The innovation impact of EU emission trading: findings of company case studies in the German power sector

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of how the European Emission Trading System (EU ETS) as the core climate policy instrument of the European Union has impacted innovation. Towards this end, we investigate the impact of the EU ETS on research, development, and demonstration (RD&D), adoption, and organizational change. In doing so, we pay particular attention to the rela-tive influences of context factors (policy mix, market factors, public acceptance) as well as firm characteristics (value chain position, technology portfolio, size, vision). Empirically, our analysis is based on multiple case studies with 19 power generators, technology providers, and project developers in the German power sector which we conducted from June 2008 until June 2009. We find that the innovation impact of the EU ETS has remained limited so far because of the scheme’s initial lack in stringency and predictability and the relatively greater importance of context factors. Additionally, the impact varies tremendously across technologies, firms, and innovation dimensions, and is most pronounced for RD&D on carbon capture technologies and corporate procedural change. Our analysis suggests that the EU ETS by itself may not provide sufficient incentives for fundamental changes in corporate climate innovation activities at a level adequate for reaching political long-term targets. Based on the study’s findings, we derive a set of policy and research recommendations. --EU ETS,emission trading,innovation,technological change,adoption,diffusion,organizational change,power sector

It's not all about parents' education, it also matters what they do: Parents' employment and children's school success in Germany

In this paper, we use SOEP data to explore whether parents' employment has an extra effect on the school achievement of their children, beyond the well-established effects of education, income and demography. First, we test whether the source of income or parents' unemployment determine children's school achievements. Second, we analyze the effect of job prestige and factors of societal engagement on children's performance. Our results indicate no clear income associations but the existence of an employment channel as well as a social channel from mothers to their kids. A negative role model for girls is found for maternal housework. Moreover, the fathers' job prestige is substantial

It's not all about parents' education, it also matters what they do. Parents' employment and children's school success in Germany

In this paper, we use GSOEP data to explore whether parents employment has an extra effect on the school achievement of their children, beyond the well-established effects of education, income and demography. First, we test whether the source of income or parents unemployment determine children s school achievements. Second, we analyze the effect of job prestige and factors of societal engagement on children s performance. Our results indicate no clear income associations but the existence of an employment channel as well as a social channel from mothers to their kids. A negative role model for girls is found for maternal housework. Moreover, the fathers job prestige is substantial

It's not all about parents' education, it also matters what they do: Parents' employment and children's school success in Germany

In this paper, we use GSOEP data to explore whether parents' employment has an extra effect on the school achievement of their children, beyond the well-established effects of education, income and demography. First, we test whether the source of income or parents' unemployment determine children's school achievements. Second, we analyze the effect of job prestige and factors of societal engagement on children's performance. Our results indicate no clear income associations but the existence of an employment channel as well as a social channel from mothers to their kids. A negative role model for girls is found for maternal housework. Moreover, the fathers' job prestige is substantial

Elterliches Erwerbsverhalten und kindlicher Schulerfolg: Analysen für Deutschland mit einem separaten Fokus auf Interaktionseffekten des Ganztagsschulsystems und einem Ländervergleich Deutschland-Schweden

Die Gesamtstudie hatte zum Ziel, die Trias zwischen elterlicher, insbesondere mütterlicher, Erwerbstätigkeit, dem Schulsystem und dem kindlichen Schulerfolg zu untersuchen. Schulerfolg wird in den Hauptschätzungen als höchster erreichter bzw. erwarteter Schulabschluss und in den Sensitivitätsanalysen als Notendurchschnitt spezifiziert. Der erste Projektbericht behandelt den Zusammenhang zwischen elterlicher Erwerbstätigkeit und dem kindlichen Schulerfolg, während im zweiten Bericht der Fokus auf den moderierenden Effekten des Schulsystems liegt. Zudem wurde im zweiten Bericht zum Eltern-Kind-Zusammenhang auch ein Ländervergleich mit Schweden angestellt. Das Quellenverzeichnis für beide Berichte zusammen findet sich ganz am Ende dieser Studie.Die Autoren danken dem Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (BMAS) für die finanzielle Förderung dieser Studie. Die Studie basiert auf Projektbericht 1 vom 5. Mai 2015, Projektbericht 2 vom 30. Oktober 2015 und einer Zusammenfassung beider Berichte vom 1. Dezember 2015 in deutscher und englischer Sprache

