Alle Publikationen der Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Der Verein für Socialpolitik hat zur Bearbeitung seines Schwerpunktthemas „Nachwuchs“ für die Dauer der Kalenderjahre 2021-2022 eine Arbeitsgruppe eingerichtet – im Folgenden: AG Nachwuchs –, deren Aufgabe das Vorlegen eines umfassenden Berichts zur Situation der VWL-Promovierenden und -PostDocs im DACH-Raum ist. Gestützt auf Datenerhebungen und strukturierte Interviews formuliert die AG Nachwuchs in diesem Bericht zwei Empfehlungen, jeweils eine für den Doc- und den PostDoc-Bereich. Sie empfiehlt im PostDoc-Bereich, dass die Fakultäten bzw. verwandte VWL-Einrichtungen den Übergang zu Tenure-Track beschleunigen und ihn durch eine systematische Planung der Zahlenverhältnisse zwischen den Karrierestufen bei ihrem wissenschaftlichen Personal begleiten. Dadurch sollen bessere Karriereperspektiven erreicht werden. Sowohl die befragten Nachwuchskräfte als auch die befragten Professor:innen und Programmleitungen betonen die Thematik der Stellenperspektiven stark. Im Doc-Bereich dokumentieren die Erhebungsdaten eine überraschend geringe Zufriedenheit der VWL-Promovierenden mit der Betreuungssituation durch die Professorenschaft. Die AG Nachwuchs empfiehlt daher eine höhere Betreuungsdichte und eine stärkere Vernetzung von Promovierenden. Weitere Hilfestellungen für Promovierende können in Mehrfach- oder Teambetreuungen sowie in der Bereitstellung von Informationen über die Vielfalt möglicher Karrierewege bestehen.

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>We examine distortions caused by tax base allocation systems–separate accounting (SA) or formula apportionment (FA)–with respect to the allocation of assets and workforce within multinational entities (MNEs). The effects of both systems are intensively debated by EU Member States as they are striving to implement a European tax system. Its introduction would lead to a switch from SA to FA. Moreover, Pillar One of the recent global tax reform includes a mix of both tax base allocation systems. We find that, against the claims of the EU, FA does not necessarily create lower distortions of the factor allocation. Decisive for that assessment is the level of profit shifting under SA. Our results indicate that, in tendency, the factor allocation is more severely distorted by FA when the profit shifting possibilities were rather low under SA. In contrast to former studies, we highlight the importance of analyzing the status quo under the recently applied system (SA) in order to be able to assess the consequences of a switch from SA to FA. Our results are interesting for policy-makers as they help anticipating reactions of MNEs to a change in the applied tax base allocation system and for companies as a basis for future tax planning.</jats:p>

<jats:p> We propose a new method to estimate and isolate the localization of knowledge spillovers due to the physical presence of a person, using after-application but pre-grant deaths of differently located coinventors of the same patent. The approach estimates the differences in local citations between the deceased and still-living inventors at increasingly distant radii. Patents receive 26 percent fewer citations from within a radius of 20 miles around the deceased, relative to still-living coinventors. Differences attenuate with time and distance, are stronger when still-living coinventors live farther from the deceased, and hold for a subsample of possibly premature deaths. (JEL O31, O33, O34, R32) </jats:p>

Individual cognitive functioning declines over time. We seek to understand how adverse physical health shocks in older ages contribute to this development. By use of event-study methods and data from the USA, England, and several countries in Continental Europe, we find evidence that health shocks lead to an immediate and persistent decline in cognitive functioning. This robust finding holds in all regions representing different health insurance systems and seems to be independent of underlying individual demographic characteristics such as sex and age. We also ask whether variables that are susceptible to policy action can reduce the negative consequences of a health shock. Our results suggest that neither compulsory education nor retirement regulations moderate the effects, thus emphasizing the importance for cognitive functioning of maintaining good physical health in old age.

This study examines GAAP effective tax rate (ETR) visibility as a distinct disclosure choice in firms’ financial statements. By applying a game-theory disclosure model for the voluntary disclosure strategies of firms, in a tax setting, we argue that firms face a trade-off in their ETR disclosure decisions. On the one hand, firms have an incentive to enhance their ETR disclosure when the ratio offers shareholders ‘favourable conditions’, for example, higher expected after-tax cash flows. On the other hand, the disclosure of a favourable low ETR could attract the attention of tax auditors and the public and ultimately result in disclosure costs. We empirically test disclosure behaviour by examining the relation between disclosure visibility and different ETR conditions that reflect different stakeholder-specific costs and benefits. While we find that unfavourable ETR conditions are not highlighted, we observe higher disclosure visibility for favourable ETRs (smooth, close to the industry average, and decreasing ETRs). Additional analyses reveal that this high visibility is characteristic of firm years with only moderately decreasing ETRs at usual ETR levels, while extreme ETRs are not highlighted. Interestingly and in contrast to our main results, a subsample of family firms does not seem to highlight favourable ETRs.

