and the hierarchical distance to the employer to have adverse effects on the motivation to provide effort in the three-tier hierarchy. The results suggest that organizational distance reduces reciprocal responses, as the manager, who assigns the wages to the employees, cannot be reciprocated directly.

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In a controlled laboratory experiment, the influence of management support systems on the employee's choice of work assignment and the determination of a bonus by the employer will be investigated. The aim is to shed light on whether the work facilitation provided by the management support system influences the employer's perceived appreciation of the employee's work and how such effects can be compensated for or included in the optimal design of working relationships.
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In a controlled laboratory experiment, we study the impact of monetary instability on work relationships with incomplete contracts. We observe wage inertia, i.e. the reluctance to fully adjust nominal wages to the changes in the value of the currency, and effort inertia, i.e. the reluctance to fully adjust the work effort to the alterations of the real wages. Under inflation, these effects lead to cheaper labor and a shift of payoff shares to employers. Under deflation, we observe a higher cost of labor and a shift of payoff shares to employees. Additionally, inflation and deflation lower productivity and per capita earnings.

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Recently, there has been a strong interest in the interplay between hormones and economic decision-making in economic research. Particular research interest can be seen in the field of stress research, which investigates the influence of the stress hormone cortisol on human behavior. While this field has so far received relatively little attention in economics, stress research within the neurosciences is extremely advanced and developed, so that an interdisciplinary research approach in economics offers a solid foundation here.

Laboratory studies are particularly suitable for examining the influence of stress on decision-making, as the influence of unobservable variables can be controlled and excluded. In psychology, there is therefore a standard procedure that reliably triggers acute stress in test participants: the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). The aim of this study is to design a version of the TSST that:

• conforms to the principles of economic laboratory experiments
• reliably produces acute stress in the participants and
• is associated with at most the same costs as the original TSST

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We propose and validate a task to induce acute socio-evaluative stress in the laboratory. The task features performance-based pay and simultaneously creates a treatment and a control group. Employing this task, we study the influence of acute socio-evaluative stress on the propensity to tell a selfish black lie and to trust messages that can comprise lies. We find that stress significantly reduces the probability to lie at the extensive margin, while it does not influence the intensive margin of lying. Furthermore, we find evidence that socio-evaluative stress significantly reduces the willingness to trust messages that may contain large lies.

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New Year’s Eve 2015/2016 in Cologne saw mass sexual assaults and thefts by individuals described as having an Arab-African appearance, which sparked widespread controversy and anti-refugee sentiment. This project investigates whether the event led to a subsequent increase in crimes against refugees in Germany, exploring also potential effect heterogeneity across different regions. The project also studies whether an "anniversary effect" occurred, i.e. a spike in anti-refugee crimes materialized a full year later.

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ChatGPT has simplified the application of machine learning and is used in a variety of ways, for example for consulting, coding or summarizing information. However, its potential extends to negotiation situations. To investigate this, we use a laboratory experiment with the ultimatum game, in which a provider makes a monetary offer to a recipient. In our design, ChatGPT assumes the role of the offerer, and we vary the wealth of the recipients.
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The way in which people make decisions depends on numerous factors. In this project, we combine the theoretical and experimental foundations from economics (Expected Utility Theory, Behavioral Economics) with the application of the Rasch model from psychology.
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The research focus of the chair is in the areas of social policy - especially the analysis of health economic issues and their close connection to other areas of social policy - and economic behavioral research. Characteristic for these research directions is the close combination of micro-theoretical methods (e.g. game theory and behavioral economic theories) with quantitative-empirical methods.

In teaching, the team of the chair contributes mainly to the newly established interdisciplinary program Economics and Society (B. Sc.) and the program Economics Policy Analysis (M. Sc.) and complements the training in the areas of social policy, behavioral economics and experimental economics. The courses offered by the department are designed to qualify students for behavioral economic analysis and social policy design.

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This project analyses the drivers of banks' lending behaviour backed by real estate during the low interest rate environment. Typical drivers of cross-border activities of banks are distance, cultural similarities or institutional factors. Also profit opportunities play an important role. Especially during the low interest rate environment recently experienced in the euro area, banks might actively search for yield by investing abroad. Our study tests whether such motives can be observed in the data.

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Empirical studies with human participants (e.g. controlled experiments) are well-established methods in software engineering (SE) research to understand the activities of developers or the advantages and disadvantages of a technique, tool or practice. There are various guidelines and recommendations for designing and conducting different types of empirical studies in SE. However, the use of financial incentives (i.e. paying participants to compensate their effort and improve the validity of a study) is rarely mentioned.

In this project, we analyze and discuss the use of financial incentives for SE experiments in order to derive appropriate guidelines and recommendations for researchers. In particular, we propose how to extend the current state of the art and create a better understanding of when and how incentives should be used.
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The project deals with how buyers obtain better and/or cheaper products through an optimal selection mechanism for product testing. In particular, it will investigate whether a new selection mechanism called SellersMayApply ensures that better and/or cheaper products are offered, tested and purchased. The focus will be on game-theoretical and experimental analysis.
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The increasing digitalization of social and economic interactions is proceeding at a considerable speed.
at a considerable speed. Research on digitization processes should reconcile two objects of knowledge
two subjects of knowledge, which are usually studied separately from each other
investigated separately: Firstly, the question of technical development and, secondly, the
question of the effects of this development on human behavior. In the project applied for here
project proposed here will attempt to combine both perspectives in an interdisciplinary approach
interdisciplinary approach, whereby the focus is on behavioral analysis,
the technical components are nevertheless strongly represented. The use case chosen for this
type of analysis of digitization processes is the phenomenon of asymmetric information.
information.
Asymmetrically distributed information plays an important role in many economic contexts.
Information asymmetries are responsible for adverse selection (Akerlof, 1978) and moral hazard
in insurance markets, play a major role in human resource management and prevent
prevent bilateral sales negotiations from reliably leading to efficient solutions
(Kennan and Wilson, 1993). Until now, there has been hardly any way of eliminating these asymmetries,
because the asymmetrically distributed information is of a private nature. Only the individual involved in a
individual involved in a negotiation knows it. For this reason, research has long concentrated on
on the question of whether there are incentive systems under which the truthful disclosure of private
information can be a best answer (Myerson and Satterthwaite, 1983). More recently
the situation has changed to the extent that artificial intelligence (AI) methods have made it possible
to deduce emotional states from people's facial expressions, for example to detect whether they are lying or not.
detect whether people are lying or not (Pérez-Rosas et al., 2015). It can be
It can be assumed that the quality of such algorithms will continue to increase as digitalization progresses.
algorithms will continue to increase. Artificial intelligence here primarily comprises the research field of machine learning, in which an artificial system is trained using examples so that it can then generalize for unknown data.
The project combines two research areas: Economics (WW) and
neuro-information technology (NIT). The identification of private information plays a major role in both areas
plays a major role in both areas, but is viewed from different perspectives. While the
economic analysis focuses on the role and importance of private information in negotiation situations
situations, NIT focuses on the feasibility and quality of automated recognition of personal characteristics.
of personal characteristics. The fact that the interaction of both research areas
is successfully possible is demonstrated by the joint publication of the applicants
(Othman et al., 2019) makes this clear.
Several questions are at the heart of this research project. The economically significant
question is whether and how people react to the existence of a less invasive lie detection technology.
react. On the one hand, the focus will be on how people deal with the information
information generated by an AI and, on the other hand, the impact of the mere existence of such a technology.
has an impact. It will examine whether institutions (e.g. markets) that use automated detection of private
automated recognition of private information are preferred to institutions that do not use this technology.
do without this technology. From a technical perspective, the aim is to clarify how well an AI-supported technology
is able to recognize simple lies in an economic context. The research questions
can be summarized as follows.

From an economic perspective, the following research questions will be investigated:

1. how does the existence of an AI-based technology for the detection of lies a priori
on communication behavior and in particular on the use of lies?

2. how do people use the information about the honesty of their negotiating partner?
that the AI-supported technology presents to them?
3. does the existence of such AI technologies lead to market selection effects? Under
what circumstances will actors prefer a market design that uses or omits AI-based
technology or leave it out?
From an engineering perspective, the following research questions are in the foreground:
1. to what extent is the detection of lies in simple negotiation situations with financial
possible using AI-supported mimic expression analysis?
2. how can the detection of lies be improved by adding other modalities, e.g.
automated, image-based vital parameter estimation?

3. how can the classification models be interpreted, the influence of different modalities
modalities and identify features that are suitable for detecting lies?
be identified?

The project uses AI technology to answer the question of how individual behavior changes in conflict situations with private information due to the existence of such mechanisms. This is done with the help of incentivized laboratory experiments and the use of AI technology. The final research question is whether the mere existence of such technologies influences people's behavior. Buyers and sellers are given the opportunity to decide for or against this technology in order to gain access to the negotiating partner's private information. The project is therefore concerned with the economic consequences of digitalization in the area of market design. The aim is to investigate
how the players select themselves into corresponding submarkets and whether the markets even
come into being at all. This research question is of high practical and scientific relevance.
The use of AI will increase significantly over the next few years and will appear in more and more applications. In view of this development, it is of great social and scientific interest to know how the use of such technologies influences the behavior of the actors concerned. This is relevant both for answering the question of the welfare effects of AI and for specific questions of market design. An outstanding strength of the project is that the expected lying behavior is incentivized by appropriate laboratory experimental methods and the AI can learn from incentivized data sets. However, the AI-supported technology used in the project is not only suitable for detecting lies, but can also be used to uncover emotional states in general. In this context, the additional question arises as to whether greater transparency of the emotional states of the negotiating participants has an impact on the course of the negotiations and their results. As a by-product, the methodological experience gained in the project for analyzing emotional reactions can be used to analyze the motives of test subjects in other laboratory experiments in a new way.
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Trade and financial flows are globally intertwined, and trade exposures might drive banks' cross-border lending decisions. In this study, we investigate how global supply chain exposures affect international lending activities of banks. For identification, we exploit the unexpected disruptions in international trade due to the Covid-19 pandemic in a panel of Austrian banks for the period from 2017 to 2021. Our analysis provides relevant insights into how trade exposures affect internationally active banks' cross border activities.

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While studies of global life evaluation mainly reaffirm the undesirable impacts of unemployment on subjective well-being, there are only few studies examining its impact on daily emotional experiences. In this project, we attempt to examine the impact of unemployment on different aspects of subjective well-being, particularly the emotional well-being experienced on a day-to-day basis and the channels through which unemployment influences these experiences, using micro data from the UK (UK Time-Use Survey) and the US (American Time-Use Survey). A previous study by Knabe et al. (2010) showed that unemployment is negatively linked to how individuals assess their general life and the level of pleasure they attain while doing an activity, but hardly has an effect on the emotional balance over the course of the day. The conflicting finding was obtained by Krueger and Mueller (2012) who reported that jobless people felt significantly sadder than employed people both in participation of specific activities and on an average of the day.

Building on these previous studies, we will extent this line of research in several dimensions. We take into account the differentiation of time-use and well-being by gender, by days of the weeks and by social contact possibilities. Furthermore, we will provide attempts to identify the origin and magnitude of saddening effect by examining the relationship between social contacts and time composition.

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The increasing digitalization of social and economic interactions is proceeding at a considerable speed. Research on digitalization processes should reconcile two areas of knowledge that are usually examined separately: Firstly, the question of technical development and secondly, the question of the effects of this development on human behavior. In the project applied for here, an attempt will be made to combine both perspectives in an interdisciplinary approach, whereby the focus is on behavioral analysis, but the technical components are still strongly represented. The use case chosen for this type of analysis of digitization processes is the phenomenon of asymmetric information. Specifically, we are investigating the extent to which the paradigm of asymmetric information distribution has become at least partially obsolete through the use of AI technologies. In our interdisciplinary project, instead of waiting for the technological development in the field of machine lie detection, we would like to contribute to technological progress and at the same time experimentally investigate the possible social consequences of this technology: Economics (WW) and Neuro-Information Technology (NIT). The identification of private information plays a major role in both areas, but is viewed from different perspectives. While economic analysis focuses on the role and importance of private information in negotiation situations, NIT focuses on the feasibility and quality of automated recognition of personal characteristics, with the main aim of answering two questions. (1) Does the existence of such AI technologies lead to market selection effects? (2) Under which circumstances will actors prefer a market design that uses or omits AI-based technology? As key sub-objectives, we want to find out how well lying can be detected by machines in our negotiation context and how the subjects deal with the information provided by this AI technology, thus addressing the economic consequences of digitization in the field of market design. The aim is to investigate how the players select themselves into corresponding submarkets and whether the markets come into existence at all. This research question is of high practical and scientific relevance. The use of AI will increase significantly over the next few years and will appear in more and more applications. In view of this development, it is of great social and scientific interest to know how the use of such technologies influences the behavior of the actors concerned.
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The banking sector is one of the most intensively regulated sectors. Rules continuously increase in both number and complexity, generating ever-higher fixed costs for banks. This means that small banks are more heavily affected, increasingly pressurizing them to consolidate, while large banks fare relatively better. Although the high intensity of state intervention is basically justified by the existence of market failures it should also hold true that regulators aim to and have the capabilities to induce a dominant allocation compared to the market outcome - an assumption which might be just too optimistic. Instead, regulators might be captured by the industry, in especially by large banks that do have the capacities to lobby successfully, and may have an interest in seeking more regulatory pressure by themselves even, based on the grounds that they may benefit from economies of scale in supervision. By acknowledging the fact that regulators might not always be benevolent, this thesis builds upon the Economic Theory of Regulation, critically scrutinizing bank regulation instead of taking it for granted. In doing so, it aims at identifying regulatory effects on both banks' (fixed) costs and the consolidation process to eventually derive recommended policy actions.

