Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School
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06/2017
One of the most prominent policy instruments currently put forward in a variety of climate change-related initiatives are ‘regional index insurance instruments’. These instruments are generically designed to protect states from a region from the economic consequences of natural disasters and allow quick access to capital in the case of a major catastrophe. What unites these insurances is that it is not the actual financial loss which triggers a payment, as in more traditional forms of insurance, but the occurrence of a pre-defined weather event (e.g. hurricane, drought, tsunami). The performance of one a pool of variables is thereby used as a proxy for the actual loss. Another characteristic is that the provision of the insurance cover is often supported through financial market instruments such as weather derivatives, catastrophe bonds or catastrophe swaps. That means, financial market investors operate as ‘insurer of last resort’. (...)
05/2017
The main aim of this dissertation is to explore how public professionals‘ risk behaviours affect the management of innovation processes. It addresses a gap in the literature because although risk is inseparable form innovation processes, there is very little literature focusing directly on the question of how risk affects innovation in the public sector context. The dissertation analyses this question in three main chapters:
Chapter 2 asks ‗what types of risk do innovation managers perceive?‘ Through a qualitative analysis of interviews with ‗innovation managers‘ in Copenhagen municipality, the chapter finds that public managers and professionals working on public service innovation perceive different types of risk related to innovation depending on their position in the administrative hierarchy and on their proximity to service users. The analysis also showed that there is hardly any communication across hierarchical levels or policy divisions about risk. This can lead to intra-organisational conflicts that block innovation processes, and to blind spots in attempts to manage the risks of innovation.
Chapter 3 focuses on whether blame and credit expectations impact support for innovation. This question is examined through a quasi-experimental research design consisting of an ‗experimental vignette survey‘ where respondents were assigned to different treatment groups and the effect of being promised blame or credit for innovation outcomes was analysed. The findings show that contrary to common expectations, how much respondents thought the innovation was beneficial was a much stronger predictor of whether they would support it than the expectation of blame or credit. At the very least, this questions the assumption that blame aversion is a primary behavioural barrier to innovation.(...)
04/2017
Democracy is discussed in the comparative empirical literature as an important determinant of corruption. Several studies show that not only are democracies less corrupt than authoritarian regimes, but also that there is great variation in corruption levels across democratic regimes. This dissertation is concerned with examining the reasons behind this pattern. It begins by arguing that the study of democracy’s impact on corruption requires a stronger focus on the causal mechanisms linking these two phenomena. Based on a review of causal arguments raised in the literature, a discussion of different dimensions of accountability–electoral, social and horizontal–is introduced as a useful framework for this purpose.
This sets the ground for the two main empirical contributions of the dissertation. In both cases, the study relies on original corruption data collected from over 600 audit reports on municipalities randomly selected through a federal audit program implemented in Brazil. First, a panel data set with 130 municipalities that have faced multiple audits between 2003 and 2013 is used to examine whether those three dimensions of accountability exert a deterrent effect on corruption over time. Second, a cross-section of 383 municipalities is the basis for analyzing the factors explaining when accountability effectively occurs, focusing on conditioning factors of electoral accountability against corrupt politicians.(...)
03/2017
What drives a systematic human rights management? : a multi-method study of large German companies
(2017)
Under which conditions do multinational enterprises systematically manage human rights risks with a view to preventing human rights abuses across their operations? Using a multi-method research design combining qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)and process tracing case studies (PT-CS), this study of the 30 largest German companies finds that it is neither institutional forces nor stakeholder pressures alone, but their combined effect that leads to a systematic human rights management at the firm-level: That is, stakeholders (e.g. NGOs) as more proximate actors act on and transmit existing institutional pressures (e.g. social expectations) to firms, while institutions provide stakeholders with the legitimacy necessary to successfully influence corporate behaviour. This conjunctional effect implies that a systematic approach to human rights is more likely to be found among firms with consumer proximity. Why? It is a firm’s position in the value chain that determines the concrete configuration of institutional and stakeholder pressures for a company: Downstream the value chain in the B2C business, where institutional and stakeholder pressures are generally high due to greater public exposure, most companies systematically address human rights issues: These B2C firms are exposed to an institutional environment, where firms are not only socialised into newly-emerging CSR-topics like human rights through institutional learning in CSR initiatives like the UNGC, but also constantly monitored by civil society actors like NGOs whether they walk the talk (i.e. 1st path to a systematic human rights management). (...)