The paper investigates the impact of individual attention on investor risk-taking. We analyze a large sample of trading records from a brokerage service that allows its customers to trade contracts-for-differences (CFD), and sends standardized push messages on recent stock performance to its client investors. The advantage of this sample is that it allows us to isolate the "push" messages as individual attention triggers, which we can directly link to the same individuals' risk-taking. A particular advantage of CFD trading is that it allows investors to make use of leverage, which provides us a pure measure of investors' willingness to take risks that is independent of the decision to purchase a particular stock. Leverage is a major catalyst of speculative trading, as it increases the scope of extreme returns, and enables investors to take larger positions than what they can afford with their own capital. We show that investors execute attention-driven trades with higher leverage, compared to their other trades, as well as those of other investors who are not alerted by attention triggers.

Unternehmen investieren zunehmend in Angebote Betrieblicher Gesundheitsförderung (BGF). Dabei stellt sich die Frage nach dem Kosten-Nutzen-Verhältnis jenseits des individuellen Nutzens durch die Förderung der Mitarbeitergesundheit. Deshalb wurden im Rahmen einer Sekundäranalyse Effekte der BGF auf den Unternehmenserfolg berechnet. Die Ergebnisse lassen vermuten, dass sich eine verhaltensorientierte BGF kaum positiv auf die Arbeitsproduktivität und Kommunikationsstruktur in Unternehmen auswirkt.

This study investigates the conditions under which tax rate changes accelerate risky investments. While tax rate increases are often expected to harm investment, analytical studies find tax rate increases may foster investment under flexibility.We design a theorybased experimentwith a binomial random walk and entry–exit flexibility.We find accelerated investment upon tax rate increases irrespective of an exit option, but no corresponding response to tax cuts. This asymmetry may be due to tax salience and mechanisms from irreversible choice under uncertainty. Given this evidence of unexpected tax-reform effects, tax policymakers should carefully consider behavioral aspects.

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Non-pharmaceutical interventions are an effective strategy to prevent and control COVID-19 transmission in the community. However, the timing and stringency to which these measures have been implemented varied between countries and regions. The differences in stringency can only to a limited extent be explained by the number of infections and the prevailing vaccination strategies. Our study aims to shed more light on the lockdown strategies and to identify the determinants underlying the differences between countries on regional, economic, institutional, and political level. Based on daily panel data for 173 countries and the period from January 2020 to October 2021 we find significant regional differences in lockdown strategies. Further, more prosperous countries implemented milder restrictions but responded more quickly, while poorer countries introduced more stringent measures but had a longer response time. Finally, democratic regimes and stronger manifested institutions alleviated and slowed down the introduction of lockdown measures.</jats:p>

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Business process management (BPM) drives corporate success through effective and efficient processes. In recent decades, knowledge has been accumulated regarding the identification, discovery, analysis, design, implementation, and monitoring of business processes. This includes methods and tools for tackling various kinds of process change such as continuous process improvement, process reengineering, process innovation, and process drift. However, exogenous shocks, which lead to unintentional and radical process change, have been neglected in BPM research although they severely affect an organization’s context, strategy, and business processes. This research note conceptualizes the interplay of exogenous shocks and BPM in terms of the effects that such shocks can have on organizations’ overall process performance over time. On this foundation, related challenges and opportunities for BPM via several rounds of idea generation and consolidation within a diverse team of BPM scholars are identified. The paper discusses findings in light of extant literature from BPM and related disciplines, as well as present avenues for future (BPM) research to invigorate the academic discourse on the topic.</jats:p>

<jats:title>Abstract </jats:title><jats:p>Technological developments such as Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence continue to drive the digital transformation of business and society. With the advent of platform-based ecosystems and their potential to address complex challenges, there is a trend towards greater interconnectedness between different stakeholders to co-create services based on the provision and use of data. While previous research on digital transformation mainly focused on digital transformation <jats:italic>within</jats:italic> organizations, it is of growing importance to understand the implications for digital transformation on different layers (e.g., interorganizational cooperation and platform ecosystems). In particular, the conceptualization and implications of public data spaces and related ecosystems provide promising research opportunities. This special issue contains five papers on the topic of digital transformation and, with the editorial, further contributes by providing an initial conceptualization of public data spaces' potential to foster innovative progress and digital transformation from a management perspective.</jats:p>

We study the bargaining behavior between auditor and auditee in a tax setting and scrutinize the effect of interpersonal trust and trust in government on both parties’ concessions. We find evidence that both kinds of trust affect the concessionary behavior, albeit in different ways. While trust in government affects concessionary behavior in line with intuitive predictions, we find that interpersonal trust only affects tax auditors. For high interpersonal trust, the alleviating effect of high trust in government on tax auditors’ concessions is less pronounced. Our findings help tax authorities to shape programs to enhance compliance in an atmosphere of trust.

