@phdthesis{PhillipsWilliams, author = {Phillips Williams, Zoe}, title = {Risky Business or Risky Politics: What Explains Investor-State Disputes?}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-23690}, school = {Hertie School}, abstract = {Although not a clear cut question of treaty compliance, this project takes as its theoretical point of departure two potentially opposing explanations for state compliance with international agreements, and asks whether investor-state disputes are better explained by shifting state preferences toward FDI (or a particular investment), or the lack of state capacity to maintain an investment-friendly environment. The project is structured around three sub-research questions: 1) which domestic institutions are taking the measures that are subsequently challenged by investors? What is the content of these measures? Against investors in which industries are these measures being taken? 2) Under what economic and political conditions are investor-state arbitration cases most likely to occur?3) Are these changes in policy toward investment the outcome of a shift in preferences on the part of state actors toward investment, or are they instead the result of a lack of institutional capacity to respect IIAs? This project adopts a mixed-methods approach to the research question, with empirical chapters based on the qualitative coding of an original dataset of investor-state disputes; a regression analysis, and three case studies of specific disputes in Canada, El Salvador, and Hungary. Therefore, this project paints a general picture of investor-state disputes not as the result of a failure of bureaucratic capacity, but as incidences in which (private) transnational actor preferences truly conflict with those of domestic actors, and in which the state chooses its obligation to the latter rather than the former. If we accept that investor-state arbitration has the potential to impose significant costs on states, it is important when either justifying or criticising the regime to have an understanding of for which policy measures, and at whose behest, states are incurring these costs. These findings in turn have relevance for those who wish to improve investor-state relations and avoid investor-state disputes, as well as attempts to reform the investment arbitration system.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Westermaier, author = {Westermaier, Franz}, title = {Essays in microeconomics with applications in education, health and crime}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b1570-opus4-22864}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {VII, 105}, abstract = {(...) Simple changes in an institutional framework can have huge impacts for the human society which makes it important to analyze them and define their consequences to create a surplus for the society. In the following dissertation, I present applications how policy regulations and external events generate behavioral responses with a focus on indirect effects, e.g. from health on education and education on crime. All chapters, while not exclusively, follow an empirical approach and show effects in important fields of human society. Beyond the research methods from microeconomics, this dissertation tackles the field of health, early childhood development, secondary education, adolescent drug-abuse and law enforcement. Several identification strategies are used to cope with endogeneity and deliver causal effects between the fields of education, health and crime.(...)}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Meijers, author = {Meijers, Maurits J.}, title = {Contagious Euroscepticism. The Impact of Eurosceptic Challenger Parties on Mainstream Party Attitudes toward European Integration}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-2289}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {261}, abstract = {This project argues that Eurosceptic challenger parties can affect mainstream parties' attitudes toward European integration in Western Europe. Defined as anti-European parties without governing experience, Eurosceptic challengers have become a pervasive electoral phenomenon. On the backdrop of both spatial theory and issue saliency theory of party competition, this project argues that Eurosceptic challenger parties can influence mainstream parties' positions on as well as emphasis of the European integration issue. After comparative overview of party-based Euroscepticism, a historical and descriptive quantitative analysis of mainstream EU positions and EU issue salience demonstrates that mainstream party attitudes vary significantly over time - an important precondition for Eurosceptic challengers' programmatic influence.(...)}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{vonSchiller, author = {von Schiller, Armin}, title = {The importance of consent : the politics of progressive taxation in developing countries}, doi = {10.48462/opus4-2291}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {XV, 192}, abstract = {Developing countries are far more successful in increasing tax pressure on the poor than on the wealthy. To explain this difference, I argue that taxing the wealthy is more prominently a problem of credibility than of coercion. The poor can be forced to pay taxes. Given weak administrative capacities and de facto political power distributions, governments in many developing countries cannot force the wealthy to the same degree. In this line, I examine the conditions under which wealthy taxpayers consent to taxation in developing countries from different methodological angles. The second chapter analyses the Peruvian and the Colombian tax history between 1970 and 2010 using a comparative case study framework. The analysis provides evidence suggesting that stable party systems and strong business organizations increase the capacity of collective action between political actors and wealthy taxpayers. Thereby these factors also enable the definition of fiscal contracts involving higher tax contributions by the latter group. The third chapter examines the effect of institutional trust on the support for progressive taxation using public opinion data from the Latin American Opinion Project (LAPOP). The results show that trust in political institutions strongly mitigates the opposition of wealthy taxpayers to progressive taxation. The fourth chapter four uses panel data for over 90 countries to explore the relationship between party system institutionalisation and reliance on the personal income tax. The analysis indicates that administrative capacity mitigates the effect of party system institutionalization: where the level of administrative capacity is low, party system institutionalisation has a positive and highly significant effect. At high levels of administrative capacity this effect disappears. Overall, the findings support the notion that especially in developing countries taxing the wealthy is best understood as a political challenge. The good news is that contrary to what is commonly assumed, wealthy taxpayers are not a priori opposed to higher taxes on them. There is scope for wealthy taxpayers to support taxation but this demands reliable political and institutional systems that are able to credibly commit to not misusing the tax contributions. The analysis has major implications for development cooperation active in this field as it demands that the approaches employed balance better the technical and the political dimensions of taxation.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Tiefensee, author = {Tiefensee, Anita}, title = {Wealth and Inheritances in Europe}, school = {Hertie School}, pages = {XIII, 139}, abstract = {The knowledge of the distribution of assets and liabilities as well as the key determinants of the distributions of private wealth represent an important basis for decision-making for social and political action like levying taxes. In the three papers, which make up this dissertation, I contribute to these aspects for several European countries. In the first paper (with M.M. Grabka) the data quality of the Household Finance and Consump-tion Survey (HFCS) is investigated. The survey provides information and enables comparison of assets and liabilities held by households in the Euro area. We investigate potential methodo-logical constraints regarding cross-country comparability and evaluate their impact on the surveyed net wealth (assets minus liabilities). In addition, we investigate item non-response patterns, a serious issue in wealth surveys. We find that the surveyed net wealth in Finland, the Netherlands, Italy and Slovakia is most likely not comparable with the other countries.(...)}, language = {en} }