Refine
Year of publication
- 2023 (21) (remove)
Document Type
- Doctoral thesis (21)
Institute
Language
- English (11)
- German (6)
- Multiple languages (3)
- Spanish (1)
Keywords
- Anthropogene Klimaänderung (3)
- Fernerkundung (3)
- Aerobiologie (2)
- Geodynamik (2)
- Geomorphologie (2)
- Nachhaltigkeit (2)
- Unternehmensethik (2)
- Verbraucherverhalten (2)
- Verbreitungsökologie (2)
- Verhaltenspsychologie (2)
- Verhaltensökonomie (2)
- pollen deposition (2)
- Aggregation (1)
- Arbeitspsychologie (1)
- Automotive Systems Engineering (1)
- Berufliches Profiling (1)
- Besteuerung der digitalen Wirtschaft (1)
- Besteuerung digitaler Konzerne (1)
- Beziehungsmarketing (1)
- Bias–variance tradeoff (1)
- Bildbasierter Fragebogen (1)
- Bildung (1)
- Blockgletscher (1)
- Blockgletscherkinematik (1)
- Corporate Digital Responsibility (1)
- Customer Centricity (1)
- Customization (1)
- DST (1)
- Decision-Making (1)
- Diagnostik (1)
- Digital Services Tax (1)
- Digitalsteuer (1)
- Distressed M&A (1)
- Dynamische Geomorphologie (1)
- Ehrenamtliche Tätigkeit (1)
- Electronic Commerce (1)
- Emerging Market (1)
- Empirische Pädagogik (1)
- Engagement (1)
- Entscheidungsverhalten (1)
- Eschenkrankheit (1)
- Ethikfonds (1)
- Experimentelle Psychologie (1)
- Finanzmarktintegration (1)
- Finanzwirtschaft (1)
- Flüchtling (1)
- Forecast combination (1)
- Fortpflanzung (1)
- Geschichte 1850-2023 (1)
- Geschichte 1890-2020 (1)
- Geschichte 1922-2023 (1)
- Geschichte 1968-2015 (1)
- Glazialerosion (1)
- Hochgebirgsgeomorphologie (1)
- Horlachtal (1)
- Hybrid Shrinkage (1)
- Individualismus (1)
- Ingolstadt (1)
- Innovation (1)
- Internationales Steuerrecht (1)
- Kauner Tal (1)
- Kind (1)
- Klimawandel (1)
- Klimawandelfolgen im Hochgebirge (1)
- Kognitive Psychologie (1)
- Kognitive Verhaltenstherapie (1)
- Kombination (1)
- Korpus <Linguistik> (1)
- Kraftfahrzeugindustrie (1)
- Kultur (1)
- Kulturpsychologie (1)
- Kundenbindung (1)
- Kundenmanagement (1)
- Kundenprofil (1)
- Langzeittherapie (1)
- Lebensmittelabfall (1)
- Lebensmittelverbrauch (1)
- Leistungsmotivation (1)
- Lichenometrie (1)
- Lineares Modell (1)
- Logopädie (1)
- Ländlicher Raum (1)
- Marginal Value Theorem (1)
- Mathematische Methode (1)
- Mathematische Psychologie (1)
- Measurement Invariance (1)
- Meta-analysis (1)
- Mixed Methods (1)
- Multivariate Analyse (1)
- Multivariate Varianzanalyse (1)
- Mure (1)
- Murgang (1)
- Naturgefahr (1)
- Nichtverbale Kommunikation (1)
- Niederschlagsmessung (1)
- Nonprofit-Bereich (1)
- Online-Dienst (1)
- Optimal Foraging Theory (1)
- Organisationsstruktur (1)
- Organisationsverhalten (1)
- Organizational Citizenship Behavior (1)
- Ostalpen (1)
- Periglazial (1)
- Personalauswahl (1)
- Personalbeschaffung (1)
- Personalplanung (1)
- Personalpolitik (1)
- Persönlichkeitsdiagnostik (1)
- Pflanzenallergen (1)
- Plug-in-Hybrid (1)
- Pollen (1)
- Pollenflug (1)
- Popmusik (1)
- Portfolio Selection (1)
- Postglaziale Landschaftsentwicklung (1)
- Posttraumatisches Stresssyndrom (1)
- Prognosequalität (1)
- Prognoseverfahren (1)
- Psychisches Trauma (1)
- Regressionsanalyse (1)
- Ressourcen am Arbeitsplatz (1)
- Rockmusik (1)
- Samenentwicklung (1)
- Sampling (1)
- Schulpsychologische Beratung (1)
- Social Media (1)
- Soziale Unterstützung (1)
- Spanisch (1)
- Spill-over-Effekt (1)
- Sporen (1)
- Sporenflug (1)
- Sprachentwicklungsstörung (1)
- Spracherwerb (1)
- Sprachfreier Test (1)
- Stadt (1)
- Starkregen (1)
- Steuerpolitik (1)
- Steuervergünstigung (1)
- Steuervermeidung (1)
- Stichprobe (1)
- Strategisches Management (1)
- Stubaier Alpen (1)
- Süddeutschland (1)
- TF-CBT (1)
- Testkonstruktion (1)
- Textanalyse (1)
- Unternehmensbewertung (1)
- Unternehmenskrise (1)
- Usage Profiling (1)
- Validierung (1)