02/2017
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.(...)
01/2017
Direct democracy, an addition to representative democracy allowing citizens to directly vote on substantive issues parliaments usually vote on, has an intuitive appeal in appearing to be the most obvious institutionalization of democracy itself. Increased institutionalization and usage of direct democracy has heightened interest in the topic in political science. In the three papers which make up this dissertation I explore different aspects of the political effects of direct democracy with an aim to provide insights how it affects citizens' representation as well as their behavior and attitudes.
In a first paper I test the claim that referendums are unrepresentative because turnout in referendums is usually lower than in parliamentary elections and tends to be skewed towards citizens of high socio-economic status. The analysis is made possible by a unique feature of Swiss post-referendum surveys which also asked non-voters about their opinion on the referendum's subject. Comparing opinion majorities in the surveys against actual referendum outcomes we show that representativeness increases slightly in turnout as well as over time. On balance we find more representative than unrepresentative outcomes implying that direct democracy, at least in Switzerland, seems to improve representation.
In a second paper I focus on citizens' attitudes towards and actual participation in referendums. Using data from the European Social Survey I find that voting, other forms of political activity and political interest are positively associated with support for direct democracy. Analyzing post-referendum surveys I find the same pattern to hold for actual participation in referendums. Hence, direct democracy, despite its widespread popularity, appears insuffcient to bring the politically disengaged back into democratic politics.
In a third and final paper, I investigate whether direct democracy increases citizens' satisfaction with democracy. After all, they give citizens participatory opportunities and promise to offer them more control over policy. Combining aggregate data on satisfaction with democracy from semi-annual Eurobarometer surveys from 1973 to 2013 with data on all national referendums in the same period, I find no evidence for an (average) effect of referendums on democratic satisfaction. While an analysis of individual time-series suggests that referendums may have an effect under certain circumstances, significant positive estimates obtain for two countries, my empirical investigation of possible mechanisms remains inconclusive.
05/2016
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.
04/2016
How can we drive atomic renegades – states that run illegal nuclear weapons programs – into disarmament with the help of negotiations? This question, which puts the design of negotiation strategies at the focus of attention, has puzzled foreign policy makers for decades. It has, thus far, lost nothing of its relevance. But despite its importance, bargaining dynamics with atomic renegade states – so-called Nuclear Reversal Negotiations (NRN) – were largely omitted in International Relations (IR) literature. A systematic and theoretically grounded analysis on NRN is still missing.[...]
03/2016
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.(...)
02/2016
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.
01/2016
(...) 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.(...)
02/2015
The first decade of this century witnessed a transformation of the German financial system from a hitherto bank-based system towards a hybrid system containing elements of both bank-based and market-oriented systems. This hybrid structure was decisive for the German banking sector having been comparatively severely affected by the global financial crisis of 2008, as it had generated an environment partially prone to inadequate risk-taking of some banks. For that reason, the causes for the development of such a hybrid structure are critical in understanding the later development. While much has been written on the German financial system, both before and after the latest crisis, the existing research is less clear on the underlying
factors that have actually led to the development of such a hybrid structure. [...]