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The sustainability of economic unions like the European Union (EU) or currency unions like the euro area depend amongst others on similar economic growth paths, non-excessive debt levels or dispersions in income distributions across countries. Financial crises pose a threat in that respect, as they tend to result in deep and prolonged recessions. The re-regulation of the financial system over the last decade intends to decrease systemic vulnerability and thus negative effects of financial crises on the real sector and individuals. To reach the objective of a more stable financial system, a key element is the introduction of macroprudential policies. An increasing range of studies looks at the first order effects of macroprudential regulation on banking system stability or lending sensitivities finding that credit and house price growth declines given tighter regulation (e.g., Aiyar et al. 2014, Akinci and Olmstead-Rumsey 2018, Cerutti et al. 2017, Danisewicz et al. 2017). However, less evidence exists on indirect spillovers to individuals via distributional effects. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap and ask whether the introduction of macroprudential policies targeting financial system stability affect individuals’ income situation heterogeneously along the income distribution, which might have implications for income inequality in Europe. The analysis is based on EU-SILC microdata and covers households and individuals across countries being part of the European Union for the period from 2010 to 2018.

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Halle is member of the Reseacrch Institute Social Cohesion (RISC). The RISC analyzes soicial challenges such as the regional diversity of social cohesion. More than 16 researchers in Halle from a variety of disciplines use on the one hand empirical studies to understand different regional living and working environments. On the other hand, in transfer studies they develop methods to promote positive forms of social cohesion.
[https://soziologie.uni-halle.de/fgz/?lang=en]

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Social media in particular has facilitated the spread of fake news. These can not only affect vaccination programs, but also influence election results or even jeopardize social cohesion. While increased surveillance measures to curb the spread of fake news are certainly an important element, it seems impossible to stop it completely. Therefore, the strategy to combat fake news needs a second pillar that should focus on those who consume (fake) news. In this project, we want to experimentally investigate how algorithms can positively influence the individual news consumption of German daily newspapers and magazines and whether this reduces the belief in fake news. The newly passed Digitalization Act obliges platforms to inform users about how content is recommended to them and to offer at least one option that is not based on individual recommendation algorithms. In a second step, we therefore also want to investigate how transparency affects people's behavior.
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Extreme weather events are not only occurring with increasing frequency worldwide, they are also heightening awareness of the consequences of climate change. While there is widespread agreement on the need to combat climate change, political programs and society are more divided on how this should be done. Proposals such as banning diesel engines from cities or introducing vegetarian food in schools usually lead to protests, as such regulations restrict the freedom of the individual immensely. But can the climate targets be achieved if sustainable action is in the hands of each individual? In this project, the role of social norms and financial restrictions will be examined as part of a field experiment. We focus on the consumption of (organically produced) food, as this is probably where routines have developed the most and we want to investigate whether such routines can be influenced towards more sustainable behavior.
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Globalisation and technological change are usually considered welfare-enhancing developments by economists. This proposal sheds light on potentially very important political, social and economic costs that have, until very recently, been neglected: the recent rise of populist and nationalist movements, possibly leading to political disintegration of the European Project.
We start from the observation that trade integration and technological change can lead to growing regional disparities in labour market outcomes if import-competing regions lose jobs on a large scale (Autor et al. 2013; Dauth et al. 2014), or if regions are specialised in jobs which can be replaced by new technologies such as industrial robots (Acemoglu and Restrepo 2017). Some early economic studies point towards a direct link between import competition at the regional level and extreme political views (Autor et al. 2016; Dippel et al. 2015). We aim to develop this emerging literature by highlighting whether globalisation and technological/structural changes increase vote shares of populist and nationalist parties because of the economic hardships caused by these phenomena. We provide up to date and comparable evidence for European regions and also explore whether transfer payments via European Union (EU) structural funds mitigate these effects. We extend this basic analysis by focussing on the three specific cases of the Czech Republic, Germany, and the United Kingdom to provide a clear understanding of (i) which type of hardships matter, (ii) which subgroups are affected, (iii) whether individual-level or regional-level hardships matter and (iv) the individual-level economic mechanisms behind the rise of populism.
Methodologically, we will deploy both microeconometric and experimental tools to identify causal relationships between exogenous trigger events (e.g. import shocks, robot use, refugee inflow) and outcome variables (labour market, election outcomes and populist sentiments. We will make use of survey, experimental and administrative data at both aggregate (regional) and individual levels.
The ultimate goal of the project is to assess whether economic hardship, caused by forces hitting open economies - typically viewed as being beyond the control of individual voters and national authorities - can explain the recent success of populist and nationalist movements in the EU. In establishing whether economics matters, and for whom, which type of hardships matter, and whether EU structural funds are a means to mitigate the rise of anti-EU tendencies we provide guidance to European and national policy makers concerned with the future of the EU and open democratic societies.

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The use of smoke alarms has increased across countries, often as a result of legal initiatives that made their use compulsory. Evidence on the effectiveness of such legislative measures in reducing fire-related fatalities and bodily harm, however, is still lacking. This empirical project seeks to provide first such evidence.

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The interview is essential for the selection of suitable candidates. Traditionally, this is a face-to-face interview between the company representative(s) and the applicant in order to check both the candidate's professional competence and the overall impression gained from the written application. Traditional interviews are conducted either in person or by telephone or via video call over the Internet.
A newer method of personnel selection is the video interview, in which the applicant himself records his answers to predetermined questions via webcam. The recordings are then viewed and evaluated by the recruiters. Face-to-face and video-based interviews therefore differ in the presence or absence of an interviewer. The aim of this study is to examine whether the chosen type of interview has an impact on the selection of candidates. In a field experiment, 13 applicants for an assistant position are assessed in a live and a video version of a short interview. The interviews are available in the three modes "personal interview", "video recording of the personal interview" and "independently recorded video interview". In a next step, the candidates are assessed in order to identify potential differences between the interview modes.
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Internet hate talk (i.e. the expression of strongly negative emotions concerning others in online forums and social networks on the internet) is an increasingly visible phenomenon. We use field and lab experiments to explore the effect of internet hate talk on mutual production (efficiency) and the willingness to share (distribution).

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Public bank guarantees are widespread across the globe. There has been growing evidence with regards to its effect on risk taking incentives of banks and its countercyclical benefits during a credit crunch. Although real effects of financing constraints have received particular attention over the past years, little is known about the long-term effects of public bank guarantees on labor market outcomes. The 2008 financial crisis and the following recession underscored the role of financing constraints on firm demand and the labor market overall. Recent papers suggest that firms that are hit by a financial shock through their lending institution experience a reduction in employment, in the number of hours worked, and in wages. This observation justifies the role of government induced countercyclical lending and its effect on local labor markets. On the other hand, government interventions on bank lending may hinder creative reallocation/cleansing in the real economy. We plan to study the effects of public bank guarantees on employment outcomes. We address whether the distortions to banks’ credit decisions induced by bank guarantees have an impact on the allocation of labor from the perspective of firm turnover, employment turnover, and job transitions. Bank guarantees are argued to reduce market discipline on banks and their incentives to screen and monitor firms for credit decisions. Through this channel, unproductive firms receive funding which delay the otherwise optimal exit decisions. This mechanism also distorts the efficiency of firm hiring and firing decisions leading to an unproductive employer-employee matching. We plan to investigate whether lack of screening due to bank guarantees induce adverse outcomes in individuals and firms’ labor market turnover. For this we rely on the 2001 decision of European Court of Justice that removed public bank guarantees in Germany as a quasi-natural experiment. This change affected only German public banks as they were protected by a federal government guarantee, while the rest of the banks can be used as a control group. We first plan to develop a theoretical model of labor market with credit constraints, which provides hypotheses about the role of banks' screening decision on allocation of labor. We plan to test the implications of our theory in three steps. First, we investigate whether unproductive firms with higher savings banks dependence prior to the court rule in 2001, experience a change in the exit dynamics after the policy change. Second, we check whether unproductive firms that are more prone to funding through savings banks prior to 2001, experience a change in employment, new job matches, and job separations. Third, we check whether individuals who work in unproductive firms that rely on considerable funding via savings banks prior to 2001, experience faster job separation or job changes after 2001.

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The German government has set the ambitious target of achieving greenhouse gas-neutral electricity generation by 2050. This requires not only high investment in the expansion of renewable energies, but also a high level of acceptance on the part of consumers, who will bear these investment costs through their electricity bills. This project deals with the question of which factors influence consumer preferences for renewable energies. The factors to be investigated include the electricity mix, CO2 labeling and a number of personal variables. In order to answer this question, various experiments have been and are being carried out, most of which are based on conjoint analysis. Implications for business and politics are derived from the results obtained, which should help to drive forward the implementation of the energy transition. The associated research papers have been and are being published in international scientific journals.
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Gemeinsame Expertise mit Bernhard Herz (Universität Bayreuth) für das Institute for European Democrats (IED), Brüssel zur Rolle von regionalen Kreditinstituten für die Finanzierung mittelständischer Unternehmen in der Europäischen Union.

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Gemeinsame Expertise mit Christoph Kaserer (TU München) für die Stiftung Kapitalmarktforschung für den Finanzstandort Deutschland, die Stiftung Kapitalmarktrecht für den Finanzstandort Deutschland und die Stiftung Unternehmensfinanzierung und Kapitalmärkte für den Finanzstandort Deutschland.

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Gemeinsame Expertise mit Hans-Peter Burghof (Universität Hohenheim) für den Deutschen Sparkassen- und Giroverband und dem Bundesverband der Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken zur Bedeutung gruppenbezogener Institutssicherungssysteme innerhalb der Europäischen Bankenunion.

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The dissertation will deal with the interaction between the labor market and the family. In particular, the influence of family events on labor market decisions and vice versa will be examined. Aspects from economic happiness research will also be taken into account. The focus will be on empirical analysis.
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A large number of consumption decisions are made at household level. An individual's consumption and material standard of living always depends on the number and characteristics of the members of their household, for example due to economies of scale in household size and interpersonal differences in needs and preferences. Satisfaction research also shows that the subjective well-being of different household members influences each other - partly via interdependencies in consumption, but also via various psychological channels. The dissertation comprises a series of empirical studies that reveal such interdependencies in subjective well-being and subjective income assessment or use them to quantify interdependencies in consumption.
The first part of the research project includes two studies that determine equivalence scales in market income and thus interdependencies in market consumption on the basis of the income satisfaction reported by members of different types of households. The first study focuses in particular on the significance of reference effects in income assessment, the second on the consequences of measurement errors in household income.
The second part of the research project includes the essential component of time in the analysis by looking at the consumption of goods and services produced in the household. The first study in this sub-project examines the monetary costs of children depending on their parents' employment status on the basis of mothers' subjective income assessment. The second study estimates equivalence scales in extended income, i.e. the sum of market income and household production, using income satisfaction and time use data.
The third part of the dissertation deals with the effects of a change in the consumption-generating behavior of one household member on the subjective well-being of another. The first study shows the effect of an increase in the partner's household activities on satisfaction with the standard of living. The second study examines the influence of a parental job loss on the life satisfaction of adolescent children living in the household.
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The main goal of our project "BiGeTA" is to identify the e-health literacy (eHL) needs of individuals in their post-employment phase, especially in the rural areas of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. We plan to develop new concepts for (electronic) infrastructure that will enable individuals in our target group to acquire and activitate the necessary competencies and skills. Using a mixed-methods approach we will research the needs and the demand of our target group and develop concepts for the technical education and social pariticipation of elderly. These concepts should be easily accessible for our target group, to allow their healthy and self-determined aging in a techonologically demanding environment.

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Ob die Ausgestaltung des Finanzsektors eines Landes Auswirkungen auf die Effizienz der jeweiligen Realwirtschaft und damit signifikanten Einfluss auf den realen Output nimmt, ist eine in der Literatur vielfältig diskutierte Fragestellung. Während in Kontinentaleuropa vornämlich bankbasierte Finanzsysteme existieren, ist der angelsächsische Raum durch eine starke Kapitalmarktorientierung geprägt. Einzig auf Basis dieser Feststellung lässt sich jedoch keine Aussage bezüglich des (realwirtschaftlichen) Erfolgs der beteiligten Länder ableiten. Das Forschungsprojekt nähert sich der beschriebenen Thematik aus zwei Richtungen: Auf der einen Seite wird eine empirische Klassifikation unterschiedlicher Bankensysteme mittels Clusteranalyse vorgenommen. Auf der anderen Seite erfolgt eine empirische Klassifikation verschiedener realwirtschaftlicher Systeme. Eine sich daran anschließende Synthese stellt beide Systeme zueinander in Beziehung. Anhand ausgewählter Kriterien sollen Aussagen über Interdependenzen und Kongruenz von Bankensystemen und Realwirtschaft getroffen werden, woraus sich eine erweiterte Entscheidungsbasis u. a im wirtschaftspolitischen Prozess ergeben kann.

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Labour productivity has slowed down atypically over the last decade or so in the developed world. That means that workers on average are not becoming more productive at quite the same speed as they used to.
A similar picture in terms of how labour productivity has slowed down is seen for total factor productivity, i.e. when considering all factors of production, including capital. This is despite technological advancements continuing, and thus offering opportunities for innovation, as well as firms progressively integrating in global value chains, and therefore encouraging competition and gains in efficiency. All of these would suggest improvements in productivity vs. the observed slow down, a paradoxical situation that indicates how poor and incomplete our understanding of the underlying mechanisms at work is.

The consequences of this slow down are not innocuous. Contrary to a long-term trend, the current generation expects that future generations may earn less than they do, raising issues about intergenerational transfers and sustainability of welfare systems across generations. At the same time, the benefits of the small productivity improvements are accruing disproportionately to capital over labour. The distribution of wealth is therefore becoming increasingly and very visibly unequal, a fact that causes societal anxiety and unrest. Understanding why this occurs is crucial as we prepare for the post financial crisis era.