- Valuation (1)
- Vorschulkind (1)
- Zweisprachigkeit (1)
- aerobiology (1)
- análisis de discurso (1)
- bilingualism (1)
- christian finance (1)
- corporate social responsibility (1)
- culture (1)
- education (1)
- environmental social governance (1)
- exploration (1)
- faith-based investing (1)
- food policy (1)
- gene flow patterns (1)
- government interventions (1)
- individual decision-making (1)
- individualism (1)
- innovation (1)
- intra-urban variation (1)
- investor impact (1)
- language development (1)
- letras de pop-rock (1)
- lingüística de corpus (1)
- lingüística sistémico-funcional (1)
- non-financial impact (NFI) (1)
- nonword repetition (1)
- paternity analysis (1)
- phenology (1)
- pollen and seed quality (1)
- pollen concentration (1)
- sociosemiótica (1)
- speech sound processing (1)
- speech-language pathology (1)
- sustainability (1)
- taxation (1)
- urbanisation (1)
Abstract Paper 1:
Cybervetting has become common practice in personnel decision-making processes of organizations. While it represents a quick and inexpensive way of obtaining additional information on employees and applicants, it gives rise to a variety of legal and ethical concerns. To limit companies’ access to personal information, a right to be forgotten has been introduced by the European jurisprudence. By discussing the notion of forgetting from the perspective of French hermeneutic philosopher Paul Ricoeur, the present article demonstrates that both, companies and employees, would be harmed if access to online information on applicants and current employees would be denied. Consistent with a Humanistic Management approach that promotes human dignity and flourishing in the workplace, this article proposes guidance for the responsible handling of unpleasant online memories in personnel decision-making processes, thereby following Ricoeur’s notion of forgetting as “kept in reserve”. Enabling applicants and employees to take a qualified stand on their past is more beneficial to both sides than a right to be forgotten that is questionable in several respects.
Abstract Paper 2:
When hiring new employees, managers often conduct online background checks on applicants. This practice has led many applicants to reach out to legal and technological solutions that render unpleasant online memories forgotten. With this article, we question the effectiveness and social value of approaches aimed at permanently erasing information from the web. Furthermore, we provide practitioners with guidance toward responsible handling of applicant information from the web. In this conceptual article, we review the literature on organizational memory and interpret it through a philosophical lens by turning to the works of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur and the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. We conclude that legally or technologically enforced forgetting on the web fails to provide true protection from a memory in a hiring situation, as remembering in an organization is a complex social process that hardly lets a memory disappear completely. As a result, legal and technological approaches that aim at erasing unpleasant memories from the web represent only an illusion of protection for job applicants. Alternatively, we propose a selection process that makes the erasure of unpleasant memories from the web unnecessary. Previous literature on organizational memory has already criticized a purely mechanistic view of memory in organizations, by which memories are treated as objects that can be retrieved and deleted on demand. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first article that establishes a connection between organizational memory and the use of online information in selection.
