Better Safe than Sorry? The Effects of Income Risk and Unemployment Risk on Wages

We study the effects of income risk and unemployment risk on individual wages simultaneously. Starting point for the empirical analysis is a portfolio model for the labor market. This model shows positive wage effects for both risks but also a negative interaction effect. Using German administrative panel data we estimate the effects of the income risk, the unemployment risk and their interaction on individual wages separately for men and women in East and West Germany. We find the expected positive wage effects for both risks as well as a negative interaction effect. The marginal effect of income risk on wages is positive, whereas the marginal effect of unemployment risk is negative.     

THE RISE OF THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST: GERMAN LABOR MARKETS AND TRADE INTEGRATION

We analyze the effects of the unprecedented rise in trade between Germany and “the East” (China and Eastern Europe) in the period 1988–2008 on German local labor markets. Using detailed administrative data, we exploit the cross‐regional variation in initial industry structures and use trade flows of other high‐income countries as instruments for regional import and export exposure. We find that the rise of the East in the world economy caused substantial job losses in German regions specialized in import‐competing industries, both in manufacturing and beyond. Regions specialized in export‐oriented industries, however, experienced even stronger employment gains and lower unemployment. In the aggregate, we estimate that this trade integration has caused some 442,000 additional jobs in the economy and contributed to retaining the manufacturing sector in Germany. This is almost exclusively driven by the rise of Eastern Europe, not by China. We also conduct an analysis at the individual worker level, and find that trade had a stabilizing overall effect on employment relationships.     

Redefining citizenship for the 21st century: from the National Welfare State to the UN Global Compact

This article analyses the impact of globalisation on the changing role of citizenship as a state-centred mechanism of societal integration. As more diverse forms of society emerged in the second half of the last century, national citizenship came under assault by identity-based social groups from within. They function as integrative mechanisms for those members of society who diverge from the majority position and are committed to replace the nation-state as the dominant integrative device. From without, vast movements of peoples across borders in search of jobs and refuge constitute an even more serious challenge to the traditional notion of citizenship. With reference to the current EU debates about immigration and the idea of a UN Global Compact, the article explores principles of societal integration that transcend the boundaries of national citizenship and involve a governance paradigm built on civil society and voluntary action.     

In memoriam Gerburg Treusch-Dieter (1939–2006)

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Terrorism: A Peace Psychological Analysis

Peace psychologists emphasize the importance of recognizing both direct and structural bases of peace and conflict. In the peace psychological analysis of terrorism presented here, I attempt to further our understanding of the bases of terrorism in the context of how inequities in political, economic, and social structures may feed into or exacerbate terrorism. I analyze the effectiveness of responses to terrorism in terms of the tripartite peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding model of nonviolent response to violence.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Jürgen H.P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik</Emphasis> und <Emphasis Type="Italic">Christof Wolf:</Emphasis> Advances in cross-national comparison. A European working book for demographic and socio-economic variables

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Jürgen H.P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik und Christof Wolf: Advances in cross-national comparison. A European working book for demographic and socio-economic variables New York/Boston/Dordrecht/London/Moscow: Kluwer academic/plenum publishers 2003. 413 Seiten. ISBN 0-306-47731-9. Preis: € 153,-

     

Gambling as a function of gender and Sensation Seeking

This study examined the relation of gender and Sensation Seeking (SS) Scale scores to undergraduates' ratings of their past/present and expected future participation in four leisure activities that usually involve betting money. Subjects completed McKeachnie's (1975) Leisure Activities Blank (LAB), which included the gambling items, and Zuckerman's (1979) SS Scale. Men reported significantly more past/present leisure gambling than women; gender differences were insignificant in ratings of expected future gambling. No significant differences in reported past/present gambling related to any SS scale score. However, expected future gambling ratings were associated with scores on two SS subscales: Disinhibition (DIS) and Boredom Susceptibility (BS). Both male and female subjects with high DIS scores rated the frequency of expected future gambling higher than did subjects with low DIS scores. High BS scores were associated with high ratings of expected future gambling in the data for women subjects only. These results suggest that personality factors, among them SS, are more influential than early experience or sex-role socialization in determining a young adult's interest in gambling.     

NBUFR closure under the formation of coherent systems

Closure under the operation of forming coherent systems of independent components is a desirable property for a class of life distributions. We show that the NBUFR class possesses this property.     

U.S. unionism and R&D investment: Evidence from a simple cross-country test

This paper implements Freeman’s suggestion that insights into the effect of U.S. unionism on R&D investment may be obtained by correlating U.S. union density by industry with R&D investment by industry in another country, here Germany.