Wirtschaftswissenschaften
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"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.
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.
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.