But what is the root cause of this productivity slow down? Some have argued that part of the answer lies in the way we measure productivity. Outdated methodologies are not in the position to capture how value is created given current technology and therefore vastly underestimates the advancements in productivity. Others are increasingly paying attention to the role of intangible investments, in particular as digital business models are becoming increasingly successful. The argument here is that digital firms have the ability to scale up and produce more without proportional increases in capital. If you are Facebook, you can increase the number of people you reach (and therefore the potential for income) without much additional investment. By contrast, a department store would need to invest in property and people if it wanted to expand its operations. Measured aggregate productivity trends may underestimate future productivity growth when increases in aggregate expenditures disproportionately go to intangible intensive firms. Similarly, tracking productivity changes in real time is made difficult because the returns to intangible investment may be very delayed.

Furthermore, there are additional implications of intangible investments that are not fully understood. For example, the difficulty in funding intangible investment through traditional financial channels will have a large impact on firms that rely on tangibles. Even before that, as firms grow with little investments they also have fewer assets that can be used for accessing credit, a fact that may distort lending at an aggregate level. Moreover, the implications of an increased role of intangibles for the organisation of firms into global value chains are also unclear.

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The aim of the study is to uncover discrepancies between the requirements that companies place in job advertisements for university graduates and the experiences that companies have had over the last 10 years with their new hires from universities. In cooperation with the President of the Saxony-Anhalt Employers' and Business Associations and other company representatives, we conducted a survey in which company representatives from various sectors who offer jobs for university graduates where it is possible to remain resident in the Saxony-Anhalt region took part. The survey paid particular attention to the areas of soft skills, hard skills and employer attractiveness.

We also conducted a survey among students from various faculties. The content of this survey was based on that of the companies, so that we were able to survey student self-assessments in addition to corporate requirements and experiences.

We have now summarized the initial results on the discrepancies between the information provided by companies and students regarding soft skills, hard skills and employer attractiveness. They show that companies place very high demands on their new hires, particularly in terms of soft skills. These are usually significantly higher than the experiences that companies have had with previously hired university graduates. However, students are much more optimistic in their assessment of their skills than the company experience would suggest.

While there is a discrepancy between requirements, experience and student self-perception with regard to soft skills, we find a less pronounced discrepancy with regard to hard skills, i.e. companies find it easier on average to select candidates whose skills match the requirement profiles.

On the part of the students, it is clear that aspects that are beneficial to their own career are decisive when choosing an employer. These include, for example, the offer of qualification measures and structured promotion opportunities. In terms of employer attractiveness, we are pleased to see that regional companies are also able to make attractive offers to their applicants.
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The universally extendable and accesible database of the internet has led to an enormous increase of personal information provision (e.g. in social networks). We use game-theoretic and experimental studies to examine how the extent and the motives for the provision of private information are affected by the way the information is monetized by a third party.

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We study the social norms that guide the behavior of the anonymous online workforce (e.g. the workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk or on Clickworker).

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In der Theorie der "New Empirical Industrial Organization (NEIO)" spielen die Produktions- und Kostenverhältnisse der Marktunternehmen eine herausgehobene Rolle, etwa bei der Diagnose von Skalen- oder Verbundeffekten. Für gewerbliche Anbieter liegen sowohl in Theorie als auch Empire z. T. belastbare Ansätze vor, in der Banken-Literatur besteht indes nach wie vor keine Einigkeit, ob z. B. die Intermediations- oder die Produktionshypothese den tatsächlichen Verhältnissern näher kommt. Folgerichtig divergieren auch die Methoden der empirischen Schätzung von Kostenfunktionen für Kreditinstitute. Hier sei nur auf die einschlägigen Arbeiten zu Translog-Kostenfunktionen sowie zu DEA- bzw. Efficient-Frontier-Modellen verwiesen. Zu den wesentlichen Nachteilen all dieser Ansätze zählen die impliziten Annahmen identischer Geschäftsmodelle aller betrachteten Banken sowie vergleichbare  Wettbewerbsbedingungen. Beide Voraussetzungen sind in der Realität gerade nicht erfüllt.
Das geplante Projekt sucht nach einem alternativen Weg. In zwei Schritten sollen zwei verschiedene Subsysteme untersucht werden:
1. in Deutschland tätige Regionalbanken,
2. bei der FDIC versicherte amerikanische Commercial Banks
Für beide Untersuchungssamples können zumindest sehr ähnliche Geschäftsmodelle unterstellt werden, etwaige Unterschiede in der regionalen Wettbewerbsintensität lassen sich durch eine geeignete Kontrollvariable berücksichtigen. Ziele der Analyse sind die ökonometrische Identifizierung der wesentlichen Kostentreiber sowie die größenabhängigen Elemente der Kostenfunktionen über deterministische Modelle. Besonderes Augenmerk gilt den (institutionellen) Fixkosten, deren Höhe auch durch Regulierungsdruck oder Compliance-Auflagen beeinflusst wird. Der Vergleich zwischen Deutschland und den USA soll Rückschlüsse auf die gesamtwirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen ermöglichen.

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Numerous studies document that employees with the same productive characteristics receive different wages from different employers. Such persistent firm wage differentials are inconsistent with a competitive labor market in which employers take the market wage as given and act as wage takers, and suggest that employers and employees receive substantial employment rents and have market power in wage determination. The aim of this project is to investigate the distribution of employment rents in imperfect labor markets and the influence of labor market institutions such as collective bargaining and co-determination on firm wage differentials. Beyond basic research, the project thus has the potential to inform important economic policy debates on the institutional design of the wage-setting process.
The project contributes to the existing literature as follows: (1) To date, there are only a few studies on rent-sharing, i.e. the influence of firm performance on wages, that identify a causal rent-sharing effect by means of credibly exogenous variation in firm performance. The use of the official firm-level data for Germany (AFiD) allows us to estimate such an effect based on time variation in firm energy costs. (2) One shortcoming of the literature is that the number of hours worked is generally unknown. However, rent-sharing can also take place via working hours instead of daily or monthly wages. By combining AFiD data and the Structure of Earnings Survey, we can use wages and firm performance per hour worked to estimate the bias in previous studies and examine differences in rent-sharing between establishments bound by collective agreements and those without. (3) A major problem in the literature is the use of theoretically unfounded measures of firm performance and firm wage premiums. By using the linked employer-employee dataset of the Institute for Employment Research (LIAB), we can calculate such adequate measures. In particular, we are able to adequately measure firm wage premiums based on an approach that decomposes wages into employee-specific and employer-specific components (Abowd, Kramarz, Margolis 1999). This allows us to examine the extent of rent-sharing and its variation as a function of collective bargaining coverage and co-determination and to test possible explanations for the increasing dispersion of company wage premiums since the 1990s. (4) With the LIAB data, we can also be the first to investigate the influencing variables on which the monopsony power of employers depends. In particular, we can examine whether collective bargaining agreements or co-determination have a moderating influence on their market power and to what extent the firm wage premiums vary with their wage-setting power.
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Together with GESIS Cologne and the University of Vienna (Prof. Kittel), a repository is being developed in this project that will serve to collect, organize and make available experimentally collected data in all social sciences. The aim is, on the one hand, to ensure secure storage of all data important for experiments and, on the other hand, to enable the search and reuse of this data. The aim is to ensure the reproducibility of experiments on the one hand and to enable the use of experiments across the various social science disciplines on the other.
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We combine a number of unique and proprietary data sources to measure the impact of relationship lenders and unconventional monetary policy during and after the European sovereign debt crisis on the real economy. Establishing systematic links between different research data centers ( Forschungsdatenzentren , FDZ) and central banks with detailed micro-level information on both financial and real activity is the stand-alone proposition of our proposal. The main objective is to permit the identification of causal effects, or their absence, regarding which policies were conducive to mitigate financial shocks and stimulate real economic activities, such as employment, investment, or the closure of plants.

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The empirically oriented DFG project focuses on the question of how the large influx of asylum and protection seekers to Germany in 2015 has affected various areas of society and the economy. Specifically, the effects of the mass influx of refugees to Germany will be analyzed in four core areas: (1) election results, (2) real estate markets, (3) violence against foreigners (in the current and last refugee crisis in the 1990s) and crime by foreigners, and (4) donation behavior, both monetary and in the form of goods and volunteer services.
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The project uses econometric methods to find out what impact various financial events and developments have on stability and the real economy or non-financial industries and households.
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It is widely known in the literature that job loss has a negative impact on a person's life satisfaction or health, for example. However, the effects of job loss extend not only to the individual who loses their job, but also to family members. The aim of this project is to investigate such effects. For example, the effects on the divorce rate or on the satisfaction of children are examined. The analysis is empirical. The study focuses on involuntary job losses in order to minimize both anticipation effects and interactions with unobserved factors.
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In the recent past, there have been numerous legal interventions in the flexibility of the German labor market. These include, for example, changes to protection against dismissal. The aim of the project is to investigate the effect of a change in dismissal protection on labor market policy variables. Panel data at micro and macro level are used for the empirical analysis.
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Although the market exit of companies can be seen as an important and necessary determinant of structural change, the insolvency proceedings of traditional German companies (Schlecker, Weltbild, Zamek) have led to increased attention from political decision-makers and public perception in recent years. The focus of the negative effects and consequences of involuntary company closures is primarily on the dismissed employees, whose job loss may initially lead to unemployment and then to lasting damage to their employment biography.
While the empirical evidence of labor market economics has so far only dealt with the consequences for affected employees after plant closures or mass layoffs, the primary goal of this project is to gain new insights into the consequences of involuntary job changes due to employer insolvency. Research question (1) first examines the individual income development of affected employees, in which the insolvency of small companies can also be reliably taken into account for the first time. In order to gain precise knowledge about the causes of these possible income losses, the subsequent research question (2) sheds light on the consequences of involuntary job loss for the employment biography of affected individuals and should enable important conclusions to be drawn about the determinants of employment stability and the probability of switching to atypical employment relationships. In order to be able to draw conclusions about the exogeneity of job loss and about people who leave companies due to the threat of insolvency, research question (3) is intended to examine company developments prior to insolvencies on the basis of the fluctuation behavior of employee structure and productivity and to show how far back the "shadow of death" extends. The methodological analysis instruments of the individual research questions are chosen in such a way that, taking into account research question (4), a consistent comparability of the results with previous results of company closures and mass redundancies can be guaranteed.
In order to be able to comprehensively depict the consequences of insolvencies for affected employees over as long a period as possible, a completely new and unique data basis is being sought which, on the basis of the Integrated Employment Biography (IEB), links day-by-day information on individual employment and income development with information on the corresponding establishment level. The establishment data is collected on the one hand via the Establishment History Panel (BHP), which contains information on establishment and employment-related characteristics for all West German establishments with at least one valuable employee subject to social security contributions from 1975 onwards (from 1991 for East Germany), and on the other hand via the IAB Establishment Panel, whose representative employer survey of around 16,000 participants implements additional information on the operational determinants (earnings situation, productivity) of employment. The adequate identification of insolvent companies from the IAB company data is achieved by linking three other data sources (insolvency money, social security notifications and insolvency announcements) and follows the preliminary work and methodological approach of Müller and Stegmaier (2015).
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Overseas students in China have increased substantially over the last two decades, as has the number of Confucius Institutes abroad.  This empirical project investigates whether the growing number of such public institutions, which aim to promote Chinese language and culture, contributed to the growth in overseas student numbers in China.

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The productivity of working relationships depends on a number of endogenous factors that arise from the working relationship itself, e.g. the type and amount of salary paid. However, there are also exogenous factors that can influence the success of a working relationship but do not arise from it. In this project, for example, the influence of monetary stability, the organizational structure of the company and promotion opportunities within the company on the productivity of working relationships will be investigated. Since in reality a large number of factors interact, some of which cannot be observed, the influence of a single factor cannot be filtered out, or only with great difficulty. This project is therefore based on controlled laboratory experiments that make it possible to measure the specific influence of the determinants on the productivity of labor relations.
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This experiment is a 2x2 design with a monotonous and a creative task. The aim is to investigate the influence of a 15-minute active break on work productivity in both tasks. An active break is defined as a break during which the participants stand and perform a light physical activity (e.g. stretching and breathing exercises). Test subjects who take a passive break (sitting) serve as a comparison group. The exercises are standardized, performed by an appropriately trained trainer and played to the participants via video. While the participants with active breaks take part in the exercises, the participants with passive breaks simply watch the video from their seats. The remuneration is incentive-compatible in all four treatments, i.e. the higher the quality of the work assessed by a jury, the higher the payout.
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Work and unemployment play an important role in people's quality of life. Studies on life satisfaction have shown that unemployment is one of the life events that reduces satisfaction the most. In contrast, much less research has been done on how participation in active labor market policy measures affects subjective well-being. In this project, we want to analyze data on the cognitive and affective well-being of participants in work opportunities (1-euro jobs), which we collected ourselves using the Day Reconstruction Method, and compare these with satisfaction data from other sources (SOEP, PASS). Comparing this data with that of regular employees and the unemployed will allow us to draw conclusions about the effects of such measures on the subjective well-being of the participants and thus about the immediate benefits of such measures, i.e. those that occur independently of subsequent success in the labor market.
A second sub-project in this area will deal with the psychological effects of combined wages. A standard result of economic theory states that it does not matter in the long term whether wage subsidies are paid to employers or employees, as the pass-on processes on the market ultimately lead to identical results. However, this logic presupposes that it does not matter to the employee from which source they receive their income. However, the political discussion about supplementary benefits indicates that the receipt of supplementary social benefits is often perceived as stigmatizing and sometimes humiliating by those affected. The aim of this research project is to investigate whether negative effects of combined wages of this kind can be determined using the methods of satisfaction research. The aim is to determine whether similar effects occur when the combined wage is paid to the employer while the employee's total income remains the same. If the payment of wage supplements to employees is accompanied by negative psychological effects of this kind, this would weaken the benefits of this instrument. If these negative effects have a negative impact on the willingness to participate and motivation to work, the ability of this instrument to achieve positive employment effects would even be reduced. If these effects do not occur with employer subsidies, this would refute the theoretical equivalence of both instruments and argue in favor of the use of employer wage subsidies.
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Scarcity of resources is a central assumption of economic research. In the area of health economics, scarcity of resources becomes particularly apparent when it comes to limitations in healthcare benefits. For an efficient allocation of scarce resources, healthcare research must be aligned with the needs of patients and medical professionals. Thereby, the quality of patient care can be improved and the probability of commercial success of innovations in the market can be increased.
In this project, Conjoint Analysis is applied to investigate the utility requirements of physicians and patients in diagnosis and therapy procedures. In terms of participatory decision-making, the project aims to improve the inclusion of patients in the decision-making process about the choice of treatment. A final goal of the application of this methodology is to show that an early assessment of the stakeholder’s utilities improves the outcome of the innovation process.
This project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the operation number ´ZS /2016/04/78123´as part of initiative "Sachsen-Anhalt WISSENSCHAFT Schwerpunkte”.