Abstract Paper 3:
Companies have started using social media for screening applicants in the selection process. Thereby, they enter a low-cost source of information on applicants, which potentially allows them to hire the right person on the job and avoid irresponsible employee behavior and negligent hiring lawsuits. However, a number of ethical issues are associated with this practice, which give rise to the question of the fairness of social media screening. This article aims to provide an assessment of the procedural justice of social media screening and to articulate recommendations for a fairer use of social media in the selection process. To achieve this, a systematic literature review of research articles pertaining to social media screening has been conducted. Thereby, the benefits and ethical issues relating to social media screening, as well as recommendations for its use have been extracted and discussed against Leventhal’s (1980) rules of procedural justice. It turns out that without clear guidelines for recruiters, social media screening cannot be considered procedurally fair, as it opens up way too many opportunities for infringements on privacy, unfair discrimination, and adverse selection based on inaccurate information. However, it is possible to enhance the fairness of this practice by establishing clear policies and procedures to standardize the process.
Abstract Paper 4:
Social media platforms have presented individuals with sheer endless possibilities for networking, creating and exchanging information. Yet, overwhelming social demands, privacy concerns, and even a lack of access to new technologies have led many users to discontinue social media usage. Simultaneously, companies screen and select applicants on social media. As previous research suggests that employers may view missing social media information with suspicion, we ask if non-users of social media face disadvantages in hiring: Are they discriminated against? In this study, we employ a 2 x 2 experimental survey design to verify whether absence from social media may result in discriminatory behavior towards job applicants. We conduct the study with two samples: The first comprises business students, and the second consists of more senior members of the workforce. Although this study does not confirm discrimination against non-users of social media in the selection process, it adds to the literature in two respects: Firstly, it shows differences in call-back between highly and less qualified candidates as a result of social media information. Secondly, it suggests unintentional, systemic rater biases. Against these findings, we formulate recommendations for applicants and employers and give recommendations for future research in this field.
Specifying or deriving customers' needs into detailed requirements becomes essential for holistic customer-centricity in automotive systems engineering, relying heavily on simulation models. However, with the increase of system complexity, customer diversity, and difficulty of customer data acquisition, it becomes challenging to specify model inputs that represent individual customer usage behavior across the whole product lifecycle. To let these challenges be tackled, this dissertation addresses the problem of customer usage profiling to support decision-making in the context of automotive systems engineering. First, two fundamental data engineering procedures are investigated, including data aggregation for feature reduction and sampling for representing the customer fleets with a few selected reference customers. After data preprocessing, a method for preparing the model inputs from aggregate customer data, i.e., usage profiling, is developed. Usage profiling applies meta-heuristics, synthesizing sufficiently representative from aggregate fleet data. Furthermore, a decision support system is developed to deploy the aggregation, sampling, and usage profiling into model-based automotive system engineering processes. As both data and various models are connected, digital twinning is applied. Using real-world fleet data, an evaluation case study for determining lifetime requirements indicates that the methodology is plausible and capable of consolidating customer-centricity into automotive systems engineering processes.
Möglichkeiten zur Besteuerung der digitalen Wirtschaft im Rahmen internationaler Konzernstrukturen
(2023)
Die Konzepte der OECD, EU-Kommission und nationalen DST-Gesetzgeber zur möglichen Besteuerung digitaler Konzerne ist der Ausgangspunkt dieser kumulativen Dissertationsschrift. Die Arbeit umfasst vier einzelne Beiträge, die sich thematisch mit dem neuartigen Konzept der DST nach dem Richtlinienvorschlag der EU-Kommission sowie den nationalen DST-Initiativen innerhalb einiger (ehemals) europäischer Länder normativ und empirisch auseinandersetzen. Ein Teil der Dissertation behandelt ferner das Konzept zur Säule 1 der OECD durch eine Gegenüberstellung mit den DST-Gesetzen. Die Arbeit liefert einen grundlegenden Beitrag zu den Inhalten nationaler DST-Initiativen sowie zu dem Besteuerungskonzept der DST, der steuersystematischen Einordnung, der Betroffenheit sowie der wirtschaftlichen Belastung betroffener Konzerne durch die DST. Die Dissertation umfasst folgende Beiträge:
• Beitrag 1: Graßl, B./Koch, R., Unilaterale Initiativen zur Einführung von Digitalsteuern, Internationales Steuerrecht (IStR) 2019, 873-888.