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This paper examines how human and organizational factors need to be designed to achieve strong technological maturity of either the products or the production process. In a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA), a combination of intensive training and strong worker participation is found to be associated with strong technological maturity in the two organizational contexts: firms with a strong entrepreneurial culture and in large firms oriented towards customer-oriented innovation. Overall, the paper uncovers designs or causal recipes for a successful digital transformation.</jats:p>

We study the effect of unemployment on cognitive abilities among individuals aged between 50 and 65 in Europe. To this end, we exploit plant closures and use flexible event-study estimations together with an experimentally elicited measure of fluid intelligence, namely word recall. We find that, within a time period of around eight years after the event of unemployment, cognitive abilities only deteriorate marginally — the effects are insignificant both in statistical and economic terms. We do, however, find significant effects of late-career unemployment on the likelihood to leave the labor force, and short-term effects on mental health problems such as depression and sleep problems.

In this paper, we apply imprinting theory to examine how institutional transformation substantially influences perceptions of corruption that we argue to be incorporated to a varying extent in organizations founded in that period. For this purpose, we compare the effect of a sudden shock (dissolution of the Soviet Union) on the managers' present perceptions to that of a steady transition (EU accession). We consult the 5th round of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey from 2012 to 2014 analyzing 4715 interviews with managers of organizations from twelve Central and Eastern European countries. Our results reveal striking differences in the present perception of corruption for organizations founded immediately before and immediately after these institutional transitions. The study's results contribute to the research on imprinting theory regarding the relationship between organizations and institutional conditions that constitutes a lasting effect on organizational structures. Thus, applying an institutional perspective that considers less stable periods for organizations yields a promising avenue in research on organizational behavior.

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>We provide a partial equilibrium model wherein AI provides abilities combined with human skills to provide an aggregate intermediate service good. We use the model to find that the extent of automation through AI will be greater if (a) the economy is relatively abundant in sophisticated programs and machine abilities compared to human skills; (b) the economy hosts a relatively large number of AI-providing firms and experts; and (c) the task-specific productivity of AI services is relatively high compared to the task-specific productivity of general labor and labor skills. We also illustrate that the contribution of AI to aggregate productive labor service depends not only on the amount of AI services available but on the endogenous number of automated tasks, the relative productivity of standard and IT-related labor, and the substitutability of tasks. These determinants also affect the income distribution between the two kinds of labor. We derive several empirical implications and identify possible future extensions.</jats:p>

Employing a unique and hand-collected sample of 648 true sale loan securitization transactions issued by 57 stock-listed banks across the EU-12 plus Switzerland over the period from 1997 to 2010, this paper empirically analyzes the relationship between true sale loan securitization and the issuing banks’ non-performing loans to total assets ratios. Overall, we provide evidence for a negative impact of securitization on NPL exposures suggesting that banks predominantly used securitization as an instrument of credit risk transfer and diversification. In addition, the analysis at hand reveals a time-sensitive relationship between securitization and NPL exposures. While we observe an even stronger NPL-reducing effect through securitization during the non-crisis periods, the effect reverses during and after the global financial crisis suggesting that banks were forced to provide credit enhancement and employ securitization as a funding management tool. Along with the results from a variety of sensitivity analyses our study provides important implications for the recent debate on reducing NPL exposures of European banks by revitalizing the European securitization market.

Regulations to prevent ethnic discrimination in accessing the labor market are implemented most thoroughly in the public sector. However, it remains to be assessed if these regulations are internalized. We conducted a field experiment to examine ethnic discrimination when applying for internships in German municipalities by unsolicited inquiries. We compared responses in German cities to Turkish, Italian, and German applicants in two periods, and find consistent disadvantages for the Turkish and Italian applicants as well as differences related to gender. Thus, the likelihood for ethnic discrimination rises when applying for positions in public institutions that are not subject to regulations.

In this paper new semiparametric generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models with long memory are introduced. A multiplicative decomposition of the volatility into a conditional component and an unconditional component is assumed. The estimation of the latter is carried out by means of a data-driven local polynomial smoother. According to the revised recommendations by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to measure market risk in the banks’ trading books, these new semiparametric GARCH models are applied to obtain rolling one-step ahead forecasts for the value-at-risk and expected shortfall (ES) for market risk assets. Standard regulatory traffic-light tests and a newly introduced traffic-light test for the ES are carried out for all models. In addition, model performance is assessed via a recently introduced model selection criterion. The practical relevance of our proposal is demonstrated by a comparative study. Our results indicate that semiparametric long-memory GARCH models are a meaningful substitute for their conventional, parametric counterparts.

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Since the seminal work of Albert and Whetten, the organizational identity concept has become ubiquitous and highly relevant in various fields. This study systematically reviews how Albert and Whetten’s concept of organizational identity has been disseminated in different research areas. It employs quantitative (topic modeling) and qualitative text analysis, as well as a network analysis to examine a sample of 1,041 papers published between 1985 and mid-2022 that cite Albert and Whetten’s seminal work. Using this method of systematic literature analysis, the current study investigates the criteria of the basic definition and hypotheses mentioned in their work that contribute to its increasing significance, and those with the potential to become substantial aspects of future organizational identity research. Accordingly, Albert and Whetten’s conceptualization of organizational identity is often partially adopted in the literature. Thus, this study contributes to organizational identity research by unveiling further research questions on the evolving character of organizational identity, research methodology, and quantitative operationalization, on the basis of Albert and Whetten’s organizational identity conceptualization.</jats:p>