From Politics to the Family: How Sex-Role Attitudes Keep on Diverging in Reunified Germany

What is the role of politics in shaping attitudes about appropriate roles for women in the family and the compatibility of work and motherhood? In this paper we argue that the German separation and later reunification produced a natural experiment to address this question. During the divided years, East German institutions encouraged high levels of full-time employment for women, including mothers. The West German system by contrast deterred women in general, and mothers in particular, from full-time employment. After reunification, family-related policies largely converged in the two Germanies. Against this background, we empirically investigate gender-role attitudes in reunified Germany. Our results show that East Germans are significantly more likely to hold egalitarian or nontraditional sex-role attitudes than West Germans. Despite a scenario of partial policy convergence, we also find evidence that the gap between East and West German gender role attitudes more than doubled in the years after reunification. We suggest that one explanation for this divergence could be found in the notion of social identity.political regimes, gender role attitudes

Surfing Alone? The Internet and Social Capital: Evidence from an Unforeseeable Technological Mistake

Does the Internet undermine social capital or facilitate inter-personal and civic engagement in the real world? Merging unique telecommunication data with geo-coded German individual-level data, we investigate how broadband Internet affects several dimensions of social capital. One identification strategy uses panel information to estimate value-added models. A second exploits a quasi-experiment in East Germany created by a mistaken technology choice of the state-owned telecommunication provider in the 1990s that still hinders broadband Internet access for many households. We find no evidence that the Internet reduces social capital. For some measures including children’s social activities, we even find significant positive effects.internet, social capital

The Impact of Continuous Training on a Firm’s Innovations

Keeping up with rapid technological change necessitates constant innovation. Successful innovation depends on both incumbent workers’ knowledge, based on experience, and knowledge about the latest technologies, along with the skills needed to implement them. Both of these knowledge-based elements of innovation can be attained through moderate labor force turnover in combination with continuous training. Based on German micro data, we find empirical evidence in support of training leading to innovation within a multivariate regression framework. However, when instrumenting training by the existence of a union’s contract or a works council this impact disappears.innovation, training, unions, works councils

Can Competition Spoil Reciprocity? - A Laboratory Experiment

This paper investigates how group membership and competition among trustors interact with trust and trustworthiness in a laboratory one-shot trust game. To analyze these effects, we apply a 2x2 design. We induce group membership by letting subjects play coordination games with clear focal points, leading to higher investments and trustworthiness. Introducing competition leads to a decrease in trustworthiness, especially among partners. We argue that once competition comes into play, trustees perceive trustors’ investments as the outcomes of a competitive bidding process rather than good intentions, which reduces reciprocity.trust, reciprocity, investment game, group membership, competition

Surfing Alone? The Internet and Social Capital: Evidence from an Unforeseen Technological Mistake

Does the Internet undermine social capital or facilitate inter-personal and civic engagement in the real world? Merging unique telecommunication data with geo-coded German individual-level data, we investigate how broadband Internet affects several dimensions of social capital. One identification strategy uses panel information to estimate value-added models. A second exploits a quasi-experiment in East Germany created by a mistaken technology choice of the state-owned telecommunication provider in the 1990s that still hinders broadband Internet access for many households. We find no evidence that the Internet reduces social capital. For some measuresincluding children's social activities, we even find significant positive effects.Internet, social capital

Staatlicher Mindestlohn – Musterfall eines Mangels an Aufklärung über die Ökonomik sozialer Politik

Mindestlohn, Niedriglohn, Arbeitsplatz, Beschäftigungseffekt, Schwarzarbeit, Schattenwirtschaft, Ordnungspolitik, Arbeitslosigkeit, Arbeitsmarkt, Reform, Dumping, Arbeitnehmer, Armut, Humankapital, Arbeitsangebot, Sozialstaat, Deutschland

Schadet Internetnutzung dem Sozialkapital?

