@phdthesis{Roennberg2010, author = {R{\"o}nnberg, Michael}, title = {Bedeutung der Spezifikation f{\"u}r Ratingmodelle}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-48895}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Untersuchung der Bedeutung der Spezifikation f{\"u}r Ratingmodelle zur Prognose von Kreditausfallwahrscheinlichkeiten. Ausgehend von dem in der Bankenpraxis etablierten Logit-Modell werden verschiedene Modellerweiterungen diskutiert und hinsichtlich ihrer Eigenschaften als Ratingmodelle empirisch und simulationsbasiert untersucht. Die Interpretierbarkeit und die Prognoseg{\"u}te der Modelle werden dabei gleichermaßen ber{\"u}cksichtigt. Besonderes Augenmerk wird auf Mixed Logit-Modelle zur Abbildung individueller Heterogenit{\"a}t gelegt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Spezifikation einen wichtigen Einfluss auf die Eigenschaften von Ratingmodellen hat und dass insbesondere mit Hilfe von Mixed Logit-Ans{\"a}tzen sinnvoll interpretierbare Ratingmodelle mit guten Prognoseeigenschaften erlangt werden k{\"o}nnen.}, subject = {Bank}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Wismer2013, author = {Wismer, Sebastian}, title = {Essays in Industrial Organization: Intermediation, Marketing, and Strategic Pricing}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-99102}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2013}, abstract = {This dissertation deals with certain business strategies that have become particularly relevant with the spread and development of new information technologies. The introduction explains the motivation, discusses different ways of defining the term "two-sided market", and briefly summarizes the subsequent essays. The first essay examines the effects of product information on the pricing and advertising decision of a seller who offers an experience good whose quality is unknown to consumers prior to purchase. It comprises of two theoretical models which differ with respect to their view on advertising. The analysis addresses the question how the availability of additional, potentially misleading information affects the seller's quality-dependent pricing and advertising decision. In the first model, in which both advertising and product reviews make consumers aware about product existence, the seller's optimal price turns out to be increasing in product quality. However, under certain circumstances, also the seller of a low-quality product prefers setting a high price. Within the given framework, the relationship between product quality and advertising depends on the particular parameter constellation. In the second model, some consumers are assumed to interpret price as a signal of quality, while others rely on information provided by product reviews. Consequently, and differently from the first part, pricing may indirectly inform consumers about product quality. On the one hand, in spite of asymmetric information on product quality, equilibria exist that feature full information pricing, which is in line with previous results presented by the signaling literature. On the other hand, potentially misleading product reviews may rationalize further pricing patterns. Moreover, assuming that firms can manipulate product reviews by investing in concealed marketing, equilibria can arise in which a high price signals low product quality. However, in these extreme cases, only a few (credulous) consumers consider buying the product. The second essay deals with trade platforms whose operators not only allow sellers to offer their products to consumers, but also offer products themselves. In this context, the platform operator faces a hold-up problem if he sets classical two-part tariffs (on which previous literature on two-sided markets focussed) as potential competition between the platform operator and sellers reduces platform attractiveness. Since some sellers refuse to join the platform, products whose existence is not known to the platform operator in the first place and which can only be established by better informed sellers may not be offered at all. However, revenue-based fees lower the platform operator's incentives to compete with sellers, increasing platform attractiveness. Therefore, charging such proportional fees can be profitable, what may explain why several trade platforms indeed do charge proportional fees. The third essay examines settings in which sellers can be active both on an intermediary's trade platform and in other sales channels. It explores the sellers' incentives to set different prices across sales channels within the given setup. Afterwards, it analyzes the intermediary's tariff decision, taking into account the implications on consumers' choice between different sales channels. The analysis particularly focusses on the effects of a no-discrimination rule which several intermediaries impose, but which appears to be controversial from a competition policy view. It identifies under which circumstances the intermediary prefers restricting sellers' pricing decisions by imposing a no-discrimination rule, attaining direct control over the split-up of customers on sales channels. Moreover, it illustrates that such rules can have both positive and negative effects on welfare within the given framework.