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At first glance, redundancies are advantageous from an entrepreneurial perspective: redundancies reduce personnel costs and increase flexibility within the company. However, psychological research also draws attention to the potential costs of redundancies, which can be caused in particular by a drop in morale among the employees remaining in the company (the so-called survivor syndrome). Although employees who have experienced redundancies in their company report, for example, lower loyalty to the company or higher absenteeism, these surveys lack a suitable control group to identify causal effects. A field experiment with over 200 temporary workers has now closed this research gap and shows that employees' motivation to work is significantly affected by the dismissal of colleagues. Further experiments will now investigate whether less serious violations of social norms also have such an impact on employee morale and whether the group membership of the persons affected by the norm violation (ingroup vs. outgroup) plays a role in this.
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This research project focuses on the investigation of meaningful activities. Employees appear to be highly motivated by the importance and meaningfulness they attach to their work tasks. However, it is still unclear to what extent this relationship can be regarded as causal: does a meaningful task in itself motivate employees to perform better or do more productive employees tend to be selected for such jobs? In the context of a current field experiment with almost 270 temporary workers, the evidence clearly points to a selection effect, although it appears to be a specific aspect of self-selection, namely the active and conscious decision in favor of a meaningful activity, which presumably obliges employees to make a particularly high effort. In the future, it will be investigated whether employees not only feel particularly committed to the current project as a result of such a decision, but whether future projects are also affected by the change in individual social preferences. It will also be investigated to what extent the work motivation of employees who perceive their work as having little meaning can be promoted. In such cases, can monetary incentives compensate for the lack of work motivation or is it rather necessary to use other non-monetary mechanisms such as employee participation in the workplace? These and other questions will be answered primarily by conducting laboratory and field experiments.
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International tax evasion has become a major source of discontent for tax authorities. State purchases of bank data on suspected tax evaders from international tax havens constitute one tool to combat such tax evasion. Increasing the risks of detection, such purchases may spur voluntary disclosures for fear of facing charges for tax fraud. Tax authorities in Germany have made repeated use of this tool in recent years, above all in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany's most populous federal state. Using self-compiled data for North-Rhine Westphalia on the timing and content of data acquisitions and on monthly voluntary disclosures of international tax evasion involving Swiss banks, we study the effects that such acquisitions had on the evolution of voluntary disclosures over time.

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Part 1. Examines the effect of banks financial distress on Canadian household consumption during the 2008/2009 financial crisis. The paper uses a unique identification strategy to show that distressed banks significantly reduced the supply of household non-mortgage credit. For high income/high wealth households this does not result in a reduction of consumption, because these households are able to compensate by drawing down liquid assets. Those households with low incomes or low liquid assets reduce consumption. On aggregate the credit supply effects can explain just over half of the dip in household consumption expenditures in Canada during the 2008/2009 financial crisis.

Part 2: Examines the effect of the real estate bust in the U.S. after the financial crisis on consumption expenditures. The literature has argued that consumption in 20010-20013 did not pick up in the recovery, because households were deleveraging, i.e. reducing their exposure to debt. This is a demand effect. In the paper we show that a supply effects was also at work. We take advantage of the fact that renters were not exposed to the adverse real estate wealth shock to identify supply effects.

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In their annual 10-K reports, the managers of public firms usually include forward-looking disclo-sures, i.e. public statements about their firms' expected future performance, like e.g. future profits or future revenues. Provided that such forward-looking disclosures contain additional information, their release might reduce the information asymmetry between firm insiders and outsiders, and result into better financing terms for a public firm. Prima facie, the information content of forward-looking disclosures is ambiguous, since they are non-verifiable at the moment they are made, and since managers might try to improve the financing terms for their firms via the release of overly optimistic statements. However, misleading external investors via overly optimistic disclosures is costly for a manager: If she fails to live up to investors' optimistic expectations, her firm underlies significant legal risks, potentially resulting into costly lawsuits. Further, since the manager repeatedly interacts with external investors, and since her forward-looking disclosures are verifiable ex post, misleading investors today harms the manager's reputation for making accurate public disclosures. Hence, a manager faces a tradeoff between the immediate gain from an overly optimistic statement today, and the loss in reputation which arises if she does not meet investors' expectations. Our research aims at uncovering the economic factors which affect this tradeoff, and to provide empirical evidence for our findings.

We use an infinitely repeated game-theoretic model with incomplete information in order to examine the economic mechanisms which underlie a manager's forward-looking disclosures. Our model is based on the framework used in Mathis et al (2009), and features as central agent the manager of a public firm who privately observes in each period the quality of a risky investment project. The manager can (but need not) make a forward-looking disclosure about the project's quality in order to attract external finance from imperfectly informed investors. Investors will use the firm's past disclosures for their assessment of the credibility of the manager's public statement. We derive the following results: If forward-looking statements are associated with legal costs, it is not possible to sustain an equilibrium where a manager's disclosures convey no information to investors (like a babbling equilibrium). Further, we find that the managers of opaque and profitable firms are more likely to release forward-looking statements to the public. Under certain conditions on model parameters, their disclosures will be accurate, i.e. they will never mislead external investors.
In their annual 10-K reports, the managers of public firms usually include forward-looking disclo-sures, i.e. public statements about their firm s expected future performance, like e.g. future profits or future revenues. Provided that such forward-looking disclosures contain additional information, their release might reduce the information asymmetry between firm insiders and outsiders, and result into better financing terms for a public firm. Prima facie, the information content of forward-looking disclosures is ambiguous, since they are non-verifiable at the moment they are made, and since managers might try to improve the financing terms for their firms via the release of overly optimistic statements. However, misleading external investors via overly optimistic disclosures is costly for a manager: If she fails to live up to investors optimistic expectations, her firm underlies significant legal risks, potentially resulting into costly lawsuits. Further, since the manager repeatedly interacts with external investors, and since her forward-looking disclosures are verifiable ex post, misleading investors today harms the manager s reputation for making accurate public disclosures. Hence, a manager faces a tradeoff between the immediate gain from an overly optimistic statement today, and the loss in reputation which arises if she does not meet investors expectations. Our research aims at uncovering the economic factors which affect this tradeoff, and to provide empirical evidence for our findings.

We use an infinitely repeated game-theoretic model with incomplete information in order to examine the economic mechanisms which underlie a manager s forward-looking disclosures. Our model is based on the framework used in Mathis et al (2009), and features as central agent the manager of a public firm who privately observes in each period the quality of a risky investment project. The manager can (but need not) make a forward-looking disclosure about the project s quality in order to attract external finance from imperfectly informed investors. Investors will use the firm s past disclosures for their assessment of the credibility of the manager s public statement. We derive the following results: If forward-looking statements are associated with legal costs, it is not possible to sustain an equilibrium where a manager s disclosures convey no information to investors (like a babbling equilibrium). Further, we find that the managers of opaque and profitable firms are more likely to release forward-looking statements to the public. Under certain conditions on model parameters, their disclosures will be accurate, i.e. they will never mislead external investors.

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The global financial crisis has demonstrated that financial markets and the real economy are closely related. We have learned that risk at the level of individual financial institutions can harm the stability of the financial system as a whole. This, in turn, affects macroeconomic performance and potentially slows down economic recovery. In this project, we will investigate how risk at the level of large banks and macroeconomic performance, as measured by GDP growth or volatility, are related. To that goal, we will build on the theory of granularity. This theory reveals that volatility at the level of individual firms can translate into macroeconomic fluctuations if market concentration is high. Moreover, we will explore how regulatory policy affects the link between bank-level and systemic risk. In order to analyze how bank-specific shocks, financial regulation and macroeconomic performance are interrelated, we will address the following research questions:

1. How do credit supply shocks at the bank-level contribute to systemic risk at the regional,
country and international level (Module 1)?
2. How does a regulatory change that affects the competitive environment of banks impact
bank risk and macroeconomic performance (Module 2)?
3. What role does bank size play for risk at the bank-level and how is this link affected by
financial regulation (Module 3)?

Our project results will provide evidence to inform the current debate on micro- and macroprudential regulation. According to the concept of granularity, macroeconomic volatility can be reduced via two channels. On the one hand, microprudential regulation, i.e. regulation at the level of individual (large) banks, can reduce macroeconomic instability: If large banks get less risky, macroeconomic volatility is ceteris paribus mitigated. Our research aims at identifying specific policy tools that help to mitigate the volatility (or risk) at the bank-level. On the other hand, macroprudential policies that monitor the development of bank market structures like concentration are important; the higher concentration, the stronger gets the transmission of bank-level shocks to the aggregate economy. Moreover, concentration and competitive pressures in the banking system impact banks risk-taking behavior and hence bank-specific volatility. Consequently, micro- and macro-prudential regulation should be coordinated in order to address possible trade-offs between stability at the micro- and macroeconomic level. In this project, we aim at addressing these inter-linkages between bank-specific risk, the competitive environment and macroeconomic performance.

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The project studies how banks adjust their balance sheets in response to higher capital requirements. In order to increase their capital ratios, banks can adjust their balance sheets in two different ways: They can either increase their levels of regulatory capital (the numerator of the capital ratio), or they can reduce their levels of risk-weighted assets (the denominator of the capital ratio) (Admati et al., 2010). A reduction in risk-weighted assets can entail adverse effects on the real economy if many banks simultaneously decide to sell assets (fire sales) or reduce lending (credit crunch) (Hanson et al., 2011). Empirically identifying the effect of higher capital requirements on banks' balance sheet adjustment faces a number of challenges: Most importantly, one needs to find exogenous variation incapital requirements. Since capital requirements are rather constant, there is little variation

over time; and when they do change, they mostly change for all banks in a given economic region at the same time, leaving no cross-sectional variation to exploit. The project addresses these empirical challenges by exploiting the 2011 capital exercise conducted by the European Banking Authority (EBA) as a natural experiment. The capital exercise required a subset of European banks to reach and maintain a 9 percent core tier 1 capital ratio by the end of June 2012, while other European banks were not subject to this increase in capital requirements. The rule by which banks were selected to be included in the capital exercise allows disentangling the effect of capital requirements from effects associated with bank size. Banks were included in the capital exercise in descending order of their market shares by total assets in each Member State' such that the exercise covered "50% of the national banking sectors in each EU Member State, as expressed in terms of total consolidated
assets as of end of 2010." (EBA, 2011). Since national banking sectors in Europe differ with regard to total size and concentration of market shares, the country-specific selection threshold yields a considerable overlap in size between banks participating and not participating in the capital exercise. These institutional features of the capital exercise allow us to employ a difference-in-difference matching approach to identify the causal effects of higher capital requirements on banks' balance sheet adjustment.

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The internal functions of global banks could be decisive factors in the transmission of shocks both across a country's regions and internationally. However, there is still little knowledge of how the internal organization of these financial conglomerates is connected with their cross-border lending decisions. A major obstacle for such an analysis is the lack of information about the degree to which a parent bank affects the decisions of its foreign subsidiaries. Few studies have focused on confidential information about the activities of the internal capital markets in banking conglomerates (see, for instance, Cetorelli and Goldberg (2012a) and Cetorelli and Goldberg (2012b)), but such information is usually either not available to the general scientific community, or available only for a small number of countries, such as the U.S., which makes the results difficult to apply elsewhere. In the proposed project, we introduce a new measure of bank integration, based on the organizational culture within a global bank, reflected by the strength of the language in its publicly available financial reports. After establishing the validity of this approach for our purposes, we will investigate which social and bank-specific characteristics determine the degree of integration within global banks and whether that degree of integration affects the transmission of solvency and liquidity shocks from parents to their subsidiaries.

We base our method on the General Inquirer Approach developed by Philip Stone and his collaborators (Stone et al. (1966)) at the Harvard Laboratory of Social Relations. The General Inquirer is a computer software that calculates the frequency of appearance of a predefined set of words in a given document. In particular, we use the "Power" category of the Lasswell value dictionary to gauge markers for the prevalence of a language of power, authority and control in 267 annual financial reports of 105 global banks for the years 1997, 2005 and 2012, totaling at 22.4 million words. Then, we calculate our measure of bank integration, the Power Ratio, as the ratio of the number of authority-related words to the total words in the particular document. Since we consider the language of authority to be an indicator of the intrinsic corporate culture within a bank, which is stable across time, we pool all documents for each bank to derive static measures of bank integration, arriving at a cross-section of 105 Power Ratio values. Subsequently, we analyze whether bank integration is determined by individual bank characteristics or by country-related social and economic factors. Our hypothesis is that the degree of centralization of the society from which a bank originates determines how centralized it is in its internal operations. Thereafter, we will focus on the main part of our analysis: whether the degree of bank integration, as measure by the Power Ratio, affects the transmission of parent shocks to domestic and foreign subsidiaries.

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Evidence on the existence of a trade-off between child quantity and child quality, as suggested by Gary S. Becker, is still inconclusive. This also holds true for empirical studies on China that exploit for identification the country's One-Child Policy (OCP) as an exogenous source of variation in the number of offspring. However, this body of literature suffers from a number of shortcomings, in particular measurement error in the key policy variable (a household's coverage by OCP) and in the outcome variable of interest (schooling choices, i.e. child quality). Using census data for China and a continuous OCP variable that can address these shortcomings, the results provide evidence for the existence of a sizeable quantity-quality trade-off within households with mothers who are Han and have agricultural Hukou.

