Who are the outsiders and what do they want? Welfare state preferences in dualized societies

This paper makes three contributions. First, it presents a new conceptualization and measurement of outsider-status, which is based on social class and which takes into account that the category of outsiders is composed differently in different countries, depending on labor markets and welfare states. Second, it argues theoretically and shows empirically that the class-based measure of insider-and outsider status has a stronger explanatory power with regard to individual-level welfare preferences than the measure based on labor market status. And third, it demonstrates empirically that dualization, combined with skill-levels, shapes people’s preferences with regard to different welfare policies: Outsiders have stronger preferences for redistribution and for social investment than insiders. The analyses are based on micro-level ISSP data.labour contract; political economy; social policy; unemployment; welfare state

Table of Contents

Table of Contents for Volume 5, Issue 1 of the Linfield Magazin

Early health economic evaluation of the future potential of next generation artificial vision systems for treating blindness in Germany

The next generation of artificial vision devices (AVDs), which is currently developed in pre-clinical settings, has the potential to improve the vision of blind patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) in a manner that they will be categorized as visual impaired but no more as blind. This unprecedented vision improvement will result in a mentionable quality of life gain which poses the question at which costs the next generation AVDs are to be regarded as cost-effective, from a German healthcare payer perspective. In order to answer this research question a Markov model was developed to simulate and to compare the costs and effects of next generation AVDs versus best supportive care (BSC). Applying the base case settings resulted in incremental costs of €107,925, in 2.03 incremental quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and in a cost-effectiveness ratio of €53,165 per QALY gained. Probabilistic and deterministic sensitivity analyses as well as scenario analyses for the effect size and the AVD costs were performed in order to investigate the robustness of results. In these scenario analyses a strong variation of the cost-effectiveness results was obtained ranging from €23,512 (best case) to €176,958 (worst case) per QALY gained by AVD therapy. This early health economic evaluation has to handle with three main uncertainty factors: the effect size of next generation AVDs, the costs of next generation AVDs and the WTP threshold that might be applied in RP patients, which reflect the main limitations of the presented assessment. In conclusion the presented early cost-effectiveness evaluation has obtained that next generation AVDs have the potential to be a cost-effective therapy option in patients with RP in Germany. The innovative nature, the high unmet medical need and the expected unprecedented efficacy of next generation AVDs will highly likely lead to the case that even relatively high incremental cost-effectiveness ratios, that have been obtained when simulating various effect and pricing scenarios, will be regarded as acceptable from a German healthcare payer perspective