01/2015
In recent times, the “lost generation” is discussed widely in public debates. The “lost generation” is the young generation in Southern Europe: In Spain and in Greece, more than half of all young people are unemployed. In Croatia, Italy, Cyprus and Portugal, it is more than one third. With such difficulties in finding entry positions in the labour market, the young generation is faced with an insecure future. Without a job, it is difficult to be independent or to start a family: thus, both the personal and the economic independence suffer. Unemployment in the beginning of a career is likely to hamper career perspectives also in the middle and long run, and hereby leads to diffi-culties in saving for retirement. In this generation, unemployment hits everybody: university graduates who are perceived to be overqualified – or those who left school early in order to take a well-paid job in booming industries such as the construction sector in Spain. No matter the indi-vidual reason: a generation is deprived of their hopes. [...]
04/2014
The decision to establish an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) marked a momentous change in the history of the European Union: By introducing a common currency and a single monetary policy at the European level, the institutions and practices of economic governance in the EU were transformed. At the same time, EMU created new economic structures and actors at the heart of the international macroeconomic system – with novel and potentially far-reaching implications for policy-making in international financial institutions (IFIs).
How does the EU govern its external relations in international financial institutions? And what explains the patterns of EU unity in IFIs? The dissertation pursues both a descriptive and an explanatory goal, as reflected in the two guiding research questions. I take an encompassing view to studying the EU’s external relations. Representation of the EU in international organizations and fora is an important element, yet it is only part of a longer and more complex story: Before any common position can be communicated or represented at the international level, European actors need to decide on it in the first place. The internal aggregation and authorization of external policies and positions in a poly-centric political system is thus a vital ingredient to the governance of the EU’s external relations in IFIs.(...)
03/2014
German policy makers and scholars have repeatedly referred to the United States’ higher education system as a model for improving the quality of universities in Germany.
Starting at this debate about a potential "Americanization” of German higher education policy this dissertation focuses on the introduction of new bachelor’s programs at German universities and analyzes whether these new degrees resemble their American counterparts.
The theoretical basis for this study is the “Varieties of Capitalism” (VoC) approach by Hall and Soskice, which argues that firms in coordinated market economies (CMEs) such as Germany need employees with specific skills, while employees in liberal market economies (LMEs) like the United States have to acquire general skills for the job market. Assuming that new German bachelor’s degrees are aimed at providing graduates with more general skills, the question of whether the introduction of these new degrees represents a convergence with American higher education policy and whether this indicates a shift towards a more liberal American-style market economy constitutes the main part of this study.
02/2014
Sovereign rating downgrades have led to strong criticism of the criteria used by the three major rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch. But which criteria do rating agencies actually use for evaluating the creditworthiness of sovereign states? The existing literature points to a few basic macroeconomic factors. This book shows that, in addition, rating agencies take political factors into account, in particular a country’s economic liberalization policies, international economic agreements, and political institutions. The book demonstrates the importance of political factors for sovereign ratings based on a new data set for 145 rated countries, which is the largest sample analyzed in the literature thus far. Methodologically, the study combines panel econometric evidence with a text analysis of a unique database of more than 1,200 rating announcements. In 72 per cent of these rating announcements, rating agencies refer to political factors as a key rating determinant.
This book argues that rating agencies have good reason for taking political indicators into account as well. (...)
01/2014
Questions of migration control have long been of central concern to wealthy Western states that attract large numbers of new immigrants. While border control measures aimed at deciding who is allowed to enter state territory and who is prevented from doing so are generally accepted as a legitimate sovereign prerogative, the removal of resident non-citizens tends to be far more controversial. Deportation, i.e., the enforcement of legal obligations to leave the country, is often considered a “cruel power” (Gibney 2008: 147) on the part of the state because it bears the potential of tearing vulnerable individuals from their families and breaking other social ties. In liberal democracies, return enforcement has therefore traditionally been considered a measure of last resort, rather than a normal policy option. This normative assessment is closely interlinked with liberal-democratic states’ emphasis on individual rights (Hampshire 2013: 44-47). This rights-based identity leads to instances in which not only non-citizens’ right to physical integrity, but also their right to family life and their claims to social belonging in their country of residence may trump the state’s prerogative to control access to its territory, and delegitimize forced return. In line with these considerations, the enforcement of former colonial citizens’ legal obligation to leave the United Kingdom (UK) was denounced as “un-British” during the late 1970s.2 In Germany and elsewhere in Europe, so-called guest worker programmes became discredited as domestic authorities proved unwilling or unable to enforce the idea of strictly temporary stay (Pagenstecher 1995). In addition, both the UK and Germany have over the course of the past four decades enacted a number of one-off regularizations of asylum seekers whose applications had been rejected, but who were granted legal residence on the basis of their extended stay in the respective country (cf. Baldwin-Edwards/Kraler 2009).
