Erich-Schneider-Seminar
Weekly seminar of the Department of Economics on mondays, 4:15 - 5:30 p.m.
Organizer: Dr. Rüdiger Voss
02.11.2020: Mark Kirstein, London Mathematical Laboratory
Nov 09, 2020 from 04:15 PM to 05:30 PM
virtual lecture
Speaker: Mark Kirstein, PhD, DAAD Prime Fellow in Ergodicity Economics
DAAD PRIME Fellow of the London Mathematical Laboratory
MPI MiS Research Group on Economics and Social Sciences
Host: Prof. Thomas Lux
Title: What are we weighting for? A mechanistic model for probability weighting
Abstract
Behavioural economics provides labels for patterns in human economic behaviour. Probability weighting is one such label. It expresses a mismatch between probabilities used in a formal model of a decision (i.e. model parameters) and probabilities inferred from real people's decisions (the same parameters estimated empirically). The inferred probabilities are called ``decision weights.'' It is considered a robust experimental finding that decision weights are higher than probabilities for rare events, and (necessarily, through normalisation) lower than probabilities for common events. Typically this is presented as a cognitive bias, i.e. an error of judgement by the person. Here we point out that the same observation can be described differently: broadly speaking, probability weighting means that a decision maker has greater uncertainty about the world than the observer. We offer a plausible mechanism whereby such differences in uncertainty arise naturally: when a decision maker must estimate probabilities as frequencies in a time series while the observer knows them a priori. This suggests an alternative presentation of probability weighting as a principled response by a decision maker to uncertainties unaccounted for in an observer's model.
09.11.2020: Dominik Sachs, LMU München
Nov 09, 2020 from 04:15 PM to 05:45 PM
virtual lecture
Short Introduction Round of new PhD candidates 2020, followed by presentation of
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Dominik Sachs, LMU München - Public economics, macroeconomics, education and labor economics
Title: The Indirect Fiscal Benefits of Low-Skilled Immigration
Host: Prof. Jens Ruhose
Abstract:
Low-skilled immigrants indirectly affect public finances through their effect on native wages & labor supply. We operationalize this general-equilibrium effect in the workhorse labor market model with heterogeneous workers and intensive and extensive labor supply margins. We derive a closed-form expression for this effect in terms of estimable statis- tics. We extend the analysis to various alternative specifications of the labor market and production that have been emphasized in the immigration literature. Empirical quantifi- cations for the U.S. reveal that the indirect fiscal benefit of one low-skilled immigrant lies between $770 and $2,100 annually. The indirect fiscal benefit may outweigh the negative direct fiscal effect that has previously been documented. This challenges the perception of low-skilled immigration as a fiscal burden.
23.11.2020: Prof. Dr. Simon Wiederhold, KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Nov 23, 2020 from 04:15 PM to 05:30 PM
virtual lecture
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Simon Wiederhold, KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Please use this link to participate:
https://uni-kiel.zoom.us/j/81447331343
Titel: Behavioral Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment
Abstract
Early child care is an essential tool to support child development and to mitigate educational inequality early in life. While children from families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to benefit more from child care, their enrollment rates are substantially lower. We investigate whether alleviating behavioral barriers in the child care application process reduces this SES gap. In a randomized controlled trial with more than 600 families with infant children in Germany, we implement a behavioral intervention that provides parents with information and application assistance. Nine months after the intervention, treated lower-SES families are 21 percentage points more likely to apply for a child care slot, and 16 percentage points more likely to be enrolled in child care. The treatment has no effect on higher-SES families, implying that it closes the SES gap in application probability entirely, and halves the SES gap in enrollment. The treatment is especially helpful for families with an initial plan to enroll and parents with high beliefs about the returns to child care. Analyses on supply-side constraints indicate that benefits are concentrated in areas with high competition for child care slots. Our study demonstrates that the socioeconomic gap in child care enrollment is substantially determined by behavioral barriers that can be easily overcome. Policies aiming at reducing these barriers are potentially cost-effective means to foster equality of opportunity early on.
Host: Prof. Jens Ruhose
07.12.2020: Prof. Dr. Michael Berlemann (HSU HAmburg)
Dec 07, 2020 from 04:15 PM to 05:30 PM
virtual lecture
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Michael Berlemann - Politische Ökonomik und Empirische Wirtschaftsforschung
Titel: Right and Yet Wrong: A Spatio-Temporal Evaluation of Germany's COVID-19 Containment Policy
Abstract: In order to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control, most governments around the globe have adopted some sort of containment policies. In the light of the enormous costs of these policies, in many countries highly controversial discussions on the adequacy of the chosen policies evolved. We contribute to this discussion by evaluating three waves of containment measures adopted by the German government. Based on a spatio-temporal endemic-epidemic model we show that in retrospective, only the first wave of containment measures clearly contributed to flattening the curve of new infections. However, a real-time analysis using the same empirical model reveals that based on the then available information, the adoption of additional containment measures was warranted. Moreover our spatio-temporal analysis shows that a one-size-fits-all policy, as it was adopted in Germany on the early stages of the epidemic, is not optimal.
Host: Prof. Katrin Rehdanz
11.01.2021: Dr. Jobst Heitzig (PIK)
Jan 11, 2021 from 04:15 PM to 05:30 PM
virtual lecture
Speaker: Dr. Jobst Heitzig, PIK - Leader, FutureLab on Game Theory and Networks of Interacting Agents
Title: Provision of public goods via unilateral but mutually conditional commitments - mechanism, equilibria, and learning
Abstract:
Considering that players may be unable to write binding agreements but may make binding unilateral commitments that are conditional on others' actions, we study a mechanism based on conditional commitment functions (CCFs). If players must choose their CCFs once and simultaneously, the mechanism contributes to the Nash program since its strong (or coalition-proof) equilibria realize precisely the core outcomes of the corresponding bargaining problem. If players can communicate, the outcome can thus be expected to be Pareto-efficient. Even without communication, the core outcomes may be found by simple individual learning rules. We motivate the idea in a Cournot duopoly and a public good problem and then derive our results in a very general decision-theoretic framework and give further examples from different areas of economics.
Zoom Link:
https://uni-kiel.zoom.us/j/86854483127
Ref.: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3449004
Host: Prof. Ulrike Kornek
25.01.2021: tba
Jan 25, 2021 from 04:15 PM to 05:30 PM
WSP1 R401
Host:
08.02.2021: Daniel Fricke (Bundesbank): Synthetic Leverage, Risk-Taking, and Monetary Policy
Feb 08, 2021 from 04:15 PM to 05:30 PM
WSP1 R401
Speaker: Daniel Fricke, Bundesbank
Title: Synthetic Leverage, Risk-Taking, and Monetary Policy
Abstract: A growing literature documents that easy monetary policy facilitates investor risk-taking. In this paper, I propose a new measure of synthetic leverage and provide evidence that German equity funds have been increasing their risk-taking through synthetic leverage from 2015 onwards. In fact, changes in synthetic leverage are closely aligned with the stance of monetary policy. Returns of synthetically leveraged funds (those that make use of risk-taking strategies) tend to be negative on a risk-adjusted basis and these funds underperform other funds significantly. Lastly, while synthetically leveraged funds do not differ in terms of their flow-performance sensitivity, they display larger flow externalities, in particular during volatile market conditions.
Zoom Link:
https://uni-kiel.zoom.us/j/85625408164
Host: Prof. Thomas Lux