}, subject = {Industrie{\"o}konomie}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{DonadoGomez2011, author = {Donado Gomez, Alejandro}, title = {Trade Unions and Occupational Health and Safety}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-56076}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2011}, abstract = {This thesis comprises three essays that study the impact of trade unions on occupational health and safety (OHS). The first essay proposes a theoretical model that highlights the crucial role that unions have played throughout history in making workplaces safer. Firms traditionally oppose better health standards. Workplace safety is costly for firms but increases the average health of workers and thereby the aggregate labour supply. A laissez-faire approach in which firms set safety standards is suboptimal as workers are not fully informed of health risks associated with their jobs. Safety standards set by better-informed trade unions are output and welfare increasing. The second essay extends the model to a two-country world consisting of the capital-rich "North" and the capital-poor "South". The North has trade unions that set high OHS standards. There are no unions in the South and OHS standards are low. Trade between these two countries can imply a reduction in safety standards in the North, lowering the positive welfare effects of trade. Moreover, when trade unions are also established in the South, northern OHS standards might be further reduced. The third essay studies the impact of unions on OHS from an empirical perspective. It focuses on one component of OHS: occupational injuries. A literature summary including 25 empirical studies shows that most studies associate unions with less fatal occupational injuries. This is in perfect line with the anecdotal evidence and the basic model from the first essay. However, the literature summary also shows that most empirical studies associate unions with more nonfatal occupational injuries. This puzzling result has been explained in the literature by (1) lower underreporting in unionized workplaces, (2) unions being more able to organize hazardous workplaces, and (3) unionized workers preferring higher wages at the expense of better working conditions. Using individual-level panel data, this essay presents evidence against all these three explanations. However, it cannot reject the hypothesis that workers reduce their precautionary behaviour when they join a trade union. Hence, the puzzle seems to be due to a strong moral hazard effect. These empirical results suggest that the basic model from the first essay needs to be extended to account for this moral hazard effect.}, subject = {Arbeitsschutz}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Brause2010, author = {Brause, Alexander F.}, title = {Foreign Exchange Market Interventions: New Empirical Views of Emerging Markets}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-55207}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Since the beginning, central banks have used a wide range of instruments to achieve their ultimate purpose of price stability. One measure in the authorities’ toolbox is a foreign exchange market intervention. The discussion about this instrument has come a long way. So far, the discussion relied mainly on industrialized countries'’ experiences. The negative outcomes of most studies with respect to the effectiveness of the intervention tool, opened up a discussion, whether interventions should be used by the authorities to manage exchange rate aspects. Consequently, the question about the dynamics of foreign exchange market interventions is now open to the subject-matter of developing and emerging market countries. Monetary policy in those countries often constitutes an active management of exchange rates. However, the basic discussions about intervention dynamics have had one essential drawback. Neither the primary literature of industrialized countries nor studies dealing with developing countries have considered the fact that intervention purposes and the corresponding effects are likely to vary over time. This thesis is designed to provide the reader with essential issues of central bank interventions, and aims to give further, as well as new contributions, in terms of empirical research on interventions in emerging markets. The main objectives of this study are the analysis of central bank intervention motives, and the corresponding effects on exchange rates in emerging markets. The time dependency of both issues is explicitly considered, which states a novelty in academic research of central bank interventions. Additionally, the outcomes are discussed against the background of underlying economic and monetary policy fundamentals. This could well serve as a starting point for further research.}, subject = {Schwellenl{\"a}nder}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Steinmetz2009, author = {Steinmetz, Alexander}, title = {Essays on Strategic Behavior and Dynamic Oligopoly Competition}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-47934}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2009}, abstract = {This thesis deals with three selected dimensions of strategic behavior, namely investment in R\&D, mergers and acquisitions, and inventory decisions in dynamic oligopolies. The question the first essay addresses is how the market structure evolves due to innovative activities when firms' level of technological competence is valuable for more than one project. The focus of the work is the analysis of the effect of learning-by-doing and organizational forgetting in R\&D on firms' incentives to innovate. A dynamic step-by-step innovation model with history dependency is developed. Firms can accumulate knowledge by investing in R\&D. As a benchmark without knowledge accumulation it is shown that relaxing the usual assumption of imposed imitation yields additional strategic effects. Therefore, the leader's R\&D effort increases with the gap as she is trying to avoid competition in the future. When firms gain experience by performing R\&D, the resulting effect of knowledge induces technological leaders to rest on their laurels which allows followers to catch up. Contrary to the benchmark case the leader's