Die aktuellen Reformen der Sozialleistungen

Mit den im Zuge der Umsetzung der Agenda 2010 initiierten Reformen ist das Ziel verbunden, der Kostenexplosion einer sich über die Jahre zunehmend fehl entwickelnden und zum Teil falsch verstandenen Sozialstaatlichkeit Einhalt zu gebieten und damit einen Kollaps der Sozialsysteme zu verhindern. Welche Veränderungen stehen bei den Sozialleistungen zum 1. Januar 2005 konkret an? Wie sind diese volkswirtschaftlich zu beurteilen, und welche Beschäftigungseffekte sind zu erwarten? --

Customs compliance and the power of imagination

This paper studies the role of beliefs about own performance or appearance for compliance at the customs. In an experiment in which underreporting has a higher expected payoff than truthful reporting we find: a large share, about 15-20 percent of the subjects, is more compliant if they have reason to imagine that their performance influences their subjective audit probability. In contrast, we do not find evidence for individuals who believe that by their personal performance they can reduce the subjective probability for an audit. Our results suggest that the power of imagination, i.e. the role of second-order beliefs in the process of customs declarations is important and may potentially be used to improve customs and tax compliance. --Customs,tax compliance,audit probability,second-order beliefs

Self-Insurance and Self-Protection as Public Goods

Many public goods like lighthouses and fire departments do not provide direct utility but act as insurance devices against shipwreck and destruction. They either diminish the size and/or the probability of the loss. We extend the public good model with this insurance aspect and generalize Samuelson?s efficient allocation rule when self-insurance and self-protection expenditures are pure public goods. Some comparative static results with respect to changes in income and risk behavior are derived. We analyze the interaction of private market insurance with the public good level, both for efficient provision and for private provision equilibria. The privately provided levels of self- insurance and self-protection decrease when market insurance is available, which suggests that the state should invest more in preventing not insurable risks like wars. Additionally, the state should focus on self-protection expenditures if those are better observable than private self-protection effort. --Self-insurance,self-protection,efficient provision of public goods,private provision of public goods,market insurance

Customs Compliance and the Power of Imagination

This paper studies the role of beliefs about own performance or appearance for compliance at the customs. In an experiment in which underreporting has a higher expected payoff than truthful reporting we find: a large share, about 15-20 percent of the subjects, is more compliant if they have reason to imagine that their performance influences their subjective audit probability. In contrast, we do not find evidence for individuals who believe that by their personal performance they can reduce the subjective probability for an audit. Our results suggest that the power of imagination, i.e. the role of second-order beliefs in the process of customs declarations is important and may potentially be used to improve customs and tax compliance.customs, tax compliance, audit probability, second-order beliefs

Investments in the human capital of the socially disadvantaged children: Effects on redistribution

Recently, early investments in the human capital of children from socially disadvantaged environments have attracted a great deal of attention. Programs of such early intervention, aiming at children's health and well-being, are spreading considerably in the U.S. and are currently tested in several European countries. In a discrete version of the Mirrlees model with a parents' and a children's generation we show the intra-generational and the inter-generational redistributional consequences of such intervention programs. It turns out that the parents' generation always loses when such intervention programs are implemented. Among the children's generation it is the rich who always benefit. Despite the expectation that early intervention puts the poor descendants in a better position, our analysis reveals that the poor among the children's generation may even be worse off if the effect of early intervention on their productivity is not large enough. --Early Intervention,welfare,redistribution,taxation

Virtuelle Eingliederungsarbeitsmärkte: Ein Weg aus der Arbeitslosigkeitsfalle

Die große Koalition in Berlin sieht sich gewaltigen Herausforderungen auf dem Gebiet des Arbeitsmarktes und der Sozialpolitik gegenüber. Entgegen allen Hoffnungen und Anstrengungen verharrt die Unterbeschäftigung weiter auf hohem Niveau. Inwiefern geraten Arbeitslose in die Arbeitslosigkeitsfalle? Wie könnte der Arbeitsmarkt für Geringqualifizierte besser organisiert werden? --

Probing Convolutional Neural Networks for Event Reconstruction in {\gamma}-Ray Astronomy with Cherenkov Telescopes

A dramatic progress in the field of computer vision has been made in recent years by applying deep learning techniques. State-of-the-art performance in image recognition is thereby reached with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). CNNs are a powerful class of artificial neural networks, characterized by requiring fewer connections and free parameters than traditional neural networks and exploiting spatial symmetries in the input data. Moreover, CNNs have the ability to automatically extract general characteristic features from data sets and create abstract data representations which can perform very robust predictions. This suggests that experiments using Cherenkov telescopes could harness these powerful machine learning algorithms to improve the analysis of particle-induced air-showers, where the properties of primary shower particles are reconstructed from shower images recorded by the telescopes. In this work, we present initial results of a CNN-based analysis for background rejection and shower reconstruction, utilizing simulation data from the H.E.S.S. experiment. We concentrate on supervised training methods and outline the influence of image sampling on the performance of the CNN-model predictions.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of the 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2017), Busan, Kore

Optimal Taylor-Couette flow: Radius ratio dependence

Taylor-Couette flow with independently rotating inner (i) and outer (o) cylinders is explored numerically and experimentally to determine the effects of the radius ratio {\eta} on the system response. Numerical simulations reach Reynolds numbers of up to Re_i=9.5 x 10^3 and Re_o=5x10^3, corresponding to Taylor numbers of up to Ta=10^8 for four different radius ratios {\eta}=r_i/r_o between 0.5 and 0.909. The experiments, performed in the Twente Turbulent Taylor-Couette (T^3C) setup, reach Reynolds numbers of up to Re_i=2x10^6$ and Re_o=1.5x10^6, corresponding to Ta=5x10^{12} for {\eta}=0.714-0.909. Effective scaling laws for the torque J^{\omega}(Ta) are found, which for sufficiently large driving Ta are independent of the radius ratio {\eta}. As previously reported for {\eta}=0.714, optimum transport at a non-zero Rossby number Ro=r_i|{\omega}_i-{\omega}_o|/[2(r_o-r_i){\omega}_o] is found in both experiments and numerics. Ro_opt is found to depend on the radius ratio and the driving of the system. At a driving in the range between {Ta\sim3\cdot10^8} and {Ta\sim10^{10}}, Ro_opt saturates to an asymptotic {\eta}-dependent value. Theoretical predictions for the asymptotic value of Ro_{opt} are compared to the experimental results, and found to differ notably. Furthermore, the local angular velocity profiles from experiments and numerics are compared, and a link between a flat bulk profile and optimum transport for all radius ratios is reported.Comment: Submitted to JFM, 28 pages, 17 figure

Who cares when Value (Mis)reporting May Be Found Out? An Acquiring-a-Company Experiment with Value Messages and Information Leaks

We modify the Acquiring-a-Company game to study how information leaks affect lying and market outcomes in an ultimatum bargaining setting with asymmetric information. Privately informed sellers send messages about the alleged value of their company to potential buyers. Via random leaks buyers, however, can learn the true value before proposing a price which the seller finally accepts or not. Only 14.5% of the messages are truthful, whereas two-thirds of all sellers exaggerate the company’s value to persuade buyers to offer more, especially when the true value is small. Although a higher leak probability does not reduce the frequency of misreporting, it weakens overreporting and strengthens underreporting. Buyers who found out value misreporting anchor their price proposals on the true value but do not explicitly discriminate against liars. Sellers are mainly opportunistic and make their acceptances dependent on the resulting positive payoff. Even if ethical concerns do not seem to matter much, probabilistic leaks are welfare enhancing