02/2013
Wie Städte sich neu finden
(2013)
In Städten verdichten sich wie nirgendwo sonst ökonomische, soziale und kulturelle Facetten menschlichen Zusammenlebens. Hier entstehen wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Impulse. 84 Prozent der deutschen Bevölkerung lebt in Städten. Doch sind nicht alle Städte gleichermaßen Orte von Wachstum und Innovation. Mit dem Ende der Industrialisierung und dem Übergang in die Dienstleistungsgesellschaft (vgl. Bell 1999) sind einige Städte aus dem größeren Arbeits-kreislauf der Gesellschaft herausgefallen. Sie haben aufgehört, zentrale Orte des Wirtschaftens zu sein. Ihre Bevölkerungen schrumpfen, Gebäude bleiben ungenutzt und die öffentliche Hand verfügt nur über unzureichende und schwindende Mittel, dem entgegenzuwirken. Es sind strukturschwache Städte.
Kommunale Schrumpfungsprozesse sind aus dem 20. Jahrhundert kaum bekannt, obwohl zwei Kriege in Deutschland tobten und unvorstellbare Verwüstungen hinterlassen haben. (...)
01/2013
Should there be free trade? This question finds different, and often contradicting answers in philosophy and economics. Among economists, there is a remarkable consensus that free markets are desirable. It is this curious consensus that motivates this study.
This dissertations aims to explain, reconstruct and contest the neoclassical vision in mainstream trade theory. It is argued that economic justifications for free trade policies rely on an array of implicit and explicit normative premises,and that economists take positions on topics that are usually dealt with by political philosophers. Taken together, these premises and positions amount to what will be called the neoclassical vision. It is argued that throughout the history of economics, economic doctrines were inescapably normative. Tracing the intellectual and historical origins of this neoclassical vision, it is shown how a specific view of what justice demands in the economy came to be constitutive of today’s economic arguments. I hence attempt to treat economics today as it has historically been: as a branch of political philosophy, and as inextricably normative.
Normative trade theory and the theoretical arguments put forward by international economists will serve as the case study on which basis the neoclassical vision is reconstructed. In turn, the vision will be critically assessed from a liberal egalitarian perspective. Particular attention will be paid to the question of the role of politics in how losers from economic activity are treated.
Following this critical analysis, I argue for the need of a normative ‘countervision’that is most convincingly provided by John Rawls’s early work. It will then be outlined how Rawls could respond and overcome the pitfalls of the neoclassical vision – even though Rawls is deeply influenced by conventional economic thought himself. (...)
01/2012
Natural disasters pervade the certainty of social life. In a globalized world this truism increasingly calls for transnational solutions to prevent, prepare, and respond to these deadly disruptions. Regional Disaster Risk Management (DRM) has recently emerged to meet this concern. However, a number of observations question the expected motivation that compels states to cooperate in this important issue area.
First, there has been only a moderate increase in the relative estimated economic costs from natural disasters in a majority of regional organizations, and the number
of deaths related to natural disasters has consistently decreased. Second, after a tranquil period of cooperation from the mid 1970s, regional DRM rapidly developed and
spread across the globe. This sudden rise in DRM cooperation seems difficult to explain if the costs from natural disasters have not considerably changed. Third, remarkable similarities appear in the goals and wording of regional DRM agreements despite the varied political, historical and cultural contexts that typify regional organizations. These empirical observations go against conventional expectations and question the core motivation of the state’s protection of its citizens. (...)