innovation effort declines with the lead. This causes an equilibrium where the incentives to innovate are highest when competition is most intense. Using a model of oligopoly in general equilibrium the second essay analyzes the integration of economies that might be accompanied by cross-border merger waves. Studying economies which prior to trade were in stable equilibrium where mergers were not profitable, we show that globalization can trigger cross-border merger waves for a sufficiently large heterogeneity in marginal cost. In partial equilibrium, consumers benefit from integration even when a merger wave is triggered which considerably lowers intensity of competition. Welfare increases. In contrast, in general equilibrium where interactions between markets and therefore effects on factor prices are considered, gains from trade can only be realized by reallocation of resources. The higher the technological dissimilarity between countries the better can efficiency gains be realized in integrated general equilibrium. The overall welfare effect of integration is positive when all firms remain active but indeterminate when firms exit or are absorbed due to a merger wave. It is possible for decreasing competition to dominate the welfare gain from more efficient resource allocation across sectors. Allowing for firms' entry alters results as in an integrated world coexistence of firms of different countries is never possible. Comparative advantages with respect to entry and production are important for realizing efficiency gains from trade. The third essay analyzes the interaction between price and inventory decisions in an oligopoly industry and its implications for the dynamics of prices. The work extends existing literature and especially the work of Hall and Rust (2007) to endogenous prices and strategic oligopoly competition. We show that the optimal decision rule is an (S,s) order policy and prices and inventories are strategic substitutes. Fixed ordering costs generate infrequent orders. Additionally, with strategic competition in prices, (S,s) inventory behavior together with demand uncertainty generates cyclical pattern in prices The last chapter presents some concluding remarks on the results of the essays.}, subject = {Wettbewerbsstrategie}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schumm2009, author = {Schumm, Irene}, title = {Lessons Learned From Germany's 2001-2006 Labor Market Reforms}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-43705}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2009}, abstract = {In der Dissertation werden die Gesetze zur Reform des Arbeitsmarktes in Deutschland, besser bekannt als Hartz-Reformen, untersucht. Zun{\"a}chst wird ein {\"U}berblick {\"u}ber die wichtigsten {\"A}nderungen aus den vier Reform-Paketen gegeben sowie die Effekte, welche man sich davon versprach. Des Weiteren werden zwei grundlegende Reformmaßnahmen, n{\"a}mlich die Zusammenlegung der Arbeitslosen- und Sozialhilfe (Hartz IV) sowie die Verk{\"u}rzung der Bezugsdauer der Arbeitslosenversicherungsleistung, analysiert, um deren Auswirkungen auf das individuelle Verhalten und die aggregierte {\"O}konomie zu evaluieren. Diese Untersuchung geschieht im Rahmen eines Matching-Modells mit optimaler verweildauerabh{\"a}ngiger Suchleistung. Mit Hilfe von Semi-Markov-Methoden, deren Anwendung in der Arbeitsmarkttheorie beschrieben wird, findet schließlich eine Aggregierung statt. Auf diese Weise k{\"o}nnen die Auswirkungen der Hartz-IV-Reformen auf die Verweildauer in Arbeitslosigkeit, die optimale Suchleistung und die Arbeitslosigkeit quantifiziert werden.}, subject = {Hartz-Reform}, language = {en} } @article{RoemeisHerwegMueller2022, author = {R{\"o}meis, Fabio and Herweg, Fabian and M{\"u}ller, Daniel}, title = {Salience bias and overwork}, series = {Games}, volume = {13}, journal = {Games}, number = {1}, issn = {2073-4336}, doi = {10.3390/g13010015}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-255213}, year = {2022}, abstract = {In this study, we enrich a standard principal-agent model with hidden action by introducing salience-biased perception on the agent's side. The agent's misguided focus on salient payoffs, which leads the agent's and the principal's probability assessments to diverge, has two effects: First, the agent focuses too much on obtaining a bonus, which facilitates incentive provision. Second, the principal may exploit the diverging probability assessments to relax participation. We show that salience bias can reverse the nature of the inefficiency arising from moral hazard; i.e., the principal does not necessarily provide insufficient incentives that result in inefficiently low effort but instead may well provide excessive incentives that result in inefficiently high effort.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Gruendler2018, author = {Gr{\"u}ndler, Klaus}, title = {A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Development - The Role of Technology, Inequality, and the State}, edition = {1. Auflage}, publisher = {W{\"u}rzburg University Press}, address = {W{\"u}rzburg}, isbn = {978-3-95826-072-6 (Print)}, doi = {10.25972/WUP-978-3-95826-073-3}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-141520}, school = {W{\"u}rzburg University Press}, pages = {300}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This dissertation contributes to the empirical analysis of economic development. The continuing poverty in many Sub-Saharan-African countries as well as the declining trend in growth in the advanced economies that was initiated around the turn of the millennium raises a number of new questions which have received little attention in recent empirical studies. Is culture a decisive factor for economic development? Do larger