Das China des Carl Gützlaff

Analysiert wird der 1. Opiumkrieg zwischen Großbritannien und China. Das zeitgenössische Chinabild wird anhand von Darstellungen in deutschsprachigen Zeitungen mittels Textanalyse hinterfragt. Es wird die Frage behandelt, warum die Droge in China eine beispiellose Verbreitung fand, und welche Rolle dabei der deutsche Freimissionar Carl Gützlaff spielte.The first opiumwar between Great Britain and China is being analysed. The contemporary image of China is described according to German newspaper presentations and critically examined via text analyses. The paper deals with the question why drugs were able to spread tremendously in China and which role the protestant German missionary Carl Gützlaff played in this process

Social Spending Generosity and Income Inequality: A Dynamic Panel Approach

This paper explores if more generous social spending polices in fact lead to less income inequality, or if redistributive outcomes are offset by behavioral disincentive effects. To account for the inherent endogeneity of social policies with regard to inequality levels, I apply the System GMM estimator and use the presumably random incidence of certain diseases as instruments for social spending levels. The regression results suggest that more social spending effectively reduces inequality levels. The result is robust with respect to the instrument count and different data restrictions. Looking at the structure of benefits, particularly unemployment benefits and public pensions are responsible for the inequality reducing impact. More targeted benefits, however, do not significantly redue income inequality. Rather, their positive effect on pregovernment income inequality hints at substantial disinctive effects

Parental Leave Policies and Child Care Time in Couples after Childbirth

This research explores how different parental leave reforms in West Germany impacted on the time mothers and fathers in couples spent on child care. I investigate indirect effects through mothers' labor market return decisions more in detail than previous studies and also examine potential direct associations of reforms of the leave period and benefits with maternal and paternal care time. The analysis uses multilevel multiprocess models for 1299 couples with a first or second birth based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2009). I estimate simultaneously the timing and extent of mothers' labor market return, selection into childbearing, and maternal and paternal child care time over the years following a first or second birth. The findings suggest that the extensions of the maximum period of low-paid or unpaid leave between 1986 and 1992 and the introduction of shorter well-paid leave and two 'daddy months' in 2007 indirectly affected maternal and paternal child care through changes in mothers' work return decisions. Even after controlling for these indirect effects and fathers' take-up of leave, the parental leave extensions were directly associated with longer maternal care time on weekdays, whereas father involvement in child care increased after the 2007 reform