Labor market risks in times of welfare state transformation

This paper is concerned with the link between welfare state reforms and the rising labor market inequality between labor market insiders and outsiders. This labor market inequality represents one of biggest challenges to Europe, especially to Continental Europe. The paper starts with a review of the most important labor market and welfare state reforms in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, four continental European countries with strong insider-outsider divides. I then study the implications of welfare state reforms on labor market risks in Continental Europe, focusing on the risk for unemployment and temporary employment because these two forms of labor market risks have particularly strong effects on economic and social deprivation and are often linked to a permanently inferior labor market status. Relying on several waves from the EU-SILC (2005-2011) I examine patterns of labor market risks and their distribution between groups with different skill and age levels and the interaction of these two factors in four Continental European countries: Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The analysis reveals that the development of unemployment and temporary employment varies between the four countries. In Germany, labor market risks have become less unequally distributed since the implementation of the Agenda 2010 in 2005 while labor market inequality has remained constant in France. I relate this back to the rigid labor market and the lack of more than superficial labor market reforms in the last decade until very recently. Indeed, France is a case where we observe a clear effect of a non-event mostly at the cost of the younger generation, which is clearly confronted with higher labor market risks than individuals in their prime age of even elderly individuals. Consistent with the politics of 'selective flexibilization', we find pronounced levels of labor market inequality in Italy and Spain, which are only to increase over time. One might speak of a dualization of the Italian and Spanish labor market between young outsiders and older insiders.In diesem Artikel wird der Zusammenhang zwischen Wohlfahrtsstaatsreformen und der steigenden Ungleichheit im Arbeitsmarkt in vier kontinentaleuropäischen Ländern (Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien und Spanien), in welchen die ungleiche Verteilung von Arbeitsmarktrisiken eine besondere Herausforderung darstellt, analysiert. Das Papier beginnt mit einem Überblick über die wichtigsten Arbeitsmarkt- und Sozialstaatsreformen in Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien und Spanien in den letzten 2 Jahrzehnten um dann die Auswirkungen dieser Reformen auf Arbeitsmarktungleichheit zu untersuchen. Der Fokus der Untersuchung liegt dabei auf dem Risiko für Arbeitslosigkeit und dem Risiko für befristete Beschäftigung, zwei Arbeitsmarktrisiken mit schwerwiegenden Auswirkungen auf die soziale und ökonomische Integration der Betroffenen, welche zudem oftmals mit einem dauerhaft Verminderung des Arbeitsmarktstatus verbunden ist. Anhand mehrerer Wellen des EU-SILC (2005-2011) wird die Verteilung von Arbeitsmarktrisiken zwischen Gruppen mit unterschiedlichen Qualifikationen und Altersstufen und das Zusammenspiel dieser beiden Risikofaktoren untersucht. Die Analyse zeigt, dass die Entwicklung der Arbeitsmarktrisiken zwischen den vier Ländern unterschiedlich verläuft. In Deutschland hat sich die Ungleichheit im Arbeitsmarkt aufgrund der Agenda 2010 seit 2005 reduziert, während das Risiko für Arbeitslosigkeit und befristete Beschäftigung in Frankreich konstant ungleich verteilt geblieben ist. Dies kann mit dem starren Arbeitsmarkt und dem Fehlen von tiefgreifenden Arbeitsmarktreformen erklärt werden. Frankreich demonstriert damit, dass auch "Nicht-Ereignisse" deutliche Auswirkungen auf Ungleichheit haben können: Das Festhalten an bestehenden Strukturen ging auf Kosten der jüngeren Generation, die deutlich höheren Arbeitsmarktrisiken ausgesetzt sind als ältere Individuen. Eine ausgeprägte und steigende Ungleichheit in Italien und Spanien finden wir im Einklang mit der Reformstrategie der "selektiven Flexibilisierung", auch in Italien und Spanien. Entsprechend kann die Entwicklung in Südeuropa als Dualisierung zwischen jungen Outsidern und älteren Insider bezeichnet werden

A scheme with two large extra dimensions confronted with neutrino physics

We investigate a particle physics model in a six-dimensional spacetime, where two extra dimensions form a torus. Particles with Standard Model charges are confined by interactions with a scalar field to four four-dimensional branes, two vortices accommodating ordinary type fermions and two antivortices accommodating mirror fermions. We investigate the phenomenological implications of this multibrane structure by confronting the model with neutrino physics data.Comment: LATEX, 24 pages, 9 figures, minor changes in the tex

Räume für lebenslanges Lernen

Vor dem Hintergrund der mit dem gesellschaftlichen Wandel und der demographischen Entwicklung einhergehenden Individualisierung von Bildungsbiographien kristallisierte sich – parallel zum Diversitätsdiskurs – in den letzten Jahrzehnten ein eigenständiges Konzept heraus, das auf das Lernen im Lebenslauf fokussiert. "Lifelong Learning" bzw. "lebenslanges Lernen" avancierte zum Gegenstand sowohl wissenschaftlicher Forschung als auch einer Vielzahl bildungspolitischer Programme. Mit der 2008 von der EUA verabschiedeten "Charter on Lifelong Learning" positionieren sich die europäischen Hochschulen zu diesem Thema und umreissen ein Spektrum möglicher Handlungsfelder, das weit über gängige Angebote wissenschaftlicher Weiterbildung hinausreicht. Der vorliegende Beitrag beleuchtet die Herausforderungen, denen sich die Universitäten in der Schweiz stellen müssen, um zum attraktiven Ort lebenslangen Lernens zu werden und bildungswilligen Menschen unterschiedlichen Alters sowie mit unterschiedlichen Voraussetzungen und Lebensentwürfen eine zeitgemässe Lernumgebung zu bieten. (DIPF/Orig.