financial markets trigger positive stimuli with regard to incomes, or is the recent increase in their size in advanced economies detrimental to economic growth? What causes secular stagnation, i.e. the reduction in growth rates of the advanced economies observable over the past 20 years? What is the role of inequality in the growth process, and how do governmental attempts to equalize the income distribution affect economic development? And finally: Is the process of democratization accompanied by an increase in living standards? These are the central questions of this doctoral thesis. To facilitate the empirical analysis of the determinants of economic growth, this dissertation introduces a new method to compute classifications in the field of social sciences. The approach is based on mathematical algorithms of machine learning and pattern recognition. Whereas the construction of indices typically relies on arbitrary assumptions regarding the aggregation strategy of the underlying attributes, utilization of Support Vector Machines transfers the question of how to aggregate the individual components into a non-linear optimization problem. Following a brief overview of the theoretical models of economic growth provided in the first chapter, the second chapter illustrates the importance of culture in explaining the differences in incomes across the globe. In particular, if inhabitants have a lower average degree of risk-aversion, the implementation of new technology proceeds much faster compared with countries with a lower tendency towards risk. However, this effect depends on the legal and political framework of the countries, their average level of education, and their stage of development. The initial wealth of individuals is often not sufficient to cover the cost of investments in both education and new technologies. By providing loans, a developed financial sector may help to overcome this shortage. However, the investigations in the third chapter show that this mechanism is dependent on the development levels of the economies. In poor countries, growth of the financial sector leads to better education and higher investment levels. This effect diminishes along the development process, as intermediary activity is increasingly replaced by speculative transactions. Particularly in times of low technological innovation, an increasing financial sector has a negative impact on economic development. In fact, the world economy is currently in a phase of this kind. Since the turn of the millennium, growth rates in the advanced economies have experienced a multi-national decline, leading to an intense debate about "secular stagnation" initiated at the beginning of 2015. The fourth chapter deals with this phenomenon and shows that the growth potentials of new technologies have been gradually declining since the beginning of the 2000s. If incomes are unequally distributed, some individuals can invest less in education and technological innovations, which is why the fifth chapter identifies an overall negative effect of inequality on growth. This influence, however, depends on the development level of countries. While the negative effect is strongly pronounced in poor economies with a low degree of equality of opportunity, this influence disappears during the development process. Accordingly, redistributive polices of governments exert a growth-promoting effect in developing countries, while in advanced economies, the fostering of equal opportunities is much more decisive. The sixth chapter analyzes the growth effect of the political environment and shows that the ambiguity of earlier studies is mainly due to unsophisticated measurement of the degree of democratization. To solve this problem, the chapter introduces a new method based on mathematical algorithms of machine learning and pattern recognition. While the approach can be used for various classification problems in the field of social sciences, in this dissertation it is applied for the problem of democracy measurement. Based on different country examples, the chapter shows that the resulting SVMDI is superior to other indices in modeling the level of democracy. The subsequent empirical analysis emphasizes a significantly positive growth effect of democracy measured via SVMDI.}, subject = {Wirtschaftsentwicklung}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schamberger2022, author = {Schamberger, Tamara Svenja}, title = {Methodological Advances in Composite-based Structural Equation Modeling}, isbn = {978-90-365-5375-9}, doi = {10.3990/1.9789036553759}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-276794}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2022}, abstract = {This thesis is about composite-based structural equation modeling. Structural equation modeling in general can be used to model both theoretical concepts and their relations to one another. In traditional factor-based structural equation modeling, these theoretical concepts are modeled as common factors, i.e., as latent variables which explain the covariance structure of their observed variables. In contrast, in composite-based structural equation modeling, the theoretical concepts can be modeled both as common factors and as composites, i.e., as linear combinations of observed variables that convey all the information between their observed variables and all other variables in the model. This thesis presents some methodological advancements in the field of composite-based structural equation modeling. In all, this thesis is made up of seven chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the underlying model, as well as explicating the meaning of the term composite-based structural equation modeling. Chapter 2 gives guidelines on how to perform Monte