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This project deals with the determination of equivalence scales using subjective satisfaction data. In contrast to previous studies using this method, an explicit distinction is made between need effects and comparison effects that affect satisfaction. Theoretical considerations indicate that comparison effects lead to a biased estimation of the equivalence weights, which assigns too high a weight to adults and too low a weight to children. This hypothesis is to be tested empirically. In particular, it will be investigated whether the previously very low estimated equivalence weights of children can be explained by unaccounted comparative effects. In addition, the potential income dependence of the equivalence scale is to be taken into account.
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Development of a textbook on the methods of experimental economic research. The book will be written in parallel in German and English. Publication is planned for fall 2017 and the book will be published by Springer-Verlag HEidelberg.
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Many observers claim that the lack of firm dynamics and structural change is the reason for the increasing productivity gap between the US and EU countries and advocate accelerated firm turnover and a start-up culture. It is clear that firm closure or rapid downsizing can generate adjustment costs at the worker side. In particular, the literature shows that workers displaced from stable jobs in large mature plants due to mass layoff or plant closure suffer severe long-run earnings losses (Jacobsen et al. 1993, Schmieder et al. 2009) and that young and small plants have a disproportionately high failure risk (Fackler et al. 2013; Mueller/Stegmaier 2015). It is widely assumed that displacement from young and small plants generates no or small adjustment costs for workers but, in fact, we know little about it.

We use novel administrative data on bankruptcies for Germany combined with administrative linked employer-employee data to estimate short- and long-run losses of workers displaced from young and small plants. We compare this with losses after being displaced from incumbent and large plants to relate the costs of structural change and trial and error. We discuss whether such adjustment costs are pure private costs (e.g. lost firm rents) or whether there are also social costs (productivity depreciations).
We find that structural change, i.e. the failure of mature plants, yields high earnings and that trial and error, i.e. the failure of young plants, yields earnings losses just slightly below that of structural change. Differences in the earnings losses caused by structural change and trial and error are mainly driven by wage losses of older workers in mature plants. Hence, the focus of the literature on high-tenured workers displaced from larger plant targets those suffering most. Job displacements have social costs and they are more associated with structural change. Whether trial and error costs are mainly private costs will be explored in the (near) future.

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Workers may experience reduced wages after job displacement because of productivity losses or lost firm rents. We disentangle both channels by running worker fixed-effects regressions of wages and firm wage premia, respectively, for workers displaced due to employer bankruptcy compared to a control group of non-displaced workers. Premia are measured as firm effects from a two-way fixed-effects approach as described in Abowd, Kramarz, and Margolis (1999). Using German administrative data we find that wage losses are moderate and do slightly increase with pre-displacement tenure. The average worker loses a small part of her firm premia and, importantly, premia losses also increase with pre-displacement tenure. High-tenure workers have initially been employed at higher paying firms and job displacement makes them partially lose this advantage. As we find that pre-displacement tenure affects losses in wages and wage premia to the same extent, wage losses seem not be driven by productivity depreciations.

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Since the mid-1990s, the German labour market has been characterized by rising wage inequality, which has been accompanied by an increase in the proportion of low-paid jobs. In the political debate, this development is associated with the concern that low wages lead those affected into a dead end of poor pay and an increased risk of poverty. In order to be able to assess the social impact of this development, a better understanding of the role of the low-wage sector for the individual employment prospects and the risk of poverty of those affected is necessary. However, initial empirical studies on the German low-wage sector do not support the fears of an employment-related dead end and instead see it as an instrument for combating unemployment. The aim of this research project is to empirically examine how taking up employment in the low-wage sector actually influences the employment prospects and poverty risk of those affected. To this end, it will be investigated whether a low-paid job can positively influence the prospects of a better-paid job and to what extent such an upward effect depends on the duration of employment in the low-wage sector. Furthermore, it is to be determined which adjustments are made in labor supply behavior in couple households when the labor market position of the spouse changes. Of particular interest here is whether in couple households one partner takes up a low-wage job as an instrument to compensate for exogenous labor market shocks, such as unemployment of the other partner. Furthermore, the connection between low wages and individual poverty risk will be examined. Of particular interest here is the question of whether the experience of poverty has an independent influence on the probability of remaining in low-paid work.
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The Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan in March 2011 caused a fundamental change in Germany s energy policy which led to the immediate shut down of nearly half of its nuclear power plants. This paper uses data from Germany´s largest internet platform for real estate to investigate the effect of Fukushima on the German housing market. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that Fukushima reduced house prices near nuclear power plants that were in operation before Fukushima by almost 5%. House prices near sites that were shut down right after the accident even fell by 9.7%. Our results suggest that economic reasons are of prime importance for the observed fall in house prices near nuclear power plants in Germany.

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"Chicago University Prize" for research into altruistic behavior. Funding was provided for experiments on the dictator game, which can be used to directly test altruistic preferences.
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Part 1: Takes advantage of a natural experiment, in which long-standing public guarantees were removed for a set of German banks following a lawsuit. Project identifies the effects of these guarantees on the allocation of credit ("allocative efficiency"). Using matched bank/firm data we find that public guarantees reduce allocative efficiency. With guarantees in place poorly performing firms invest more and maintain higher rates of sales growth. Moreover, firms produce less efficiently in the presence of public guarantees. Consistently, we show that guarantees reduce the likelihood that firms exit the market.

Part 2: We examine the effect of regulatory forbearance during crises on subsequent productivity growth. We estimate regulatory forbearance in different US MSAs and show that subsequent real growth rates, employment rates and other variables related to productivity are higher if forbearance was lower, i.e. more banks during the crisis were closed rather than saved.
Part 3: We examine the effect of redlining rules (i.e. rules that force banks to lend into low income neighbourhoods) on the supply of credit in those neighborhoods and  housing price growth. The identification relies on differences in the level legislation eligible areas (census tracks) due to differences in MSA level household income. We find that that mortgage credit supply and house price growth in the run up to the 2008/2009 financial crisis was higher in eligible areas compared to otherwise similar non-eligible areas. The paper thus identifies "redlining" as one central cause of the financial crisis.

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The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9^th November 1989 sparked a mass exodus of East Germans to West Germany. This paper exploits the natural experiment provided by the unexpected disintegration of socialist East Germany to study the impact that immigration has on residential housing rents in recipient regions. Using a spatial correlation approach, annual district-level migration data for 1991 and 1992 and unique rental price indicators from Germany's major regional property market information system, we find strong evidence for a positive and sizeable effect of immigration on rental prices of residential housing. A one percent population increase due to immigration is associated with an approximate increase in minimum and average category rents by 4.8 and 3.3%, respectively. Additional explorations that employ IV approaches, based on historical settlement patterns of migrants from the former Soviet Occupation Zone as well as various exogenous origin-region push factors related to the deteriorating economic conditions in East Germany following reunification, yield estimates of even larger magnitude. These results suggest that immigration has important economic effects outside the labour market, traditionally the prime domain of economic enquiries into the consequences of immigration. Our findings cast doubt on the appropriateness of this bias in focus.

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In many European countries, trade unions play a decisive role in determining wage trends and working conditions. For the economic analysis of such collectively acting labor market actors, it is therefore necessary to explicitly depict the behavior of trade unions in theoretical models. In theoretical labor market economics, wage negotiations are generally modeled using the Nash bargaining solution. However, experimental studies have cast doubt on the empirical relevance of this bargaining solution.
The first part of this research project therefore examines the effects of the alternative application of the Kalai-Smorodinsky solution compared to the Nash solution in common theoretical labor market models. In the first part of the project, the Kalai-Smorodinsky solution is integrated into models of general equilibrium with imperfect competition as well as into search and matching models of the labor market and examined with regard to its impact on equilibrium unemployment and the possibility of influencing it through policy instruments. First results of this project show that the choice of bargaining solution can have critical effects on the evaluation of the impact of labor market policies, for example minimum wages.
In the second part of the project, these results will be tested empirically and experimentally. To this end, the theoretically derived hypothesis that even non-binding minimum wages can have a wage-increasing effect in Kalai-Smorodinsky negotiations is tested experimentally. To this end, wage negotiations are simulated in the laboratory in which a low minimum wage is introduced and successively increased in later rounds. Initial results show that the Kalai-Smorodinsky solution can actually describe wage negotiations observed in the laboratory better than the Nash solution.
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Satisfaction research shows that unemployment greatly reduces the subjective life satisfaction of those affected. At the same time, however, unemployment has hardly any effect on people's average emotional well-being during specific events (Knabe et al. 2010, Economic Journal). These two findings suggest that life satisfaction depends less on concrete experiences and more on the achievement of certain individual goals and the fulfillment of social norms.
As a test of this thesis, this research project will examine how retirement affects the life satisfaction of employed and unemployed people. Retirement is suitable for this study because, for the unemployed, retirement does not change the possibilities for shaping their everyday lives, but it does result in major changes to the system of social norms on the basis of which they evaluate their satisfaction. Unemployed people are expected to work - if possible - whereas this social expectation does not exist for pensioners. Therefore, if a strong increase in life satisfaction is observed when the unemployed retire compared to those who retire from employment, this would confirm the importance of social norms for life satisfaction.
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The research field of neuroeconomics has established itself as an important subfield of cognitive neuroscience in recent years. Neuroeconomics represents a link between neuroscience and economics and attempts to describe the neuronal basis of decision-making processes in an interdisciplinary manner. In this project, the neuronal basis of strategic risk and risk in lotteries will be investigated. This will be investigated using game theoretical paradigms, such as the coordination game or the prisoner's dilemma, as well as the simultaneous use of neurocognitive methods, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging and the EEG. Since human behavior in experiments often deviates from the rational behavior predicted by game theory, the above-mentioned neurocognitive methods can provide information about possible affective and cognitive processes in such decision-making situations.
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Argentina's national bankruptcy in 2001 and Greece's partial default in 2012 led to dramatic migration movements from these countries. Argentina, for example, experienced a tenfold increase in emigration to OECD countries at the time. The aim of the research project is to quantify the migration flow triggered by the bankruptcy decision using panel data. For example, a sovereign default causes the otherwise countercyclical automatic stabilizers to fail, countercyclical fiscal policy measures fail to materialize, a banking crisis can be triggered and domestic and foreign investment declines. As a result, individuals in their home country expect a dramatic loss of benefits due to falling private consumption and unavailability of public goods, which they try to avoid by emigrating. Since state bankruptcies usually occur during economic crises, a clear selection of the effect on migration caused by the decision to declare state bankruptcy is necessary. Subsequently, the cost-benefit distribution of migration from bankrupt states will be discussed in order to prepare political decision-makers in the countries of emigration and immigration for sudden migration flows in the economic environment of a state bankruptcy and to provide them with recommendations for action.

Further consequential costs of sovereign defaults are known from the literature and have already been quantified. Since state bankruptcies are usually explained in the context of a recession and can be traced back to a state's inability to pay, there is a double-sided causality - it is unknown whether the recession triggers the state bankruptcy or the state bankruptcy triggers the recession. The research project uses a natural experiment to isolate the recession effect from the state bankruptcy effect on different macroeconomic variables in order to estimate the costs of state bankruptcy.
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The main goals of research are to develop a multi-sector open economy model (distinguishing the tradable and non-tradable sectors including services) to study linkage between globalization and structural change, and to conduct a quantitative analysis of the role of international trade in structural change of countries in transition.

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Die informationsökonomisch fundierte Weiterentwicklung der Banktheorie hat in den letzten 25 Jahren klar gemacht, dass die besonderen Eigenschaften von Kreditbeziehungen und Kreditmärkten erhebliche Einschränkungen des kompetitiven Potentials verursachen können, woraus wiederum die dauerhafte Behauptung von z.T. erheblichen Gewinnmargen resultiert. Daneben ist der Bankensektor (nicht nur) in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland beträchtlichen aufsichtsrechtlichen Vorschriften unterworfen, wodurch die tatsächliche Wettbewerbsintensität ebenfalls verringert werden kann. Im scharfen Gegensatz hierzu wird der Wettbewerb auf dem deutschen Bankenmarkt insbesondere im sogenannten Zinsgeschäft regelmäßig als überaus hart charakterisiert. Klassische Verfahren der Bestimmung der Wettbewerbssituation auf der Grundlage rein marktstruktureller Kenngrößen haben sich - unter verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten - oftmals als unbefriedigend herausgestellt. Ziel des Projektes ist daher die empirische Messung der Wettbewerbsintensität auf dem deutschen Bankenmarkt mittels modernen, theoretisch fundierten und ökonometrisch adäquaten Methoden.

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Experimental study on the stability of social preferences. The standard experimental designs of the public good game, the dictator's dilemma and the trust game are used. The aim is to find experimental designs in which players engage in repeated interactions without learning effects or reputation formation. There are several days between each repetition, resulting in experimental arrangements in which the test subjects are repeatedly placed in identical experimental situations.
This text was translated with DeepL on 26/02/2026

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Die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit dem Problem des systemischen Risikos im Kontext (vorausgesetzt) unvollkommener Märkte hat eine längere Tradition, einen wesentlichen Beitrag hat die Arbeit von Hellwig (1998) geleistet. Letztendlich geht es im Kern um die Diagnose und geeignete Internalisierung von externen Effekten (so auch jüngst Lutz(2010)).

Zwei grundsätzlich unterschiedliche Analysemethoden bieten sich an und sollen auch simultan angewendert werden: Zum einen ist vor allem für die Unterstützung der "too big to fail"-Vermutung ein theoretisch fundierter Kausalzusammenhang zu entwickeln und ökonometrisch zu testen. Zum anderen drängen sich für die Überprüfung der "too interconnected to fail"-Hypothese zunächst statistisch-deskriptive Methoden (z. B. Kovarianzanalyse, Verteilungs- und Standardiesierungsverfahren) auf, um die umfangreiche Grundgesamtheit vieler verschiedener Finanzinstitute in einer Ökonomie geeignet zu ordnen und zu klassifizieren.

Darüber hinaus ist die Ableitung und Implementierung eines "Frühwarnsystems" identifiezierter Bedrohungsfaktoren nationaler und internationaler Finanzmärkte angedacht.