The design and realization of synthetic pathways for the fixation of carbon dioxide in vitro

The fixation of inorganic carbon and the conversion to organic molecules is a prerequisite for life and the foundation of the carbon cycle on Earth. Since the industrial revolution, this carbon cycle has become inbalanced and consequently the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration is increasing and is a major cause of global warming. On the contrary, atmospheric CO2 can also be considered as an important carbon feedstock of the future. However, human society has not yet come up with a viable solution to convert this inorganic atmospheric CO2 back into reduced carbon compounds and is still relying on natural CO2 fixation. Nature has evolved multiple solutions to reduce CO2 and incorporate it into organic molecules. The involved pathways differ in their cofactor requirements and are often limited to anoxic conditions. Many attempts have been made to improve natural carbon fixation to a more energy efficient process, but showed little success. The emerging field of synthetic biology offers an alternative approach by designing novel pathways for the fixation of CO2. Although, several such artificial pathways have been designed, none of them have been realized so far. This reveals an existing gap between the design and the realization and implementation of such a synthetic CO2 fixation pathway. In this work we designed several synthetic oxygen-tolerant CO2 fixation pathways in a bottom-up approach, by freely combining enzymes from different biological sources. The pathways were designed around an efficient central carboxylase from the family of enoyl-CoA carboxylases/reductases. Some members of this family belong to the most efficient carboxylases known so far, do not accept oxygen as a substrate and only require the ubiquitous NADPH as co-substrate. The theoretical analysis of thermodynamic and energetic properties of the designed pathways for CO2 fixation also showed that they are comparable or even more energy efficient than naturally occurring oxygen-tolerant CO2-fixing pathways. We were able to realize two of these cycles in vitro and investigated their efficiencies for the fixation of inorganic CO2 into organic molecules. We established the Crotonyl-CoA/EThylmalonyl-CoA/Hydroxybutyryl-CoA (CETCH) and HydrOxyPropionyl-CoA/Acrylyl-CoA (HOPAC) cycle in vitro and their CO2 fixation efficiencies were increased in several rounds of optimization. In this process, we energized the systems by ATP- and NADPH-regeneration modules, applied the principle of metabolic proofreading to recycle undesired side products and engineered several enzymes to efficiently catalyze desired reactions. The CETCH cycle in its current version 5.4 is a reaction network of 17 enzymes originating from nine different organisms of all three domains of life. It converts CO2 into organic molecules at a rate of 5 nmol CO2 per minute and mg enzyme. In comparison, the HOPAC cycle in its current version 4.1 comprises 15 enzymes originating from eight different organisms. A stepwise incorporation of 13CO2 into the intermediates of both synthetic pathway confirmed a continuous operation for multiple rounds of conversion. During the development of the synthetic cycles for CO2 fixation, we solved a novel crystal structure of a key enzyme for both pathways, the methylsuccinyl-CoA dehydrogenase. This is a member of the well described family of flavin dependent acyl-CoA dehydrogenases. We elucidated the substrate specificity of the enzyme for (2S)-methylsuccinyl-CoA, which represents a complex substrate amongst the acyl-CoA dehydrogenase family. In summary, this study laid the foundation for the development of artificial pathways for the fixation of CO2 and narrow the gap between theoretical design of synthetic CO2 fixation pathways and their application in vivo. The CETCH and HOPAC cycle expands the solution space beyond the six naturally evolved CO2 fixation pathways by two man-made alternative that are thermodynamically more efficient than the CBB cycle of plants

It's not the economy, stupid! Explaining the electoral success of the German right-wing populist AfD

Right-wing populism is on the rise. Everywhere? Until recently, the resilience of the German party system to such a party has been an exception to this general trend. The establishment of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the wake of the Eurozone crisis put an end to this German exceptionalism. This paper tests the ‘losers of modernization’-thesis, one of the most dominant explanations for right-wing populist voting, for the case of the AfD. Based on district level data from the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development and official data on electoral outcomes, we examine whether the socio-economic characteristics of a district yield any explanatory power for the AfD’s electoral success in the federal elections of 2013 and the elections to the European Parliament in 2014. With this data, we avoid problems of representativeness and reliability of survey data with respect to socioeconomically marginalized groups and their voting behavior. Our findings suggest that the modernization thesis bears little relevance for the success of the populist right in Germany. By contrast, we find a strong correlation between the AfD’s electoral success and the success of radical right parties in previous elections in the same district. We explain this intriguing finding with a “tradition of radical right voting” and a specific political culture on which the AfD has been able to draw once the broader political and social context allowed for the creation of a right-wing populist party in Germany