Apprenticeship Training in Germany – Investment or Productivity Driven?

The German dual apprenticeship system came under pressure in recent years because enterprises were not willing to offer a sufficient number of apprenticeship positions. A frequently made argument is that the gap could be closed if more firms would be willing to incur net costs during the training period. This paper investigates for the first time whether German enterprises on average indeed incur net costs during the apprenticeship period, i.e. if the impact of an increase in the share of apprentices on contemporary profits is negative. The paper uses the representative linked employer-employee panel data of the IAB (LIAB) and takes into account possible endogeneity of training intensity and unobserved heterogeneity in the profit estimation by employing panel system GMM methods. An increase in the share of apprentices has no effect on profits. This can be interpreted as a first indication that most establishments in Germany do not invest more in apprentices than their productivity effects during the apprenticeship period

Chiroptical properties of 12,15-dichloro[3.0]orthometacyclophane - correlations between molecular structure and circular dichroism spectra of a biphenylophane

The valence excited electronic states and the circular dichroism (CD) spectra of the recently synthesized 12,15-dichloro[3.0]orthometacyclophane 1 are discussed by means of quantum chemical calculations which combine density functional theory with the single-excitation configuration interaction approach (DFT/SCI). The X-ray structure of this highly strained biphenylophane is presented. In order to investigate the influence of the cyclophane-type distortions on the CD spectrum of 1, the CD spectra of three model geometries (2a-2c) are also calculated. It appears that the CD spectrum of the biphenylophane 1 differs substantially from that of the corresponding unstrained biphenyl 2c. Furthermore, it is found that the pyramidalization of the bridging atoms of the cyclophane ring is an important factor for the red shift of the first band with respect to that of an unstrained benzene chromophore