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The German labour market is characterized by increasing wage inequality. The clearest sign of this development is the increase in low wages. Empirical studies investigate the significance of low wages for employment histories. The studies focus on the question of whether low-wage earners have better chances of finding regular employment in the future than the unemployed. These results are compared intertemporally and with other countries.
This text was translated with DeepL on 26/02/2026

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In the recent past, there have been numerous legal interventions in the flexibility of the German labor market. These include, for example, changes to protection against dismissal. The dissertation examines the effect of a change in dismissal protection on labor market policy variables such as the level of unemployment. Panel data at micro and macro level are used for the empirical analysis.
This text was translated with DeepL on 26/02/2026

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International climate negotiations serve to persuade states to sign binding agreements in which they commit to climate protection measures. The conditions for the conclusion of such agreements are extremely poor because the treaties must be self-enforcing, but the countries have a free ride option because climate protection has the character of a public good. The project focuses on the question of whether the conditions for climate protection agreements can be improved through unilateral advance payments by a country or a group of countries.
This text was translated with DeepL on 26/02/2026

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Der Einsatz von Effizienzlöhnen zur Erhöhung der Produktivität in Unternehmen ist in letzter Zeit durch eine große Anzahl experimenteller Arbeiten wissenschaftlich untermauert worden. Es zeigt sich dabei, dass die Zahlung eines solchen Lohns, der über die übliche Mindestanforderung hinaus geht, einen Arbeitseinsatz induziert, der im Gegenzug die Mindestanstrengung übersteigt. Dieses Phänomen wurde bislang nur in kleinen Organisationen (meist bilaterale Arbeitsbeziehungen) experimentell nachgewiesen, die sowohl in der Informationsverteilung als auch in der hierarchischen Struktur sehr überschaubar sind.

Im geplanten Vorhaben erweitern wir diese Forschung und betrachten den Einfluss von Informationsverteilung, organisationaler Hierarchie und Beförderungsmöglichkeiten auf die Effektivität von Effizienzlöhnen. Da diese Strukturen nur im Rahmen größerer Organisationen untersucht werden können, betrachten wir zusätzlich die reine Auswirkung der Organisationsgröße auf das Effizienzlohnphänomen. Das Hauptziel dieser Untersuchungen ist es, diejenigen Strukturen zu identifizieren, die eine Produktivitätssteigerung in Organisationen ermöglichen, in denen faire Löhne gezahlt werden.

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Die informationsökonomisch fundierte Weiterentwicklung der Banktheorie hat in den letzten 25 Jahren klar gemacht, dass die besonderen Eigenschaften von Kreditbeziehungen und Kreditmärkten erhebliche Einschränkungen des kompetitiven Potentials verursachen können, woraus wiederum die dauerhafte Behauptung von z.T. erheblichen Gewinnmargen resultiert. Daneben ist der Bankensektor (nicht nur) in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland beträchtlichen aufsichtsrechtlichen Vorschriften unterworfen, wodurch die tatsächliche Wettbewerbsintensität ebenfalls verringert werden kann. Im scharfen Gegensatz hierzu wird der Wettbewerb auf dem deutschen Bankenmarkt insbesondere im sogenannten Zinsgeschäft regelmäßig als überaus hart charakterisiert. Klassische Verfahren der Bestimmung der Wettbewerbssituation auf der Grundlage rein marktstruktureller Kenngrößen haben sich - unter verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten - oftmals als unbefriedigend herausgestellt. Ziel des Projektes ist daher die empirische Messung der Wettbewerbsintensität auf dem deutschen Bankenmarkt mittels modernen, theoretisch fundierten und ökonometrisch adäquaten Methoden.

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Experimental study on the stability of social preferences. The standard experimental designs of the public good game, the dictator's dilemma and the trust game are used. The aim is to find experimental designs in which players engage in repeated interactions without learning effects or reputation formation. There are several days between each repetition, resulting in experimental arrangements in which the test subjects are repeatedly placed in identical experimental situations.
This text was translated with DeepL on 26/02/2026

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Destruktives Verhalten in Form von Zerstörung sowohl von öffentlichen als auch von privaten Gütern ist ein häufig zu beobachtendes Phänomen. In diesem Projekt sollen mit Hilfe von experimentellen Untersuchungen die Motive für solch destruktives Verhalten ermittelt werden. Anhand der Erkenntnisse aus diesen Untersuchungen sollen bestehende ökonomische Modelle zur sozialen Interaktion um einen Nutzenfaktor von Zerstörung erweitert werden.

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This is a continuation project. As part of the first part of the project, public good experiments were conducted with large groups (up to 100 test subjects). In particular, the influence of the MPCR and the group size in such large groups on contribution behavior was investigated. The results showed a strong MPCR effect and a weak group size effect. In the follow-up project, a hypothesis is to be tested experimentally that is suitable for explaining these effects.
This text was translated with DeepL on 26/02/2026

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In diesem gemeinsamen Forschungsprojekt mit Mark Schopf (Universität Paderborn, Master-Absolvent der FWW) werden Aspekte des sogenannten „Grünen Paradoxons“ näher beleuchtet. Das Grüne Paradoxon beschreibt einen Effekt in der Umwelt- und Ressourcenökonomik, der von Hans-Werner Sinn (2009) so benannt und von ihm folgendermaßen beschrieben wird: „Wenn die Ressourceneigentümer erwarten, dass die grüne Politik im Laufe der Zeit immer grüner wird, wie es bislang der Fall war, dann wird die Rendite der im Boden belassenen Ressourcen verringert, und es entsteht ein Anreiz, diese Ressourcen möglichst schnell zu versilbern. Es kommt heute mehr CO2 in die Atmosphäre, die Erderwärmung beschleunigt sich. Das ist das grüne Paradoxon.“

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Ziel des Promotionsprojektes ist es unter anderem, die Wirkung des steigenden Qualitätswettbewerbs im internationalen Handel auf die Nachfrage nach Geringqualifizierten im Deutschen Verarbeitenden Gewerbe anhand einer empirischen Untersuchung zu quantifizieren.

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Im Allgemeinen beschäftigt sich die Industrieökonomik mit der volkswirtschaftlichen Sicht auf verschiedene Marktstrukturen. Ausgehend von einem einzigen monopolistischen Anbieter werden sukzessive Wettbewerbssituationen mit mehreren Marktteilnehmern untersucht. Der vollkommene Wettbewerb mit vielen marktmachtlosen Teilnehmern stellt hierbei den dem Monopol entgegengesetzten Fall der gesamten betrachteten Bandbreite dar. Klassische Industrieökonomik konzentriert sich hierbei auf die Analyse einzelner Aspekte des Wettbewerbes: Preis- vs. Mengenwettbewerb, direkter Martktzugang vs. Martkintermediäre, Einprodukt- vs. Mehrproduktunternehmungen, etc.
Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojektes werden aus den, oft nur innerhalb ihrer Annahmen gültigen, theoretischen Erkenntnissen der Industrieökonomik praktisch orientierte Empfehlungen abgeleitet. So werden verschiedene Modelle kombiniert, um eine bessere Abbildung der Realität zu erreichen.Insbesondere die Verknüpfung von Produktionskapazität und Preis als simultane strategische Variablen eröffnet dabei vielfältige Analysemöglichkeiten. In einem weiteren Projektteil wird die strategische Wahl der Distributionskanäle näher beleuchtet.Neben der theoretisch fundierten Ableitung von optimalen Reaktionen auf verschiedene Marktsituationen wird in experimentellen Designs die Interaktion mehrerer Marktteilnehmer in den modellierten Settings untersucht.Die sich ergänzende spieltheoretische und experimentelle Analyse soll im weiteren Verlauf des Projektes zusätzlich empirisch gestützt werden.

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Vergleich zwischen Hochschulsystemen verschiedener Länder, insbes. der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und den USA; Untersuchungen zu Hochschulsystemen im Wettbewerb hinsichtlich Finanzierung sowie Forschungs- und Lehrleistungen

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In this research the impact of incentive schemes on fraudulent behavior is studied in a controlled experimental setting. The objective of the project is to derive an estimate for fraudulent behavior in an experimental setting and to predict the effect of different incentive schemes on the degree of fraudulent behavior.

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Dieses Projekt untersucht experimentell, wie sich eine variierende Steuerwahrnehmung auf das Arbeitsangebot auswirkt und wie die Darstellung eines Steuertarifs damit zusammenhängt. Besonderes Augenmerk wird dabei auf die Frage gelebt, ob die (Steuer-)Erfahrung der einzelnen Spieler eine Rolle spielt. Das Projekt knüpft an das BMF-Projekt "Steuerwahrnehmung" an.

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Im Rahmen des europäischen Integrationsprozesses wurde mit dem Financial Services Action Plan 1999 auch die Einführung eines einheitlichen europäischen Marktes für Finanzdienstleistungen beschlossen. Spätestens mit der Implementierung eines einheitlichen Währungssystems wurden weitreichende nationale Kompetenzen an die EZB abgetreten und somit gleichsam die nationalen Zentralbanken durch die Europäische Zentralbank als zentrales Institut für die Geldpolitik abgelöst. Ziel dieses Forschungsprojektes ist es, den klassischen Zinskanal als zentrales Instrument der Geldpolitik einer empirischen Validierung hinsichtlich Präzision und Umfang der Wirksamkeit zu unterziehen. Insofern wird geprüft, ob und in welchem Ausmaß persistente Unterschiede zwischen den einzelnen Ländern in Bezug auf die Reaktion von Leitzinsänderungen existieren. Darüberhinaus wird analysiert, welche Faktoren die Effizienz des klassischen Zinskanals determinieren.  Hierbei steht insbesondere die Frage: inwieweit einzelne Kreditinstitute über Preisetzungsmacht sowohl im Aktiv als auch Passivgeschäft verfügen im Focus der Studie. In die Untersuchung werden dabei die zwölf Gründungsländer einbezogen.

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Korruption wird in der allgemeinen Öffentlichkeit häufig als ein Problem von Entwicklungsländern wahrgenommen. Dennoch zeigt wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Literatur, dass Korruption für die gesamte Weltwirtschaft eine Gefahr darstellt, da sie (unausweichlich) ein Bestandteil sozialer Interaktion in allen Gesellschaften ist. Die Gefahr für die Gesellschaft besteht dabei aus zwei wesentlichen Punkten:

• Korruption verringert auf der einen Seite die ökonomische Leistungskraft einer Ökonomie,
• Korruption führt auf der anderen Seite zu einer ungerechten Verteilung des Wohlstands.

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Im Rahmen dieses Forschungsprojektes versuchen wir, ein besseres Verständnis davon zu erlangen, welchen Einfluss Risikoeinstellungen auf das Verhalten in gesundheitsbezogene Fragestellungen haben. Ziel des Projektes ist es schließlich ein Modell zu entwickeln, das die Entscheidungsfindung in domainübergreifende Fragestellungen, wo gesundheitliche Attribute gegen monetäre Beträge abgewägt werden müssen, beschreibt, so dass beobachtetes Verhalten und Modell übereinstimmen. Dabei werden präferenzaufdeckende Methoden, wie die bekannte Zahlungsbereitschaft-Methode, mit bekannten risikoaufdeckenden Methoden kombiniert, was zu einem besseren Verständnis der Zusammenhänge von Risikopräferenzen für Geld und das menschliche Verhalten in gesundheitsbezogene Kontexte beitragen soll. Gesunde Experimentalteilnehmer werden dabei gesundheitsbezogenen Entscheidungen (operationalisiert durch starken Schmerz) und anschließend Lotterieentscheidungen über monetäre Beträge unterzogen. Dieses Projekt wird gemeinsam mit der Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften (Lehrstuhl "Empirische Wirtschaftsforschung") der Otto-von-Guerike-Universität Magdeburg bearbeitet.

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Um die Verbesserungen der Lebensqualität durch medizinische Behandlung messen zu können, bedarf es spezifischer Instrumente und Konzepte. Das QALY-Konzept (quality-adjusted life years) ist der Ansatz, der bislang die meiste Akzeptanz findet. Er beinhaltet die Stärke der Einschränkung der Lebensqualität sowie deren Dauer. Das QALY-Konzept macht Annahmen, die in der Literatur kritisch diskutiert werden, zum Beispiel die Risikoneutralität eines Entscheiders über die zeitliche Dauer eines Gesundheitszustands. Außerdem wird in Frage gestellt, in wie fern die Tendenz der Entwicklung des Gesundheitszustandes innerhalb eines gegebenen Zeitraums für Patienten relevant ist. Bisher werden solche Fragestellungen in hypothetischen Studien untersucht. Es zeigt sich aber, dass Studien mit realen Konsequenzen für den Entscheider zu anderen Ergebnissen kommen. Ziel dieses Forschungsprojektes ist es, die beiden genannten Bereiche (Risikoneigung und Präferenz zur Tendenz der Entwicklung des Gesundheitszustandes) in ökonomischen Experimenten zu untersuchen. Dabei wird ein Design entwickelt, in dem (gesunde) Experimentalteilnehmer gesundheitsbezogene Entscheidungen treffen und anschließend reale Konsequenzen dieser Entscheidungen erfahren. Lebensqualität wird dabei durch An- und Abwesenheit von unterschiedlich starkem Schmerz operationalisiert. Auf diese Weise werden die zugrundeliegenden Annahmen ökonomischer Theorie getestet, die insbesondere Teil des in der praktischen Anwendung verbreiteten QALY-Konzeptes sind. Dieses Projekt wird gemeinsam mit der Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften der Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg (Lehrstuhl für empirische Wirtschaftsforschung) bearbeitet.

