The Accuracy of Job Seekers' Wage Expectations

Job seekers' misperceptions about the labor market can distort their decision-making and increase the risk of long-term unemployment. Our study establishes objective benchmarks for the subjective wage expectations of unemployed workers. This enables us to provide novel insights into the accuracy of job seekers' wage expectations. First, especially workers with low objective earnings potential tend to display excessively optimistic beliefs about their future wages and anchor their wage expectations too strongly to their pre-unemployment wages. Second, among long-term unemployed workers, overoptimism remains persistent throughout the unemployment spell. Third, higher extrinsic incentives to search more intensively lead job seekers to hold more optimistic wage expectations, yet this does not translate into higher realized wages for them. Lastly, we document a connection between overoptimistic wage expectations and job seekers' tendency to overestimate their reemployment chances. We discuss the role of information frictions and motivated beliefs as potential sources of job seekers' optimism and the heterogeneity in their beliefs

Evaluation der berufsbezogenen Deutschsprachförderung nach § 45a AufenthG: Abschlussbericht

Die berufsbezogene Deutschsprachförderung gemäß §45a des Aufenthaltsgesetzes ist seit 2016 ein Regelinstrument, dessen Ziel der Erwerb berufsbezogener deutscher Sprachkenntnisse durch Zugewanderte ist. Die Evaluation untersucht, ob die Ziele der berufsbezogenen Deutschsprachförderung erreicht werden, wie sich die berufsbezogene Deutschsprachförderung im Speziellen auf die Arbeitsmarktintegration der Teilnehmenden auswirkt, welche Zielgruppen besonders von ihr profitieren, welche Faktoren die Wirkungen der berufsbezogenen Deutschsprachförderung fördern oder hemmen und welche Empfehlungen sich aus den Ergebnisse der Untersuchung ableiten lassen.Since 2016, German language courses for professional purposes in accordance with §45a of the German Residence Act have been a regular instrument in German integration policy. The goal of these courses is the acquisition of job-related German language skills by immigrants. The evaluation examines whether the goals of job-related German language training are achieved, how job-related German language training affect the labour market integration of participants, which target groups particularly benefit from it, which factors promote or inhibit the effects of job-related German language training and which recommendations can be derived from the results of the study

High throughput screening for discovery of materials that control stem cell fate

Insights into the complex stem cell niche have identified the cell–material interface to be a potent regulator of stem cell fate via material properties such as chemistry, topography and stiffness. In light of this, materials scientists have the opportunity to develop bioactive materials for stem cell culture that elicit specific cellular responses. To accelerate materials discovery, high throughput screening platforms have been designed which can rapidly evaluate combinatorial material libraries in two and three-dimensional environments. In this review, we present screening platforms for the discovery of material properties that influence stem cell behavior

Cervical lymph node metastasis in adenoid cystic carcinoma of the larynx: a collective international review

Adenoid cystic carcinoma (AdCC) of the head and neck is a well-recognized pathologic entity that rarely occurs in the larynx. Although the 5-year locoregional control rates are high, distant metastasis has a tendency to appear more than 5 years post treatment. Because AdCC of the larynx is uncommon, it is difficult to standardize a treatment protocol. One of the controversial points is the decision whether or not to perform an elective neck dissection on these patients. Because there is contradictory information about this issue, we have critically reviewed the literature from 1912 to 2015 on all reported cases of AdCC of the larynx in order to clarify this issue. During the most recent period of our review (1991-2015) with a more exact diagnosis of the tumor histology, 142 cases were observed of AdCC of the larynx, of which 91 patients had data pertaining to lymph node status. Eleven of the 91 patients (12.1%) had nodal metastasis and, based on this low proportion of patients, routine elective neck dissection is therefore not recommended