German Direct Investments in the Czech Republic - Effects on Domestic Labor Markets

The economic integration of markets induces a broad variety of new conditions and opportunities for economic units. Multinational enterprises are key players in this regard. The increasing liberalization of trade and capital flows facilitates entries into foreign markets and international fragmentation of production processes. The effects of foreign direct investments (FDI) have yet to be fully investigated. The empirical literature on this subject conducted so far refers to selective databases, which underrepresent small and medium-sized parent companies and/or affiliates. This doctoral thesis makes an important contribution to the closure of gaps in the literature on labor market effects of FDI. Part of this dissertation is the establishment of a unique database that covers the total population of German affiliates in the Czech Republic and the corresponding parent companies. By developing a new method for linking firm-level data with the plant-level data of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), this database is linked with the data of the Federal Employment Agency. Therefore, it permits reliable conclusions to be drawn regarding the impact of FDI in this specific case. As the exact dates of the investments in the Czech Republic are known, the employment trend of German firms with Czech affiliates and firms without FDI is compared to evaluate the effects on the German workforce. Moreover, this thesis provides profound insights into the types of FDI and the location of German parent companies and their Czech affiliates, which reveals new findings on cross-border firm linkages and the role of border regions

Single SiGe Quantum Dot Emission Deterministically Enhanced in a High-Q Photonic Crystal Resonator

We report the resonantly enhanced radiative emission from a single SiGe quantum dot (QD), which is deterministically embedded into a bichromatic photonic crystal resonator (PhCR) at the position of its largest modal electric field by a scalable method. By optimizing our molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth technique, we were able to reduce the amount of Ge within the whole resonator to obtain an absolute minimum of exactly one QD, accurately positioned by lithographic methods relative to the PhCR, and an otherwise flat, a few monolayer thin, Ge wetting layer (WL). With this method, record quality (Q) factors for QD-loaded PhCRs up to $Q\sim 10^5$ are achieved. A comparison with control PhCRs on samples containing a WL but no QDs is presented, as well as a detailed analysis of the dependence of the resonator-coupled emission on temperature, excitation intensity, and emission decay after pulsed excitation. Our findings undoubtedly confirm a single QD in the center of the resonator as a potentially novel photon source in the telecom spectral range

Themata de missione in possessionem ex primo et secundo decreto

quae ... pro summo gradu in utroque iure honoribus & privilegiis doctoralibus consequendis publice disputanda proponit Ioannes Schäfflerus Bavarus Wolfferzusius, ad diem Octobr. anno post salutem reparatam MDCXVII.Druckjahr nach Datum auf dem TitelblattDatum hs. ergänzt: ad diem 31. Octobr.Enth. 95 ThesenDiss. iur. Basel, 161

Regional determinants of German FDI in the Czech Republic: new evidence on the role of border regions

<p>Regional determinants of German FDI in the Czech Republic: new evidence on the role of border regions. <i>Regional Studies</i>. Using a unique dataset, the regional distribution of German multinationals and their Czech affiliates is analysed. The investigation focuses on locational factors for joint foreign direct investment (FDI) projects that can only be revealed by taking a home-host country perspective. A light is shed on the strong position of the common border region and its asymmetric interconnectedness. While the Czech border region constitutes an attractive target area for investors from all over Germany, multinational firms in the German border region show a significant preference to invest in Czech regions close by, but not so in the non-border regions in the neighbouring country.</p

Unit nonresponse at the firm level: a cross-border analysis using the IAB-ReLOC data

Abstract The labour market effects of foreign direct investments (FDI) are a topic of constant interest. However, research progress is hindered as most datasets applied in research on this topic suffer from selectivity with respect to firm size. To overcome this deficiency a unique dataset that covers the total population of German firms with FDI in the Czech Republic and their Czech affiliates has been created: the IAB-ReLOC data. Based on this dataset, two points of high relevance are addressed in this paper. First, by presenting the generation process of this unique dataset the paper wants to provide guidance for similar cross-border data compilation projects and for researchers working with the data. Second, new insights on unit nonresponse in a firm-level survey are revealed. Based on multi-level logit models, the influence of firm and interviewer characteristics and of FDI features on survey participation is analysed. The main result is that apart from firm size and interviewer involvement, the response behaviour is related to the distance to the German-Czech border and to the strength of the cross-border relationship. What concerns the two latter characteristics, differences between German and Czech firms are identified

A Service of zbw Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Regional determinants of German FDI in the Czech Republic: Evidence from a gravity model approach Regional Determinants of German FDI in the Czech Republic Ev

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Developing a novel bioacoustic monitoring for Garden Dormice using passive sound recorders and machine learning

One of the challenges of small mammal conservation is to be able to find the target species in the field. This is especially true for small nocturnal hibernators like dormice. Passive bioacoustic monitoring, as a non-invasive method, can be a useful tool to more efficiently find vocalizing animals in the field. However, bioacoustic methods produce a large amount of data, of which the manual analysis is highly time consuming. Therefore, there is need for an automatized process for identifying animal vocalization in acoustic data. Two types of recorders, audiomoths and BAR-LT recorders, were installed at a total of 10 locations of known Garden Dormouse (Eliomys quercinus) activity in Germany and were left recording in the field from June to September, producing a total of 3.54 TB of data. Based on our own and volunteers’ observations, Garden Dormouse vocalizations were manually identified in a subset of the sound files produced. These vocalizations, as well as ambient sound samples, were labelled and extracted to train a TensorFlow model, which was then tested on new subsets of the complete dataset. Comparing sound quality and acquisition costs of the two recorder types shows the potential for large-scale monitoring applications using the less expensive and open source audiomoth. Next steps include a time analysis of Garden Dormouse calls to find out when they are vocally more active during the study period. Such knowledge can help narrow the temporal scale of future bioacoustic studies on this species