Wer ist in Deutschland willkommen?Who is welcome in Germany?

Germany is currently experiencing a huge inflow of migrants. In this vignette study, we analyze how much different kinds of migrants are accepted in Germany. We investigate three different rights for migrants: the right to stay in Germany, the right to work in Germany and the right to receive social benefits. Our results show that people who flee from political persecution are much more accepted compared to migrants who come because of economic reasons. This is particularly true for the right to receive social benefits. On the other hand, our results suggest that there is a strong preference for high-skilled and culturally non-distant migrants. Concerns regarding individual competition on the job market seem to play only a minor role.     

The impossibility of unbiased judgment aggregation

Standard impossibility theorems on judgment aggregation over logically connected propositions either use a controversial systematicity condition or apply only to agendas of propositions with rich logical connections. Are there any serious impossibilities without these restrictions? We prove an impossibility theorem without requiring systematicity that applies to most standard agendas: Every judgment aggregation function (with rational inputs and outputs) satisfying a condition called unbiasedness is dictatorial (or effectively dictatorial if we remove one of the agenda conditions). Our agenda conditions are tight. When applied illustratively to (strict) preference aggregation represented in our model, the result implies that every unbiased social welfare function with universal domain is effectively dictatorial.     

The East Asian welfare model

This article aims to outline main features of the East Asian welfare model, to understand its past development and assess lessons that can be learned for other developing and developed countries. It describes the particular path of welfare state development in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, by focusing particularly on developmental and political aspects of welfare state development. In the final part of the study, particular features of the East Asian welfare model are outlined, and thus the existence of a distinct, ideal-typical welfare regime in East Asia substantiated.     

The Interplay Between Adolescents' Friendships and the Exchange of Help: A Longitudinal Multiplex Social Network Study

The aim of this study was to unravel the interrelatedness of friendship and help, and to examine the characteristics of friendship and help networks. The effects of mutual versus one‐sided help relations on friendship initiation and maintenance, and vice versa, were examined. Friendship and help networks were analyzed (N = 953 students; 41 classrooms; M_age = 12.7). The results illustrate that friendship and help networks show some similarities, but only partly overlap and have distinct characteristics. Longitudinal multiplex social network analyses showed that mutual help was important for the maintenance of friendship, but not for the initiation of friendship. Further, particularly mutual friendships provided a context in which help took place. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Coordinate sampler: a non-reversible Gibbs-like MCMC sampler

We derive a novel non-reversible, continuous-time Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler, called Coordinate Sampler, based on a piecewise deterministic Markov process, which is a variant of the Zigzag sampler of Bierkens et al. (Ann Stat 47(3):1288–1320, 2019). In addition to providing a theoretical validation for this new simulation algorithm, we show that the Markov chain it induces exhibits geometrical ergodicity convergence, for distributions whose tails decay at least as fast as an exponential distribution and at most as fast as a Gaussian distribution. Several numerical examples highlight that our coordinate sampler is more efficient than the Zigzag sampler, in terms of effective sample size.     

Ability, individual development and optimal selection decisions

The paper analyzes different selection policies in education and business. We show that incorrect self-perceptions combined with imperfect performance measurement may cause significant welfare losses in selective educational systems, in particular if selection starts too early. Of course, these welfare losses can be mitigated by an investment in better ability assessment. However, an affirmative action policy could serve the same purpose as such an investment. We apply our analysis also to diversity management in firms. Based on positive discrimination we establish an efficiency argument for diversity management.     

The effects of leadership change on team escalation of commitment

Although teams benefit from developing plans and processes that boost efficiency and reduce uncertainty, they may become too attached to these plans and escalate commitment when an alternative response is needed. Drawing on theories of team leadership, team processes and escalation of commitment, we propose that a change in leadership can help the team reduce commitment to outdated plans and avoid further escalation over time. Across two studies, we tested and found support for our hypotheses and provide evidence that leadership change can break the cycle of escalation by enhancing leader-driven team reflection and refocusing the team on error correction instead of additional investment. We discuss how the results of these studies extend existing theory and add to our understanding of the important role leaders play in enhancing team adaptation and preventing team escalation.     

Translating cross-lagged effects into incidence rates and risk ratios: The case of psychosocial safety climate and depression

Longitudinal studies are the gold standard of empirical work and stress research whenever experiments are not plausible. Frequently, scales are used to assess risk factors and their consequences, and cross-lagged effects are estimated to determine possible risks. Methods to translate cross-lagged effects into risk ratios to facilitate risk assessment do not yet exist, which creates a divide between psychological and epidemiological work stress research. The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate how cross-lagged effects can be used to assess the risk ratio of different levels of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) in organisations, an important psychosocial risk for the development of depression. We used available longitudinal evidence from the Australian Workplace Barometer (N?=?1905) to estimate cross-lagged effects of PSC on depression. We applied continuous time modelling to obtain time-scalable cross effects. These were further investigated in a 4-year Monte Carlo simulation, which translated them into 4-year incident rates. Incident rates were determined by relying on clinically relevant 2-year periods of depression. We suggest a critical value of PSC?=?26 (corresponding to ?1.4 SD), which is indicative of more than 100% increased incidents of persistent depressive disorder in 4-year periods compared to average levels of PSC across 4 years.     

The neglected mediating role of self-efficacy in the goal setting process in local public administrations

To analyse the role of self-efficacy in goal setting in public administrations, this study combines goal-setting theory, public service motivation literature and cognitive theory. Using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), survey data from 105 German civil servants are analysed. The results underline the role of goal setting (represented by goal difficulty and specificity) in determining the self-efficacy of public servants. Public service motivation and goal specificity both increase public servants’ work performance; however, the effects of goal difficulty are negatively mediated by the employee’s self-efficacy. That finding reflects the central role of self-efficacy, which should not be ignored in the goal-setting processes of public administrations.