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Ein häufig diskutiertes Thema hinsichtlich ökonomischer Verhaltensexperimente ist die Art von Handlungskonsequenz mit welcher sich Probanden bei der Entscheidungsfindung konfrontiert sehen. Grundsätzlich gilt, dass Entscheidungen gemäß dem Experimentparadigma anreizkompatibel sind, welches indirekt eine Realisierung von Handlungskonsequenzen voraussetzt. Somit sind reale Entscheidungen hypothetischen vorzuziehen. Dennoch ist eine Realisierung von Handlungskonsequenzen nicht immer möglich. In zahlreichen Verhaltensexperimenten konnte bereits gezeigt werden, dass sich hypothetische Entscheidungen durchaus von realen unterscheiden. Für Lotterieentscheidungen beispielsweise wurde eine erhöhte Risikoaversion für reale Entscheidungen aufgedeckt.
In einer EEG-Studie untersuchten wir diesen Verhaltenseffekt hinsichtlich neuronaler Unterschiede, um eine Antwort auf die zugrundliegenden Prozesse bezüglich dieser Verzerrung zu erhalten. Es stellte sich heraus, dass eine Komponente in Verbindung zu kognitiver Kontrolle in der Phase der Entscheidungsvorbereitung eines Individuums eine differenzierte Ausprägung annimmt. Wir konnten zeigen, dass bei hypothetischen Entscheidungen eine höhere Handlungskontrolle durch die Individuen ausgeführt wird. Diese höhere Handlungskontrolle kann entweder eine erhöhte Unsicherheit bezüglich der darauffolgenden Entscheidung oder einen erweiterten Raum an Entscheidungsalternativen widerspiegeln. Dies liefert eine Erklärung für die Verschiebung der Risikoneigung zwischen beiden Experimentsettings.

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Im Rahmen des Projekts werden öffentliche Gut Experimente in einem virtuellen Labor mit bis zu 100 Versuchspersonen simultan durchgeführt. An dem Projekt sind die Labore in Essen, Bonn, Göttingen und Magdeburg beteiligt.

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Zentrale Frage dieses Forschungsvorhabens ist: Gibt es eine Dynamik im Verhalten von Spielern in strategischen Spielsituationen, wie dem Ultimatum Spiel oder öffentlichen Gut Spielen. Wenn es sie gibt, wie lässt sie sich erklären? Dieses Projekt knüpft damit an das Forschungsprojekt "Dynamik altruistischen Verhaltens in Diktatorspielen" an. Auch hier soll ökonomsiche Verhaltenstheorie mit der neurologischen Forschung verknüpft werden. Ein DFG-Antrag wird im ersten Quartal 2010 gestellt.

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Die universell erstellbare und verfügbare Datenbasis des Internets hat zu einer enormen Zunahme der Informationsbereitstellung durch Dritte (Konsumentenberichte, Diskussionsforen, Nutzerselbsthilfe usw.) geführt, die einen substantiellen Einfluss auf die Wirtschaftsaktivität aufweisen kann. In diesem Projekt sollen mit Hilfe von spieltheoretischen, experimentellen und empirischen Untersuchungen die Motive der Informationsbereitsteller und die (strategischen) Reaktionen der Infromationsempfänger analysiert werden.

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Geplant ist eine Zusammenschaltung von vier Experimentallaboren

1.) Magdeburg (Projektleitung)
2.) Bonn (Henning-Schmidt)
3.) Essen (Brosig)
4.) Göttingen (Keser)

die es erlaubt Großgruppenversuche mit bis zu 100 Spielern simultan durchzuführen. Erstmalig können so öffentliche Gut Spiele in echten großen Gruppen untersucht werden und realistische Werte von unter 2% für den MPCR erreicht werden. Dieses Vorgehen ist weltweit derzeit einmalig. Ein DFG-Antrag ist gestellt.

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In ökonomischen Experimente wurde festgestellt, dass sich das Verhalten von Versuchspersonen dramatisch ändert, wenn man sie wiederholt ein so genanntes Diktator Spiel spielen lässt. Dabei handelte es sich um Wiederholungen, zwischen denen mehrere Wochen lagen. Dies Dynamik werden nun neurologisch untersucht, indem ähnliche Experimente unter Beobachtung im fMRI durchgeführt werden. Ziel des Projektes ist es, herauszufinden, ob sich die Dynamik auch neurologisch manifestieren lässt, um so nähere Aufschlüsse darüber zu erhalten, was die Ursachen der Dynamik sind.

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Bei den Känguru-Seminaren handelt es sich um eine neue Form des Wissenstransfers zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft, bei denen Teams von Studenten als Wissensvermittler in kleinere und mittlere Unternehmen eingebettet werden, um vor Ort eine praxisnahe Anwendung ihres theoretischen Wissens in Zusammenarbeit mit den Unternehmen zu entwickeln. Ziel ist es, den Studierenden eine praxisnahe Anwendung ihres theoretischen Wissens zu ermöglichen und gleichzeitig kleinere und mittlere Unternehmen im Bereich des Online-Marketings zu fördern. Es wird zugleich geprüft, ob diese Form des Wissenstransfers in schnell wachsenden Wissenschaftsbereichen - wie in Online-Marketing - besonders effektiv für den Wissenstransfer eingesetzt werden kann.

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Vorhandene elektronische Auktionsmärkte werden auf ihre strategischen Eigenschaften hin untersucht und Alternativen erarbeitet. Neben der Erweiterung der spieltheoretischen Grundlagen, werden in diesem Projekt in erster Linie empirische und experimentelle Studien angefertigt, die dazu dienen, das tatsächliche Verhalten der Auktionsteilnehmer besser zu beschreiben und vorherzusagen.

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Unemployment has a large negative effect on individual well-being. It typically generates lower self-esteem, uncertainty about the future, social isolation, stigmatization, health problems, and mental disorder. To evaluate the economic costs of unemployment, it is thus not sufficient to take only its pecuniary costs, such as individual income losses into account. One also has to consider the non-pecuniary, psychological costs of unemployment. Using the "Day Reconstruction Method" we will analyse the welfare effects of work. The method offers a novel way to determine the experienced individual utility of employed and unemployed. Thus it is possible to analyse different welfare effects caused by differing employment states.

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Unemployment causes significant losses in the quality of life. Besides reducing individual income, it also creates non-pecuniary, psychological costs and negative externalities. Aim of this project is the quantification of these non-pecuniary losses and externalities by applying the Life-Satisfaction-Approach und using the Contingent-Valuation-Method. First results show that the non-pecuniary costs of unemployment are sizeable and even in exess of the pure income loss connected with the unemployment period and hence confirm the high value of work for life satisfaction.

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Ein Großteil der Forschungsaktivitäten im Bereich der Online-Auktionen beschränkt sich auf so genannte Standardauktionen - also Auktionen, in denen die Nachfrager Gebote abgeben. Auktionen, in denen Anbietern die Möglichkeit eingeräumt wird, Gebote einzureichen, so genannte Beschaffungsauktionen, waren lange Zeit nur schwer für die Forschung zugänglich, da diese hauptsächlich für den Handel zwischen Unternehmen eingesetzt wurden. Inzwischen existiert jedoch eine Reihe von öffentlichen Plattformen für Beschaffungsauktionen (z.B. Auktionen für Dienstleistungsaufträge), deren Daten frei zugänglich sind und für empirische Untersuchungen elektronisch erhoben werden können. Bislang kaum erforscht sind die Unterschiede zwischen den Mechanismen, die in Standardauktionen und Beschaffungsauktionen verwendet werden. Nur wenn Käufer einen bestimmten Auktionsmechanismus wählen und Verkäufer bereit sind, in den entsprechenden Auktionen zu bieten, kann es zum Handel kommen. Dies wirft die Frage auf, ob es den Marktteilnehmern gelingt, sich bezüglich der Marktmechanismen zu koordinieren. Welcher Mechanismus wird sich durchsetzen? Welche Auswirkungen hat dies auf die Effizienz des Marktergebnisses? Diese Fragen sollen mit Hilfe eines kontrollierten Laborexperiments analysiert werden.

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Innerhalb der neuroökonomischen Forschung, die in den letzten Jahren einen sehr deutlichen Aufschwung erfahren hat, wird der Versuch unternommen, Verhaltensmuster, die in speziellen Entscheidungssituation in ökonomischen Experimenten beobachtet werden können, daraufhin zu untersuchen, ob sie sich auch neurologisch manifestieren.   Ziel des Projekts ist es, erstmals den Zusammenhang zwischen genetischer Disposition und dem ökonomischen Entscheidungserhalten zu analysieren. Dabei soll der potentielle Einfluss von Gen-Polymorphismen auf die kognitive Leistungsfähigkeit und spezifische Persönlichkeitseigenschaften junger gesunder Personen untersucht werden. Basierend auf den zu erwartenden Effekten der zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt gewonnenen Daten werden bildgebende Studien durchgeführt, um mögliche gen-basierte Unterschiede auf neuronaler Ebene zu untersuchen.

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Untersucht werden die Zusammenhänge zwischen der Eigentümerschaft und der Performance von einzelnen Banken in Deutschland sowie des deutschen Bankensektors insgesamt sowie mögliche Konsequenzen für die Corporate Governance im Bankbereich

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Die Europäische Zentralbank definiert ihr durch europäisches Vertragsrecht festgelegtes Ziel der Gewährleistung von Preis(niveau-)stabilität als ein Anstieg des Harmonisierten Verbraucherpreisindexes von unter, aber nahe 2%. Betrachtet man die Inflationsraten in den einzelnen Volkswirtschaften des Eurowährungsgebietes so fällt auf, dass diese trotz (oder gerade wegen) einheitlicher geldpolitischer Entscheidungen und Instrumente relativ stark voneinander abweichen und in einigen Volkswirtschaften deutlich unter bzw. in andern deutlich über dem Referenzwert der EZB liegen. Die in den sog. Maastricht-Kriterien geforderte Konvergenz der Inflationsarten scheint nicht weiter voran zu schreiten bzw. sich sogar umzukehren. Ein prominenter Erklärungsansatz hierfür ist der sog. Balassa-Samuelson-Effekt : So ergeben sich Inflationsdifferenzen zwischen zwei Volkswirtschaften infolge abweichender Preisniveauentwicklungen im Sektor der handelbaren Güter sowie bedingt durch Unterschiede im sektoralen Produktivitätswachstumsgefälle. Dies wirft die empirisch zu beantwortende Frage auf, ob die beobachteten Inflationsdifferenzen im Eurowährungsgebiet durch die Existenz von sektoral unterschiedlichen Produktivitätswachstumsraten differierend über die Volkswirtschaften im Euroraum erklärt werden können. Es können verschiedene empirische Approximationsgrößen für die relevanten Variablen sowie alternative Abgrenzungsvarianten bezüglich der Einteilung in Sektoren handelbaren und nicht-handelbarer Güter verwendet werden. Sowohl bei Zugrundelegung von Jahres- als auch Quartalsdaten zeigt sich ein deutlicher, d.h. statistisch signifikanter, Einfluss der Größe Differenz in den Veränderungen des Preisniveaus der handelbaren Güter zwischen den Ländern. Die empirische Untermauerung des zweiten gemäß der Balassa-Samuelson-Theorie relevanten Einflussfaktors, der internationalen Differenzen in den intersektoralen Arbeitsproduktivitätswachstumsunterschieden, gelingt nur bedingt, d.h. nur in einigen der Approximations- bzw. Einteilungsvarianten. Selbst in den Fällen, in denen ein Erklärungsgehalt empirisch abgesichert werden kann, liegen die Schätzwerte für die Regressionskoeffizienten z.T. deutlich von den theoretisch erwarteten Werten entfernt. Daher muss geschlussfolgert werden, dass die Inflationsdifferenzen im Eurowährungsraum nur bedingt mittels des durch das Balassa-Samuelson-Theorem proklamierten Wirkungsmechanismus erklärt werden können. Daher bedarf es weiterer Forschungsarbeit auf diesem Gebiet.

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Die Hindu Kush-Himalaya Region beherbergt mit dem Indus, Ganges und Brahmaputra mit die größ-ten Gewässersysteme der Erde, welche den Wasserbedarf von etwa 500 Millionen Einwohnern Süd-asiens decken. Die Wasserqualität der Flüsse dieser Region wird jedoch durch Einleitung ungeklärter industrieller und häuslicher Abwässer, diffusem Eintrag von Agrochemikalien und dem ungeregelten Aufstau zur Bewässerung und Energiegewinnung stark beeinträchtigt. Diese anthropogen bedingten Umweltbelastungen haben nicht nur Auswirkung auf den ökologischen Zustand des Gewässer son-dern auch Auswirkungen auf die Gesundheit der Nutzer. Etwa 16,5 % aller Todesfälle in dieser Regi-on stehen in Zusammenhang mit verunreinigtem Trinkwasser. Im Rahmen dieses von der EU geför-derten Projektes kooperieren Wissenschaftler aus 5 asiatischen und 3 europäischen Ländern. Ziel ist es, eine Methode zur Bewertung des ökologischen Zustandes von Fließgewässern zu entwickeln und daraus politische Handlungsempfehlung für ein nachhaltiges Wassermanagement und eine transnati-onale, integrierte Ressourcenplanung abzuleiten.

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towards supporting coordination of individual behavioral plans via group competition

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Gegenstand des Projekts ist die Analyse der Wirkungen eines Konsumtransfers auf die Wirtschafs-struktur und die Wachstumsraten einer Volkswirtschaft am Beispiel der Neuen Bundesländer. In ei-nem neoklassischen 2x2 Modell mit einem handelbaren und einem nicht-handelbaren Gut sowie mit und ohne Arbeitslosigkeit soll gezeigt werden, dass ein Konsumtransfer zu einer Lokalisierung der Wirtschaftsstruktur führt. Die empirische Evidenz für diese Lokalisierung der ostdeutschen Wirt-schaftsstruktur ist sehr stark. In einem zweiten Schritt soll dann gezeigt werden, dass ein Wachstum des Kapitalstocks oder technischer Fortschritt in einer Transferökonomie zu geringeren realen Wachs-tumsraten des Inlandsproduktes führt, als in einer Vergleichsökonomie.