Carlo simulations in the statistic software R using the package "cSEM" with various estimators in the context of composite-based structural equation modeling. These guidelines are illustrated by an example simulation study that investigates the finite sample behavior of partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) and consistent partial least squares (PLSc) estimates, particularly regarding the consequences of sample correlations between measurement errors on statistical inference. The third Chapter presents estimators of composite-based structural equation modeling that are robust in responding to outlier distortion. For this purpose, estimators of composite-based structural equation modeling, PLS-PM and PLSc, are adapted. Unlike the original estimators, these adjustments can avoid distortion that could arise from random outliers in samples, as is demonstrated through a simulation study. Chapter 4 presents an approach to performing predictions based on models estimated with ordinal partial least squares and ordinal consistent partial least squares. Here, the observed variables lie on an ordinal categorical scale which is explicitly taken into account in both estimation and prediction. The prediction performance is evaluated by means of a simulation study. In addition, the chapter gives guidelines on how to perform such predictions using the R package "cSEM". This is demonstrated by means of an empirical example. Chapter 5 introduces confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) for research in "Human Development". Using CCA, composite models can be estimated and assessed. This chapter uses the Henseler-Ogasawara specification for composite models, allowing, for example, the maximum likelihood method to be used for parameter estimation. Since the maximum likelihood estimator based on the Henseler-Ogasawara specification has limitations, Chapter 6 presents another specification of the composite model by means of which composite models can be estimated with the maximum likelihood method. The results of this maximum likelihood estimator are compared with those of PLS-PM, thus showing that this maximum likelihood estimator gives valid results even in finite samples. The last chapter, Chapter 7, gives an overview of the development and different strands of composite-based structural equation modeling. Additionally, here I examine the contribution the previous chapters make to the wider distribution of composite-based structural equation modeling.}, subject = {Structural Equation Modeling}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schuberth2019, author = {Schuberth, Florian}, title = {Composite-based Methods in Structural Equation Modeling}, doi = {10.25972/OPUS-15465}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-154653}, school = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This dissertation deals with composite-based methods for structural equation models with latent variables and their enhancement. It comprises five chapters. Besides a brief introduction in the first chapter, the remaining chapters consisting of four essays cover the results of my PhD studies.Two of the essays have already been published in an international journal. The first essay considers an alternative way of construct modeling in structural equation modeling.While in social and behavioral sciences theoretical constructs are typically modeled as common factors, in other sciences the common factor model is an inadequate way construct modeling due to its assumptions. This essay introduces the confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) analogous to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In contrast to CFA, CCA models theoretical constructs as composites instead of common factors. Besides the theoretical presentation of CCA and its assumptions, a Monte Carlo simulation is conducted which demonstrates that misspecifications of the composite model can be detected by the introduced test for overall model fit. The second essay rises the question of how parameter differences can be assessed in the framework of partial least squares path modeling. Since the standard errors of the estimated parameters have no analytical closed-form, the t- and F-test known from regression analysis cannot be directly used to test for parameter differences. However, bootstrapping provides a solution to this problem. It can be employed to construct confidence intervals for the estimated parameter differences, which can be used for making inferences about the parameter difference in the population. To guide practitioners, guidelines were developed and demonstrated by means of empirical examples. The third essay answers the question of how ordinal categorical indicators can be dealt with in partial least squares path modeling. A new consistent estimator is developed which combines the polychoric correlation and partial least squares path modeling to appropriately deal with the qualitative character of ordinal categorical indicators. The new estimator named ordinal consistent partial least squares combines consistent partial least squares with ordinal partial least squares. Besides its derivation, a Monte Carlo simulation is conducted which shows that the new estimator performs well in finite samples. Moreover, for illustration, an empirical example is estimated by ordinal consistent partial least squares. The last essay introduces a new consistent estimator for polynomial factor models. Similarly to consistent partial least squares, weights are determined to build stand-ins for the latent variables, however a non-iterative approach is used. A Monte Carlo simulation shows that the new estimator behaves well in finite samples.}, subject = {Strukturgleichungsmodell}, language = {en} }