• Beitrag 2: Graßl, B./Koch, R., Die unilateralen Maßnahmen zur Digitalsteuer – Rechtliche Einordnung und wirtschaftliche Belastung, Steuer und Wirtschaft (StuW) 2020, 293-316.
• Beitrag 3: Graßl, B./Koch, R., Die Auswirkungen von unilateralen Digitalsteuern und der Säule 1 des OECD-Projekts für deutsche Konzerne, Die Unternehmensbesteuerung (Ubg) 2021, 669-689.
• Beitrag 4: Graßl, B., Unilateral Digital Services Taxes in the European Union: Affected firms and Impact on Effective Tax Rates, abrufbar unter: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4262411.
In Deutschland lebt eine große Zahl jugendlicher Geflüchteter, welche die Schule besucht (Bayerische Staatskanzlei, 2021a, 2021b; Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, 2022). Für eine adäquate schulpsychologische Beratung muss zunächst standardisierte Diagnostik erfolgen. Gerade in kulturell und sprachlich diversen Stichproben sollten vermehrt nonverbale Instrumente eingesetzt werden (Khawaja & Howard, 2020; Velasco Leon & Campbell, 2020), nicht zuletzt, weil geringe Lesefähigkeiten in der Sprache des Testverfahrens die Gültigkeit beeinträchtigen (McHugh & Behar, 2009; Schinka & Borum, 1994). So wurde unter Einbezug der psychologischen Literatur zu Kultur und bestehenden nonverbalen Fragebögen ein bildbasierter nonverbaler Fragebogen für junge Geflüchtete entwickelt. Es wurden Variablen ausgewählt, die Prädiktoren wichtiger Variablen im Schulkontext oder für den schulpsychologischen Prozess relevant sind.
Um die Eindeutigkeit der nonverbalen Bilditems zu gewährleisten, wurden je Item zwei Bildpole entworfen, die sich in der zentralen Variable unterscheiden. Dem partizipativen Ansatz folgend wurden Personen aus der Zielgruppe des Fragebogens bereits auf der ersten Validierungsstufe einbezogen, indem qualitative Interviews mit jugendlichen Migrant*innen geführt wurden. Anschließend wurden die Validität und Reliabilität des Verfahrens sowohl in einer kulturell heterogenen Stichprobe von Migrant*innen als auch in kulturell in sich homogenen Stichproben deutscher und indischer Studierender quantitativ überprüft. Die Bilditems wurden mehrfach überarbeitet und reevaluiert.
In der vorerst finalen Version des Fragebogens liegen 41 Items der Skalen Gewissenhaftigkeit, Verträglichkeit, Neurotizismus vs. Emotionale Stabilität, Beziehungsorientierung, Wahrgenommene soziale Unterstützung und Leistungsmotivation sowie Einzelitems zum Konstrukt Stimmung vor. Untersuchungen zur interkulturellen Messinvarianz weisen zumindest auf eine schwache Invarianz hin, welche jedoch noch keine interkulturellen Mittelwertvergleiche zulässt. Zukünftige Forschung sollte die Reliabilität und Validität in unterschiedlichen kulturellen Stichproben untersuchen. Der Fragebogen bietet große Chancen für die Diagnostik gerade bisher marginalisierter Personen unterschiedlicher Muttersprachen und sogar mit sehr geringen Lesefähigkeiten. In der Praxis sollten Teilnehmenden ihre Ergebnisse im Rahmen eines Beratungsgesprächs rückgemeldet werden.
