In some important multiplayer situations, such as efforts to supply a global public good, players can choose the game they want to play. In this paper we conduct an experimental test of the decision by a group with fixed membership, playing over a finite number of periods, to choose between a “tipping” game, in which every player wants to contribute to the public good provided enough other players contribute, and a prisoners’ dilemma, the classic cooperation game. In the prisoners’ dilemma, the first best outcome is ...

There are many (international) debates on education and education expenditures from a political economic as well as from a scientific perspective. However, the role of German counties and local agents in Germany in general has not been analyzed from an economic perspective yet. This is the reason why my doctoral thesis investigates the role of German counties as the “forgotten” agent for the determinants and effects of local public school expenditures. This cumulative dissertation consists of three econometric papers ...

Die Arbeit verfolgt das Ziel, darzustellen, was der Betrugstatbestand des § 263 StGB im Verbraucherschutz leistet bzw. wie die konsequente Anwendung der gesetzlichen Betrugsregelungen den Verbraucherschutz unterstützen könnte. Es werden als zentrale Themenbereiche im Rahmen einer Darstellung des Betruges gem. § 263 StGB sowie des Computerbetruges gem. § 263a StGB die opferorientierte Auslegung der Täuschungshandlung, die Einflussnahme des Unionsrechts auf die deutsche Betrugsstrafbarkeit sowie die Ansätze zur ...

Consumer attitudes toward consuming and buying locally produced food are well studied. By contrast, the topic of consumer preferences for local food, with a special emphasis on the role of norms, still lacks empirical evidence. To study the influence of norms and morals on the intention to buy local food products, a quantitative study (N = 327) focusing on external social and internalized moral norms was conducted using the constructs of the theory of planned behavior in combination with an extended norm taxonomy and ...

Im Mittelpunkt der vorliegenden Arbeit steht die wirtschaftspolitische Analyse der Konstruktion der Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion. Während die Geld- und Währungspolitik in Europa seit 1999 vollständig supranationalisiert ist, verbleiben zentrale Politikbereiche wie die Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik weiterhin in nationalstaatlicher Verantwortung. Die derzeitigen Probleme der EWWU – so die grundlegende Erkenntnis dieser Arbeit – sind v.a. darin begründet, dass die Währungsunion nicht durch eine adäquate Wirtschaftsunion ...

Previous research has considered entrepreneurship as a way out of poverty and as a chance to foster economic growth. Moreover, specifically start-ups headed by women have played an important role in the economic development and it has been argued that gender-related issues, amongst others, play a significant role for the performance of a country or region. Against this background, this qualitative study explores desires, reluctances and constraints toward entrepreneurial activities of a comparably homogenous group ...

Revealing the identities of contributors has been shown to increase cooperation in public goods games. In this paper we experimentally investigate whether this finding holds true when decisions are made by groups rather than individuals. We distinguish between groups in which members can discuss face-to-face to reach a decision and groups in which members communicate via computer chat. The results confirm the positive effect of identification on cooperation among individuals. For groups, however, we only find a small ...

This dissertation deals with daily leader-follower interactions, alignment of words and actions, well-being and effectiveness. The first part of the dissertation shows the impact of leader behavior on follower well-being in the context of transformational leadership. The second part goes beyond single leader behaviors and investigates the value-based alignment of two behaviors, namely vision communication and goal setting, and their effects on trust and leaders‘ effectiveness. Turning the lens, the final part sheds ...

Although retail investors’ interest in sustainable investment is constantly increasing, German credit unions and co-operative banks offer few sustainable financial products. The purpose of the study is to explore the current gap between supply and demand of sustainable financial investments in German retail banking from a financial advisor’s point of view. We use qualitative analysis of interviews with financial advisors based on a Grounded Theory approach with the aim to identify the key causation in the cause-effect ...

Ostracism is practiced by virtually all societies around the world as a means of enforcing cooperation. In this paper, we use a public goods experiment to study whether groups choose to implement an institution that allows for the exclusion of members. We distinguish between a costless exclusion institution and a costly exclusion institution that, if chosen, reduces the endowment of all players. We also provide a comparison with an exclusion institution that is exogenously imposed upon groups. A significant share of ...