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Unabhängige Zentralbanken verwenden Zinsen und Geldmengenaggregate als alternative Steuerungsgrößen ihres politischen Handelns. Eine stabile (zinsabhängige) Geldnachfrage als bekannt vorausgesetzt führen die beiden Regime zu tendenziell gleichen Ergebnissen. Ist die wahre Kassenhaltung demgegenüber unbekannt, die Entwicklung der Umlaufgeschwindigkeit nicht hinreichend exakt vorherzusagen, lockert sich die von der modernen Quantitätstheorie unterstellte stabile Beziehung zwischen der Geldmenge auf der einen, der volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtnachfrage auf der anderen Seite. Die Europäische Zentralbank betreibt nach wie vor Zinspolitik. Ihrem Verhalten scheint dabei die These zugrunde zu liegen, über geeignete Variationen einschlägiger Zinsen den monetären Sektor, zusätzlich aber die reale Ausgabenseite effizient steuern zu können. Damit stellt sich ebenfalls die Frage, inwieweit die Kreditnachfrage überhaupt zinsabhängig ist. Die hieraus resultierenden Probleme sind Gegenstand einer empirisch-ökonometrischen Analyse.

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Vielfalt kann sowohl in kollektiven, als auch individuellen Entscheidungen eine große Rolle spielen. Die Biodiversitätspolitik ist eines der bekanntesten Beispiele für kollektive Diversitätsentscheidungen, die Streuung von Investments durch einen risikoaversen Investor ist ein Standardbeispiel für eine indi-viduelle, explizite Diversitätsentscheidung. Jede Suche nach optimalen, oder bestmöglichen Entschei-dungen innerhalb solcher Kontexte setzt ein Konzept, also insbesondere eine Definition und ein Maß, von Vielfalt voraus. Als zunehmend problematisch erweist sich dabei die in der Wissenschaft vorherr-schende Diversität der Diversität : Es existiert eine große Zahl unterschiedlicher Vorschläge, wie Viel-falt definiert und gemessen werden könnte und jeder Vorschlag impliziert ceteris paribus andere opti-male Entscheidungen. Um optimalen, aber letztlich falschen Diversitätsentscheidungen vorzubeugen, ist zunächst die Kenntnis der inhärenten, qualitativen Eigenschaften der Konzepte vonnöten. Teil 1 des Dissertationsvorhabens kommt  dieser Notwendigkeit nach, indem die am häufigsten verwende-ten Diversitätskonzepte klassifiziert und qualitativ analysiert werden.Ebenso wichtig wie eine adäquate Messung der Zielgröße ist ihre Bewertung. Entgegen der weit ver-breiteten Annahme, Diversität sei grundsätzlich wünschenswert und somit zu maximieren, zeigt Teil 2 der Arbeit, dass zusätzliche Vielfalt sowohl Nutzen, als auch Kosten generieren kann. Auf Basis dieser Erkenntnis wird versucht zu klären, welche Bedingungen hierauf Einfluss haben und wie eine bessere Differenzierung von Diversitätsnutzen und -kosten möglich ist.Beide Teile verfolgen das übergreifende Ziel, eine Konzeptionalisierung von Diversität für Entschei-der transparenter zu machen und so das Risiko von Fehlentscheidungen zu verringern. Neue prakti-sche Relevanz erfährt dieses Ziel insbesondere seit der Entwicklung der politisch orientierten Biodi-versitätsforschung. Durch sie wurde man sich einig, dass Diversitätsfehlentscheidungen hohe Wohl-fahrtsverluste mit sich bringen können. Aus Ermangelung an Informationen darüber, welches Diversi-tätskonzept in diesem Entscheidungskontext Sinn macht und welches nicht, erweist sich die tatsächli-che Biodiversitätspolitik bis heute als kaum rational.

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Gegenstand des Projekts ist die experimentelle Analyse des Entscheidungsverhaltens im Rahmen des Market Design. Zum einen soll aufbauend auf neue spieltheoretische Modelle sequentieller Aukti-onen untersucht werden, ob die gewählte Modellierung individuelle Entscheidungen adäquat abbilden kann. Zum anderen beinhaltet das Projekt die Analyse bilateraler und multilateraler Verhandlungsspie-le. Da sich in bisherigen Studien gezeigt hat, dass Kommunikation das Verhalten stark beeinflussen kann, soll zusätzlich thematisiert werden, inwiefern sich dieser Kommunikationseffekt beim Design von Institutionen ausnutzen lässt.

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Die experimentelle Wirtschaftsforschung und die Umweltökonomik sind zwei noch junge Subdisziplinen der Wirtschaftswissenschaft. Dennoch ist die Zahl der in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten veröffentlichten Arbeiten zu Themen der expe¬rimentellen Umweltökonomik nur noch schwer zu überschauen. Im Rahmen des Dissertationsprojekts wird ein syste¬matischer Überblick über die Mög¬lich¬keiten gegeben, mit Hilfe der experimentellen Methode um¬welt¬öko¬nomische Problem¬stellungen zu bearbeiten und ihrer Lösung näher zu kommen. Mit der Analyse von sozialen Dilemma-Situationen, den neu zu schaf¬fenden Um¬weltmärkten und der Bewertung von Umweltgütern werden dabei drei zentrale Schnittstellen zwischen experimenteller Wirtschafts¬forschung und Umwelt¬ökonomik identi¬fiziert. Darüber hinaus wird anhand zweier  Laborexperimente die Anwendbarkeit der experimentellen Methode zur Lösung umweltökonomischer Problemstellungen verdeutlicht. Das erste Labor¬experiment untersucht mit dem Problem der inter¬nationalen Koope¬ration von Staaten bei der Vermeidung eines globalen Schad¬stoffes eine soziale Dilemma-Situation, in der individuell (natio¬nal¬staatlich) ratio¬nales Verhalten nicht zu einer kollektiv (global) rationalen Lösung führt. Getestet wird die Prognose der nichtkooperativen Spieltheorie sowohl für ein simultanes als auch für ein sequentiell-simultanes Ent¬schei¬dungs¬protokoll des Spiels. Das zweite Laborexperiment ist der Analyse von marktbasierten Lösungsmechanismen für Umweltprobleme zuzuordnen. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Hypothese, dass eine Continuous Double Auction das Entstehen von Marktmacht auf Märkten für Emissionsrechte verhindern kann.

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Hochschulen bewirken kurzfristig reale Ressourcenzuflüsse in die sie umgebenden Regionen und leisten auch langfristig einen Wachstums- und Beschäftigungsbeitrag durch Ausbildung und Wissens-transfer. Es werden theoretische Ansätze zur Erklärung der Wirkungszusammenhänge und Messme-thoden dargestellt und weiterentwickelt. Empirisch werden sie angewandt, indem die Wirkungsweise von Hochschulen in der Region am Beispiel der Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg und der Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal (FH) untersucht wird.Das Dissertationsprojekt wurde im Oktober 2005 abgeschlossen.

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Gegenstand des Projektes ist die theoretische und empirische Untersuchung des Verhaltens von Banken. Die Bedeutung gepoolter Kreditmärkte auf das Verhalten institutioneller Gläubiger ist beinahe schon ein traditioneller Forschungsgegenstand. Obgleich die theoretischen Probleme mehr oder weniger umfassend analysiert zu sein scheinen und z.T. auch allgemein akzeptierte Lösungsansätze erfahren haben, sind insbesondere die empirischen Befunde nur höchst unbefriedigend mit den theoretischen Postulaten in Einklang zu bringen. Im Vordergrund steht u.a. die Frage, ob Banken grundsätzlich erkennbare Kreditrisiken eingehen und sich diese etwa über den Zinssatz kompensieren lassen. Auch die Rolle der Sicherheitseinstellung als prinzipiell denkbarer Risikoausgleich wird keineswegs einmütig beurteilt. Untersucht wird darüber hinaus die Möglichkeit von Schuldnern, durch den Aufbau von Reputation, z.B. über öffentliche Informationen in Form eines Ratings, zur Reduktion des Kreditrisikos beizutragen. Im Zusammenhang mit den modifizierten Eigenkapitalvorschriften bei der Kreditvergabe von Banken (Basel II) wird regelmäßig argumentiert, dass sich die Darlehenskonditionen insbesondere klein- und mittelständischer Schuldner notwendigerweise verschlechtern werden. Freilich fehlt es bislang an der eindeutigen theoretischen Fundierung dieses Postulats. In einem allgemeinen Kapitalmarktmodell wird untersucht, ob die propagierten Folgen tatsächlich eintreten müssen.

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In der internationalen Literatur zum Bankenwettbewerb werden unterschiedliche Ansätze verwendet, um insbesondere auf der Basis von Mikrodaten einen Zusammenhang zwischen der Struktur nationaler Bankenmärkte und deren Wettbewerbsintensität nachzuweisen. Alle inzwischen vorgelegten Modelle leiden allerdings unter der unbefriedigenden Datenbasis, da selbst für kleine Volkswirtschaften keine Angaben über alle in der Ökonomie tätigen Banken frei zugänglich existieren. Folglich verwenden alle bisher publizierten Arbeiten Stichproben mit mehr oder weniger repräsentativem Gehalt. Der von den Bearbeitern entwickelte und vorgestellte Ansatz verwendet hingegen OECD-Paneldaten und ein alternatives Wettbewerbskonzept. Die ökonometrischen Analysen können einen, einzelne Ökonomien übergreifenden, signifikanten Zusammenhang zwischen Marktmacht und Rentabilität im Bankensektor belegen, die Ergebnisse variieren überdies mit dem Grad der internationalen Offenheit der einzelnen betrachteten Länder.

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The research project analyses by means of experimental method the question weather a Double Auction (DA) is able to restrict the emergence of market power in markets for emission permits. Market power may be a problem in an international emission permit market within the Kyoto Protocol and in local markets for emission permits, where the number of market actors is often small and single firms own a large market share. The working hypothesis is that DA trading leads to a competitive equilibrium, even tough a strong potential for market power. In this context we analyse the question weather the capability of the strong market side to realize price discrimination levels off over periods.

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The degradation of our natural resources leads to conservation efforts in countries around the world, which are implemented in national biodiversity policies. But biodiversity policy like environmental policy in general competes with other demands on scarce resources made by different interests of the society. Therefore, a rational biodiversity policy should maximize the effect of every unit of those resources employed to conserve biodiversity, or to minimize the resources needed to meet a certain biodiversity goal. This means that biodiversity policy should follow the economic principle. The aim of the project is to determine the requirements of a rational biodiversity policy for Germany and its institutional framework within the European Union (EU). Methods for the evaluation of cost and benefits associated with biodiversity conservation activities will be analysed. Furthermore, instruments for an implementation of a biodiversity policy based on rationality and efficiency will be developed. Our investigations will also focus on the EU`s eastern enlargement and its possible implications for a pan-European biodiversity strategy.

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Das Land Sachsen-Anhalt unternimmt große Anstrengungen um wissenschaftliche Forschung und akademische Lehre zu fördern. Aber welche Erträge bringen diese Investitionen dem Land? Dieser Frage geht das Projekt am Beispiel der Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg und der Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal (FH) nach.

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Laboratory experiments on repeatedly played games have shown that subjects use information to adjust their behaviour. Contrary to most earlier studies on learning that focus on adjustment to opponent`s play, this study is concerned with the impact of foreclosure of predetermined information such as the payoff table. This way, we are able to learn more about the value of information as well as the  sensitivity of applied learning schemes to changes in the initial endowment with information. Moreover, we check for the descriptive value of routine learning schemes in settings they were initially designed for.

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There are many points of contact between experimental research and environmental policy that have caused a great number of experimental studies that are engaged with environmental problems. There are two aims of the project: First, it is planned to work out a systematical overview about the heterogeneous experimental research on environmental problems. Second, it is planned to analyze the method aspects of the use of experiments for environmental research. The main focus is on the differences between the usage of experiments for the analysis of real institutions that are engaged with environmental policy and the accepted usage of experiments in economics.

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Experimental studies came to the conclusion, that there are three robust behavioral patterns with regard to cooperation problems: cooperators, defectors and conservative cooperators. This observation is manifested within a scope of an evolutionary game theoretic model. An endogenous learning mutant with a conditional willingness to cooperate is introduced into a prisoner`s dilemma game. The mutant denies the interaction with known (learned) defectors. For certain parameters, there exists an equilibrium in mixed strategies, in which all three types coexist. This equilibrium is globally stable. This result is robust against the implementation of another learning mutant with a willingness to defect. Qualitatively identical results can be generated in a stochastic model context, as well.

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The behavior in sequential bargaining games has been often investigated. In certain cases, experimental results exhibited extreme differences between a person`s behavior and the standard game theoretic prediction. Earlier attempts to explain this behavior were based on the concepts of fairness and reciprocity. In contrast to that, recent studies show that, in rent-seeking games, other motivations must play a role. Therefore, the aim of the project is to create a uniform frame, in which all games will be directly compared to each other. Experiments with these simplified games and hybrid compounds shall deliver insights into these relevant determinants for the behavior in sequential games.

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This project is supposed to contribute to the solution of problems that result from non-cooperative behavior. The main focus is on the importance of social dilemmas for economic policy. Dilemma situations are the quintessence of serious allocation problems. Social dilemmas are characterized by the fact that they mainly affect large groups. In recent years, a thesis was discussed, in which reciprocity is a basic determinant for individual behavior in small groups, e.g. in ultimatum games. Our aim is to investigate on whether reciprocity plays an important role for cooperation problems in large groups, as well. Face to face communication increased the willingness to cooperate in small groups. In large groups, communication is not bi-directional, but necessarily arranged via unidirectional communication media. It shall be studied, which forms of communication can produce efficiency gains in large groups.

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1.The standard public good experiment creates a situation, in which there is a dilemma between individual and collective rationality. It shall be investigated on how the initial endowment and the frame of the experiment affect cooperation behavior. 2. The uncovering of the individual willingness to pay for public goods takes place, among other things, by questionnaires (contingent valuation method). It has been observed that the willingness to pay depends on the number of public goods, which values are the subject of the questions. The project is aimed to test on how far embeddings effects play a role in the providing of real public goods.

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