Die Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT) bezeichnet eine Reihe mathematischer Entscheidungsmodelle, die Entscheidungen als mathematisches Optimierungsproblem mit dem Ziel der Maximierung des Nutzens bei Minimierung der Kosten verstehen. Die OFT ist in der Verhaltensökologie äußerst erfolgreich darin, das Verhalten einer Vielzahl von Spezies zu beschreiben und vorherzusagen. Ziel der Dissertation ist es darum zu untersuchen, inwieweit die beiden zentralen Modelle der OFT - das klassische Patch Model und Prey Model - auf menschliches, abstraktes Entscheidungsverhalten anwendbar sind. Dazu werden experimentelle Paradigmen entwickelt, die als virtuelle Spiele am Computer dargeboten werden können und es erlauben sowohl die qualitativen als auch die quantitativen Vorhersagen der Modelle empirisch zu prüfen.
Die Auswertung der verschiedenen Experimentalserien erfolgt mittels Sequential Bayes Factor-Designs. Die Befunde stützen die zentralen qualitativen Annahmen der OFT: Wie vom Patch Model vorhergesagt, ist die Entscheidungsstrategie zum einen abhängig von der zeitlichen Verfügbarkeit potenzieller Alternativen (Travel Time), zum anderen von der Güte der Patches (Patch Quality). Jedoch zeigt sich ein Einfluss der Reisezeithistorie, der umso ausgeprägter ist, je stärker die Reisezeiten variieren und je aktueller eine erlebte Reisezeit ist. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass anders als vom Patch Model vorhergesagt ein Tracking der Historie erfolgt. Quantitativ werden nahezu durchgängig längere Verweildauern beobachtet als gemäß dem Patch Model optimal. In Übereinstimmung mit den qualitativen Vorhersagen des Prey Models ist die Entscheidungsstrategie abhängig von der Encounter Rate der reichhaltigen Ressourcen, nicht aber von der Encounter Rate der wenig profitablen Ressourcen. Dies ist unabhängig davon zu beobachten, ob die Encounter Rate über die Suchkosten, die relative Häufigkeit oder eine Kombination beider Faktoren manipuliert wird. Entgegen der quantitativen Alles-oder-nichts-Regel des Prey Models werden jedoch partielle Präferenzen beobachtet. Insgesamt scheinen Menschen ihre Entscheidungsstrategie in Einklang mit dem Patch und Prey Model adaptiv an die Merkmale der Entscheidungssituation anzupassen, jedoch nicht in einer vollumfänglich optimalen Weise. Dies deckt sich mit einem Großteil der verhaltensökologischen Befunde. Offenbar basiert das Verhalten in abstrakten Entscheidungssituationen auch heute noch auf denselben Mechanismen, die sich ursprünglich im Kontext der Nahrungssuche durch natürliche Selektion entwickelt haben.
In this dissertation, I investigate how innate decision-making tools, such as culture and curiosity, affect individual economic education and innovation decisions. The cumulative dissertation consists of the following four chapters:
Chapter 1: Culture in Individual Economic Decision-Making—A Conceptual Contribution
Chapter 2: Individualism and the Formation of Human Capital (based on joint work with Sven Resnjanskij, Jens Ruhose, and Simon Wiederhold)
Chapter 3: Individualism, Creativity, and Innovation
Chapter 4: Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes? Casino-Based Evidence on Exploration Strategies and Curiosity in a High-Complexity Game (based on joint work with Alexander Patt)
Through a combination of methods (theoretical as well as structural and reduced-form empirical work) and data sources (ranging from large-scale international data to experimentally generated data), each chapter answers a distinct but related research question:
While the first chapter contributes to our conceptual understanding of culture in an economic context, chapters two and three are dedicated to investigating economic effects of individualism. Individualism is a polarizing dimension of culture with its emphasis on personal achievement and personal responsibility. Although individualism is an established driver of long-run economic growth, the underlying individual-level mechanisms have not been well understood. To close this research gap, I study the role of individualism in individual education and innovation decisions. Using data from an international skill assessment, the second chapter shows that individualism strongly and positively affects human capital investments. Individualism matters more for human capital formation than any other dimension of culture found in the economic literature and should, thus, be included more rigorously in the education production function. Complementarily, the third chapter reveals that individualism is positively related to individual innovativeness – which is captured by a wide range of measures from selection into creative-innovative occupations and knowledge diffusion on the job to creativity traits and patenting.