Geschlechtsspezifische Berufswahl: Literatur- und Datenüberblick zu Einflussfaktoren, Anhaltspunkten struktureller Benachteiligung und Abbruchkosten

Ein robuster Befund der Berufsforschung ist, dass Frauen und Männer sich unterschiedlich auf die Berufe verteilen. Aus arbeitsmarktökonomischer Sicht stellt sich dabei die Frage, in welchem Maße die Berufsentscheidung, anstelle von wahren Fähigkeiten, von Vorstellungen über Geschlechterrollen geprägt ist, welche eine gute Passung zwischen Beruf und Person erschweren. Hierbei spielen Stereotypen eine besondere Rolle. Zudem unterscheiden sich Frauen und Männer auch in der Ausbildungsform: Frauen münden eher in vollschulische, Männer eher in duale Berufe ein. Während in letzteren Ausbildungsvergütungen gezahlt werden, müssen in ersteren nicht selten Schulgebühren aufgebracht werden. Dies deutet auf einen Gender Pay Gap schon während der Ausbildung hin. Schließlich tragen Männer und Frauen unterschiedliche Ausbildungsabbruchrisiken. Die vorliegende Pilotstudie befasst sich mit den Ursachen und Folgen für diese und weitere Phänomene von Geschlechterungleichheiten der Berufswahl. Sie sammelt und strukturiert Literatur und Daten zu den oben genannten Fragenstellungen und leitet hieraus Forschungs- und Datendefizite ab

Reinforcement Learning for Planning Heuristics

Informed heuristics are essential for the success of heuristic search algorithms. But, it is difficult to develop a new heuris- tic which is informed on various tasks. Instead, we propose a framework that trains a neural network as heuristic for the tasks it is supposed to solve. We present two reinforcement learning approaches to learn heuristics for fixed state spaces and fixed goals. Our first approach uses approximate value iteration, our second ap- proach uses searches to generate training data. We show that in some domains our approaches outperform previous work, and we point out potentials for future improvements

Exploring family life circumstances and their relationship to a child’s school achievement – an econometric analysis in large data contexts

This thesis is motivated by the need to find parental characteristics other than demographic indicators which exhibit substantial links to a child’s success in school. Therefore, the associations between various indicators of family background and a child’s school achievement are empirically explored. A latent variable model is assumed to describe the underlying relationships. A data set, large in terms of selectable variables, gives rise to the need to use statistical methods that reduce its dimensionality. Since there many possible methods, simulations comparing their predictive ability are conducted. A regularized version of Factor Regression turns out to be most suitable. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, the method extracts several factors with relevant associations to the outcome. While factors related to demographic indicators play a major role, other factors related to participation in cultural life or the interest and participation in politics or in further education substantially contribute to explaining variance in the outcome. The results suggest that demographic indicators alone might not be sufficient to describe the relevant facets of family background

TO ROW TOGETHER OR PADDLE ONE\u27S OWN CANOE? SIMULATING STRATEGIES TO SPUR DIGITAL PLATFORM GROWTH

This study provides a novel perspective on digital platform dynamics by applying a stochastic cellular automaton (CA) as a promising instrument of inquiry to investigate the impact of social and technical openness on platform growth. Owing to the dynamism of digital platforms caused by technological complexity, network effects, and developer-level factors, there is limited under-standing of how early-stage platform owners can successfully sustain platform growth. Research suggests two growth strategies: Adjusting the openness of technical platform resources and gov-erning the developers’ accessibility of the distribution channel. Based on experiments that lev-erage a stochastic CA, we show that platform growth can be achieved through three disparate growth strategy configurations. Our paper contributes to research by synthesizing the technolo-gy, market, and individual levels of platform growth analyses through a novel methodological account, and by offering theoretical propositions for future research. Our results can guide platform owners to scrutinize their growth strategies