Oft wird unterstellt, dass die intensive Nutzung des Internets die Menschen in der realen Welt zu kontaktarmen Sonderlingen macht. Auf Vertrauen basierende Kontakte erleichtern aber in vielerlei Hinsicht den Austausch zwischen Individuen und haben daher greifbare ökonomische Konsequenzen. Ein Forschungsprojekt des ifo Instituts, das erstmals systematisch der Frage nachging, inwieweit das Internet individuelle Kontakte – Sozialkapital – beeinflusst, zeigt, dass das Internet Menschen verbindet. Das Vorhandensein eines DSL-Anschlusses im Haushalt wirkt sich positiv auf verschiedene sozialkapitalrelevante Variablen aus, wie die Regelmäßigkeit des Besuchs von Theater, Ausstellungen, Kino, Konzerten, Bars, Restaurants und Sportveranstaltungen, die Anzahl der Freunde, ehrenamtliche Tätigkeiten und Politisches Engagement. Das Internet hat einen ursächlichen positiven Effekt auf das Sozialkapital der Menschen.Internet, Social Capital, Netzwerk, Medienverhalten, Deutschland

Mandatory Sick Pay Provision: A Labor Market Experiment

Sick-pay is a common provision in labor contracts. It insures workers against a sudden loss of income due to unexpected absences and helps them smooth consumption. Therefore, many governments find sick-pay socially desirable and choose to mandate its provision. But sick-pay is not without its problems. Not only it suffers from moral hazard but more importantly it is subject to a potentially serious adverse selection problem (higher sick-pay attracts sicker workers). In this paper we report results of an experiment which inquires to the extend and the severity of the adverse selection when sick-pay is voluntary versus when it is mandatory. Theoretically, mandating sick-pay may be effective in diminishing adverse selection. However, our data provide clean evidence that counteracting effects are more salient. Mandatory sick pay exacerbates moral hazard problems by changing fairness perceptions and, as a consequence, increases sick pay provision far above the mandatory levels

Why Are Educated and Risk-Loving Persons More Mobile Across Regions?

Why are better educated and more risk-friendly persons more mobile across regions? To answer this question, we use micro data on internal migrants from the German Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP) 2000-2006 and merge this information with a unique proxy for region-pair-specific cultural distances across German regions constructed from historical local dialect patterns. Our findings indicate that risk-loving and skilled people are more mobile over longer distances because they are more willing to cross cultural boundaries and move to regions that are culturally different from their homes. Other types of distance-related migration costs cannot explain the lower distance sensitivity of educated and risk-loving individuals

Symposium: Homo Digitalis – Zerrüttet das Internet unsere Gesellschaft? brKein Grund für Innovationsfeindlichkeit und Kulturpessimismus: Das Internet erodiert nicht die Grundlagen unserer Gesellschaft

Alleine mit Computer und Handy im Internet surfen – sieht so der Alltag in der digitalen Gesellschaft aus? Das ifo Institut und die Initiative D21 untersuchten, wie das Internet unser gesellschaftliches Leben beeinflusst. Im Rahmen der Veranstaltung »Homo Digitalis – Zerrüttet das Internet unsere Gesellschaft«, die am 26. Mai 2011 in Berlin stattfand, wurden aktuelle Studienergebnisse vorgestellt und von einem prominent besetzten Panel diskutiert. Hannes Schwaderer, Präsident Initiative D21 e.V., Geschäftsführer Intel GmbH, unterstrich vor allem das große Potenzial der digitalen Medien für die Gesellschaft und den Wirtschaftsstandort Deutschland. Ludger Wößmann, ifo Institut und Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Oliver Falck und Stefan Bauernschuster, ifo Institut, sahen keinen Grund für Innovationsfeindlichkeit und Kulturpessimismus. Das Internet erodiere nicht die Grundlagen unserer Gesellschaft. Im Gegenteil: Das Internet zu Hause beeinflusse die sozialen Aktivitäten von Kindern und Jugendlichen im Durchschnitt positiv.