Focusing on the exploration-exploitation trade-off that is prevalent in innovation decisions, the fourth chapter uses slot machine games to investigate exploration behavior in a natural yet controlled setting. The experimental results document that a significant group of players engage in curiosity-based exploration related to the game’s entropy. The different player types identified in the data showcase the variety of strategies economic agents use to navigate a high-uncertainty high-complexity decision environment.
To embrace diversity in thoughts and approaches economically, an understanding of the specific role of cultural tools in economic decision making is imperative.
In this thesis, I evaluate different tax policy reforms or tax policies in general with respect to the three pillars of sustainability: the environmental, the economic, and the social pillar. The cumulative dissertation consists of the following four chapters:
Chapter 1: Towards Green Driving - Income Tax Incentives for Plug-in Hybrids (based on joint work with Henning Giese)
Chapter 2: Corporate Taxation and Firm Performance (based on joint work with Dominika Langenmayr, Valeria Merlo, and Georg Wamser)
Chapter 3: Tax Avoidance Using Hybrid Financial Instruments Among European Countries
Chapter 4: Avoiding Taxes: Banks’ Use of Internal Debt (based on joint work with Franz Reiter and Dominika Langenmayr)
The first chapter relates to the environmental dimension of sustainability. More specifically, I evaluate a specific German tax reform that aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector – a key driver of emissions – by fostering green driving. This essay empirically investigates whether a preferential tax treatment for hybrid plug-in company cars was effective in fostering green driving and whether it was cost-efficient.
The second chapter relates to the economic dimension of sustainability. A subgoal towards more sustainability in this dimension is decent economic growth. Chapter 2 of this thesis contributes to the question of how tax policy can foster firm performance which is an important driver for economic growth. This essay empirically investigates the relationship between corporate taxation and firm performance taking into account firm heterogeneity. As tax policy is an essential instrument for reaching political goals like boosting the economy in crises, this essay may provide valuable insights for policymakers.
The third and fourth chapters relate to the social dimension of sustainability. A subgoal towards more sustainability in this dimension is increased international cooperation. With respect to taxation, the global challenge of multinational firms engaging in tax avoidance made international cooperation in tax policy essential in the last decade. Chapter 3 investigates a specific channel of tax avoidance, i.e., tax avoidance with hybrid financial instruments. This legal analysis reveals tax avoidance opportunities among selected European countries and evaluates countermeasures.
Chapter 4 investigates a different channel of tax avoidance, i.e., intragroup debt finance, specifically for the banking sector. I use administrative data to empirically analyse whether and to what extent multinational banks engage in tax avoidance.
Responsible finance
(2023)
In Anbetracht großer globaler Herausforderungen ist in den letzten Jahren die Frage, wie mit nachhaltiger Geldanlage ein positiver Einfluss auf die Erreichung von Nachhaltigkeitszielen genommen werden kann, immer weiter in den Fokus geraten. Dieses Verständnis hat sich jedoch bei zahlreichen Anbietern von Nachhaltigkeitsfonds noch nicht durchgesetzt und auch die akademische Auseinandersetzung mit nachhaltiger Geldanlage fokussiert sich bisher vor allem auf eine Analyse der finanziellen Auswirkungen dieser Anlageform. Eine weitere Lücke in der akademischen Betrachtung ist eine ausführliche Auseinandersetzung mit der Praxis christlich geprägter Geldanlage.
