Attitudes towards foreigners and Jews in Germany: identifying the determinants of xenophobia in a large opinion survey

The ultimate aim of opinion surveys is the provision of information on the distribution of preferences and perceptions at the individual level. Yet, eliciting this information from the data is typically difficult. This paper uses a structural model to explain the answers on a set of questions regarding the perception of foreigners and Jews by native Germans. In this model it is assumed that in addition to observable individual characteristics there exists an underlying unobserved attitude towards minorities which drives the distribution of answers by native respondents. This latent variable in turn is assumed to be influenced by a set of observable socio-economic characteristics of the individuals. In order to estimate this model it is necessary to impose strong identification restrictions. Estimation results show that education is the key correlate of the perception of foreigners and Jews in Germany.     

Religiosity and Fertility Intentions: Can the Gender Regime Explain Cross-Country Differences?

Research on the relationship between religiosity and fertility intentions revealed substantial cross-national differences. In some countries, a strong and positive effect of religiosity on fertility intentions was found, while in others, the effect was weaker or not significant, and the reasons underlying these cross-national differences are still unclear. The aim of this article is to explain these macro-level differences from the perspective of the prevailing gender regime. We argue that in countries with more traditional regimes, a stronger effect of religiosity on fertility intentions could be expected than in countries with a more egalitarian view. We make use of the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey and incorporate data from a total of 12 European countries in our analysis. We examine the influence of gender regime according to various macro-level indicators on gender attitudes and gender equality using meta-regression analyses. We also conduct robustness checks using other indicators such as the Gender Development Index. Our results reveal that the gender regime is only able to explain these differences in certain situations, specifically those relating to the long-term fertility intentions of men.     

Rank-Optimal Weighting or “How to be Best in the OECD Better Life Index?”

We present a method of rank-optimal weighting which can be used to explore the best possible position of a subject in a ranking based on a composite indicator by means of a mathematical optimization problem. As an example, we explore the dataset of the OECD Better Life Index and compute for each country a weight vector which brings it as far up in the ranking as possible with the greatest advance of the immediate rivals. The method is able to answer the question “What is the best possible rank a country can achieve with a given set of weighted indicators?” Typically, weights in composite indicators are justified normatively and not empirically. Our approach helps to give bounds on what is achievable by such normative judgments from a purely output-oriented and strongly competitive perspective. The method can serve as a basis for exact bounds in sensitivity analysis focused on ranking positions. In the OECD Better Life Index data we find that 19 out the 36 countries in the OECD Better Life Index 2014 can be brought to the top of the ranking by specific weights. We give a table of weights for each country which brings it to its highest possible position. Many countries achieve their best rank by focusing on their strong dimensions and setting the weights of many others to zero. Although setting dimensions to zero is possible in the OECD’s online tool, this contradicts the idea of better life being multidimensional in essence. We discuss modifications of the optimization problem which could take this into account, e.g. by allowing only a minimal weight of one. Methods to find rank-optimal weights can be useful for various multidimensional datasets like the ones used to rank universities or employers.     

Income tax schedule and redistribution in direct democracies – the Swiss case

This study examines redistribution policy through personal income taxes in Swiss cantons over the period 1995–2011. In a first step, redistribution measures are estimated with the help of exhaustive administrative data. Redistribution is decomposed into average tax rate and tax progression. In a second step, we investigate the impact of direct democratic institutions and their usage on tax policy and redistribution. The results suggest that the effect of direct democracy on income tax redistribution is a multilayered process. First, the theoretical availability of direct democracy tools does not seem to have the same impact as the effective use of them. Second, fiscal referendums may – in the short term –reduce redistribution through lower tax rates and lead to less tax progression. Third, an increasing number of ballots on initiatives leads to more tax progression and more redistribution in the long run. It seems that the short-term dampening effects of fiscal referendums on redistribution may be overridden in the long run by the expansive effect of popular initiatives.     

Ideen und Interessen. Zum Verhältnis von Religion und wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung

While concentrating on the rise of modern capitalism, Weber’s seminal studies have little to say about the impact of religions on contemporary economic development. The paper comments about recent approaches to find an answer to the questions Weber left open. If one disregards a priori constructions of culturalist and rational-choice-theories, these approaches end up again in restating the circular relationship between ideas and interests showed already by Weber, albeit clearly with a higher emphasis on interests. However, the author argues that it would be premature to interpret this result simply as a confirmation of Weber’s “disenchantment” thesis. Rather, it goes back to the transformation of the economy itself into an entity that preaches “values”, proclaims “visions” and in this sense develops an affinity to religious movements. The author deepens this view by referring to Marx’ and Polanyi’s interpretation of capitalism as a system of disembedded markets. The disembedding of markets gives rise to a historically new potential of social uncertainty which the actors need to cope with, thereby developing symbolisms showing striking affinities with religious forms. Nevertheless, the analogies between capitalism and religion are limited.     

Modelling of a thermomechanically coupled forming process based on functional outputs from a finite element analysis and from experimental measurements

In this paper, measurements from experiments and results of a finite element analysis (FEA) are combined in order to compute accurate empirical models for the temperature distribution before a thermomechanically coupled forming process. To accomplish this, Design and Analysis of Computer Experiments (DACE) is used to separately compute models for the measurements and the functional output of the FEA. Based on a hierarchical approach, a combined model of the process is computed. In this combined modelling approach, the model for the FEA is corrected by taking into account the systematic deviations from the experimental measurements. The large number of observations based on the functional output hinders the direct computation of the DACE models due to the internal inversion of the correlation matrix. Thus, different techniques for identifying a relevant subset of the observations are proposed. The application of the resulting procedure is presented, and a statistical validation of the empirical models is performed.     

Corporate social responsibility: a strategic and profitable response to entry?

This paper investigates whether an incumbent has an incentive to introduce corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities only as a response to entry by a competitor, i.e., the incumbent would eschew CSR if left uncontested. We assume that the entrant cannot provide CSR at least at the outset for two reasons: (1) it would not be credible due to its lack of recognition and (2) due to high fixed cost to pay e.g., for licensing. More precisely, this paper shows that monopolistic firms can have indeed the incentive to introduce CSR activities only as a response to entry. Therefore, increased competition can turn a firm “green”, providing a “win–win” for business as well as for the environment.