Beitrag 1 entwickelt die konzeptuelle Grundlage für die weiteren Artikel. Darauf aufbauend wird in Beitrag 2 Literatur zu der Frage analysiert, welche Anlagetechniken bevorzugt werden sollten, um eine Verbesserung der Nachhaltigkeitsleistung der Portfoliounternehmen zu erreichen. Beitrag 3, eine empirische Studie, verwendet die Erkenntnisse der ersten beiden Beiträge, um zu untersuchen, ob und - wenn ja - wie eine Einflussnahme auf die Nachhaltigkeitsleistung der Portfoliounternehmen in den Anlagepolitiken der Anbieter von Nachhaltigkeitsfonds verankert ist. Beitrag 4, ebenfalls eine empirische Studie, beleuchtet die Praxis christlich geprägter Nachhaltigkeitsfonds. Zum einen wird analysiert, welche Filter und Anlagetechniken verwendet werden. Zum anderen wird ein Teil des in Beitrag 3 entwickelte Kategorie-Systems genutzt, um zu ermitteln, wie wichtig die Verbesserung der Nachhaltigkeitsleistung der Portfoliounternehmen für die Fondsanbieter ist.
"Present Bias in Choices over Food and Money: Evidence from a Framed Field Experiment" - this paper presents results from a field experiment investigating dynamically inconsistent time preferences over real food choices and commitment take-up in a natural environment. We implement a longitudinal consumption experiment with a continuous convex budget: College students repeatedly choose and consume lunch menus at their college canteen. We not only allow for a full continuum of healthy or unhealthy foods; we also explicitly design the consumption stage to comply with the consume-on-receipt assumption: utility is created right after handing out the food. The paper also focuses on the implications for effective policy design: It sheds light on consumers' tendency to utilize different types of self-control devices to commit to personal consumption plans. We further compare inconsistent behavior between convex food and money choices to investigate the applicability of monetary reward studies to natural behavior. We find no correlation between time parameters in food vs. money tasks. Utility estimates from food choices suggest that dynamically consistent individuals substitute internal self-control with commitment take-up. Non-committing individuals tend to be present-biased and naive about their inconsistency.
"Dynamic Inconsistencies and Food Waste: Assessing Food Waste from a Behavioral Economics Perspective" - this paper investigates the link between dynamically inconsistent time preferences and individual food consumption and waste behavior. Food waste is conceptualized as unintended consequence of consumption choices along the food consumption chain: Because inconsistent individuals postpone the consumption of healthier food at home, storage time is prolonged and food more likely to be wasted. Capitalizing on a rich data set from a nationally representative survey, the paper constructs targeted measures of time-related food consumption and waste behaviors. In line with the theory, the paper finds that more present-biased individuals waste more food. The mechanism can be empirically supported: Although dynamically inconsistent individuals plan their food consumption, they deviate from their consumption plans more compared to consistent individuals. Deviation behavior is significantly associated with food waste. The paper points to the importance of considering dynamic inconsistencies at different stages of the food consumption process to foster the intended effects of food policies (increase in healthy nutrition) and diminish unintended consequences (increase in food waste).
"Economic Behavior under Containment: How do People Respond to Covid-19 Restrictions?" - this paper investigates the effects of policy interventions on individual decision-making and preferences by looking at a period of unprecedentedly strict regulation: the Covid-19 pandemic. Focusing on Germany, we measure regulatory strictness by calculating a policy stringency index at the federal state level. Capitalizing on exogenous variation in predetermined election cycles across states, we instrument policy stringency with the distance to the next election. Results support a positive relation between weeks to next election and state policy stringency. Leveraging a nationally representative short panel, the paper exploits this exogenous variation in policy stringency across states and over time to assess behavioral changes in different economic domains. The paper finds that government restrictions increase working from home and the provision of childcare at home, while it reduces the number of grocery shopping trips. Containment policies also affect risk preferences and fear of Covid-19: individuals become more risk-averse and afraid of Covid-19 as a consequence of stricter policies. The results are robust against various different model specifications.
Exposure to more than one language influences children's language development (Kehoe & Kannathasan, 2021). It has been shown that particularly the relative amount of language input bilingual children receive influences their language development. Bilingual children can never dedicate the same amount of time to either one of their languages as their monolingual peers because their everyday linguistic environment is divided between two languages. This may ultimately lead to typically developing bilingual children with linguistic profiles similar to monolingual children with a language developmental disorder (DLD) if they have reduced contact to one of their languages (Paradis, 2010). For this reason, it is particularly difficult for clinicians (i.e., Speech-Language Pathologists, SLPs) to distinguish between actual language impairment and typical deviations from the (monolingual) norm due to limited language exposure. In Germany, almost half of all children in speech therapy have a bilingual or multilingual language background (Lüke & Ritterfeld, 2011). Despite the high proportion of bilingual children in speech therapy, the assessment and treatment of DLD in this population is still predominantly monoculturally and monolingually oriented (Scharff Rethfeldt, 2016). Previous studies have identified nonword repetition tasks (NWRTs) as promising tools for the clinical differentiation between bilingual typically developing children and children with DLD because they are arguably relatively free from the influence of children's prior language experience (Schwob et al., 2021). However, some researchers have raised the question of whether bilingual children might still be disadvantaged by language-specific characteristics of nonwords (e.g., Chiat, 2015).
In three separate studies, this dissertation will (1) demonstrate the influence of bilingual language exposure on speech sound processing, an essential building block of language development, (2) evaluate how DLD is diagnosed in bilingual children in Germany and which factors contribute to positive attitudes towards bilingualism in SLPs, and (3) investigate whether bilingual children's nonword repetition performance of language-specific versus unspecific (i.e., more language-neutral) nonwords is subject to the influence of their individual language exposure.
In the first study (see chapter 2), the perception and production of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in bilingual Italian-German, monolingual German, and monolingual Italian children was investigated using a combination of neurophysiological and behavioral methods. Forty five-year-old children (16 monolingual German, 24 bilingual Italian-German) participated in the electroencephalographic (EEG) study, in which automatic speech sound processing of Italian- and German-specific VOT contrasts was investigated. To compare the participants language-specific VOT production, in addition to the 16 monolingual German and 24 bilingual Italian-German children, a control group of five monolingual Italian-speaking children were tested with a picture naming task in which the production of language-specific word-initial VOT was recorded based on ten words per target sound. Acoustic measurements were taken in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2013). Children's language background was assessed using a parental language background questionnaire. In the second study (see Chapter 3), 66 SLPs from Germany participated in an online survey investigating their attitudes towards bilingualism and their approaches in their daily clinical practice. Finally, in the third study (see Chapter 4), a new NWRT was developed that included Italian- and German-specific as well as language-unspecific nonwords. The NWRT was implemented in an online platform and administered to a group of 26 bilingual Italian-German TD children. Children's repetition performance in the different nonword subcategories was analyzed in the context of their linguistic background (recorded using the same questionnaire as in Study 1).
Study 1 showed that Italian-German bilingual five-year-old children and the monolingual German control group behaved similarly in processing language-specific VOT stimuli. However, differences between the two groups likely related to language exposure were evident in the processing of a German "long lag" stimulus. Surprisingly, the bilingual group had no advantage in processing the Italian "voicing lead" stimuli. This suggests that the bilingual five-year-olds do not (yet) process the Italian contrasts automatically (Yu et al. 2019). Acoustic measures of productive VOT for Italian and German words were consistent with this interpretation. Specifically, bilingual children showed mastery of the German but variability with respect to the Italian VOT contrast. Evidence for crosslinguistic influence (cf. Paradis & Genesee, 1996) was observed. Study 2 showed that there seems to be an imbalance between SLPs' knowledge of the specific requirements for providing their services to bilingual children and their actual application in clinical practice, indicating sufficient awareness but still a relatively high presence of monolingual approaches in the context of speech therapy. Presumably, this is due to a lack of available materials and/or resources. Finally, Study 3 showed that Italian-German bilingual children performed equally well on Italian-specific, German-specific, and language-unspecific nonwords, regardless of their individual language exposure and language dominance patterns, supporting the view that even language-specific NWRTs can be used to clinically assess the language performance of bilingual children with relatively little exposure to either of their languages. However, this result has yet to be replicated and thus confirmed with a group of children with DLD.
In summary, these three studies highlight the gap between scientific research and clinical practice and demonstrate the relevance of clinicians' participation in research projects to (1) improve knowledge transfer between the two fields and (2) promote evidence-based practices in the context of Speech-Language Pathology.