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Chapter 2: Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, this study examines the relation-ship between immigrant residential segregation and immigrants" satisfaction with the neighbor-hood. The estimates show that immigrants living in segregated areas are less satisfied with the neighborhood. This is consistent with the hypothesis that housing discrimination rather than self-selection plays an important role in immigrant residential segregation. Our result holds true even when controlling for other influences such as household income and quality of the dwelling. It also holds true in fixed effects estimates that account for unobserved time-invariant influences. Chapter 3: Using survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, this study shows that immigrants living in segregated residential areas are more likely to report discrimination because of their ethnic background. This applies to both segregated areas where most neighbors are immigrants from the same country of origin as the surveyed person and segregated areas where most neighbors are immigrants from other countries of origin. The results suggest that housing discrimination rather than self-selection plays an important role in immigrant residential segregation. Chapter 4: Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and administrative data from 1996 to 2009, I investigate the question whether or not right-wing extremism of German residents is affected by the ethnic concentration of foreigners living in the same residential area. My results show a positive but insignificant relationship between ethnic concentration at the county level and the probability of extreme right-wing voting behavior for West Germany. However, due to potential endogeneity issues, I additionally instrument the share of foreigners in a county with the share of foreigners in each federal state (following an approach of Dustmann/Preston 2001). I find evidence for the interethnic contact theory, predicting a negative relationship between foreign-ers" share and right-wing voting. Moreover, I analyze the moderating role of education and the influence of cultural traits on this relationship. Chapter 5: Using data from the Socio-Economic Panel from 1998 to 2009 and administrative data on regional ethnic diversity, I show that ethnic diversity inhibits significantly people- political interest and participation in political organizations in West Germany. People seem to isolate themselves from political participation if exposed to more ethnic diversity which is particularly relevant with respect to the ongoing integration process of the European Union and the increasing transfer of legislative power from the national to European level. The results are robust if an instrumental variable strategy suggested by Dustmann and Preston (2001) is used to take into account that ethnic diversity measured on a local spatial level could be endogenous due to residential sorting. Interestingly, participation in non-political organizations is positively affected by ethnic diversity if selection bias is corrected for.
Das erste Kapitel "ECOWAS" capability and potential to overcome constraints to growth and poverty reduction of its member states" diskutiert die Analyse wirtschaftlicher und sozialer Barrieren für ökonomisches Wachstum " eine der Hauptelemente für Entwicklungs- und Armutsreduktionsstrategien in Entwicklungsländern. Die Form der länderspezifischen Analyse von Wachstumsbarrieren wurde nach dem Scheitern der auf alle Länder generalisierten Entwicklungsstrategie des Washington Consensus insbesondere durch den Ansatz der "Growth Diagnostics" der Harvard Professoren Hausman, Rodrik und Velasco eingeführt. Es zeigt sich jedoch, dass bisher der Fokus rein auf den länderspezifischen Analysen bzw. Strategieentwicklungen liegt. Diese Arbeit erweiterte die Diskussion auf die regionale Ebene, indem es beispielhaft an der Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) die länderspezifischen Wachstumsbarrieren mit den regionalen Wachstumsbarrieren vergleicht. Dies erfolgt mittels einer Darstellung der in Studien und Strategien bereits identifizierten, länderspezifischen Wachstumsbarrieren in den jeweiligen Ländern sowie mit der Auswertung der regionalen Strategien der ECOWAS. Dazu wird ermittelt, inwieweit auf der regionalen Ebene auch messbare Ergebnisse bei der Bekämpfung von Wachstumsbarrieren erzielt werden. Es zeigt sich, dass ,trotz der wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Diversität der Region, die ECOWAS den Großteil der in den Ländern identifizierten Wachstumsbarrieren ebenfalls auflistet und darüber hinaus sogar mit messbaren Ergebnissen dazu beiträgt, Veränderungen des Status Quo zu erreichen. Die Erweiterung des Ansatzes der Growth Diagnostics auf die regionale Ebene sowie die Erweiterung um das vergleichende Element von länderspezifischen und regionalen Wachstumsbarrieren zeigen sich als praktikabler Weg, Entwicklungsstrategien auf regionaler Ebene zu prüfen und subsidiär weiterzuentwickeln. Das zweite Kapitel "Simplifying evaluation of potential causalities in development projects using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)" diskutiert die Methode der qualitativen komperativen Analyse (QCA) als Evaluierungsmethodik für Projekte der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. Hierbei stehen die adäquate Messung sowie die verständliche Darstellung der Wirkung von Entwicklungszusammenarbeit im Vordergrund. Dies ist ein Beitrag zu der intensiv geführten Diskussion, wie Wirkung von Hilfe in Entwicklungsländern gemessen und daraus für weitere Projekte gelernt werden kann. Mit der beispielhaften Anwendung der QCA auf einen Datensatz der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit im Senegal wird erstmalig diese Methode für die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit in der Praxis angewandt. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf der Überprüfung von bestimmten Programmtheorien, d.h. der Annahme bestimmter Zusammenhänge zwischen eingesetzten Mitteln, äußeren Umständen und den Projektergebnissen bei der Implementierung von Projekten. Während solche Programmtheorien in dem Großteil der Projektskizzen der deutschen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit enthalten sind, werden die wenigsten dieser Programmtheorien geprüft. Diese Arbeit zeigt QCA als eine effiziente Methode für diese Überprüfung. Eine eindeutige Bestätigung oder Falsifizierung dieser Theorien ist mittels dieser Methodik möglich. Dazu können die Ergebnisse bei den beiden einfacheren Formen der QCA, der crisp-set sowie der multi-value QCA, leicht nachvollziehbar vermittelt werden. Des Weiteren zeigt die Arbeit, dass QCA ebenfalls die Weiterentwicklung einer Programmtheorie ermöglicht, allerdings ist diese Weiterentwicklung nur begrenzt effizient und stark von den vorliegenden Daten sowie der Datenstruktur abhängig. Die Arbeit zeigt somit das Potential der QCA insbesondere für den Test von Programmtheorien auf und stellt die praktische Anwendung für mögliche Replizierung beispielhaft dar. Das dritte und letzte Kapitel der Doktorarbeit "The regional trade dynamics of Turkey: a panel data gravity model" analysiert den türkischen Handel, um die Veränderungen der letzten Jahrzehnte aufzuzeigen und daran zu diskutieren, inwieweit sich die Türkei als aufstrebendes Schwellenland von den bestehenden Handelsstrukturen loslöst. Diese Arbeit ist ein Beitrag zur Diskussion der sich Verschiebenden Machtkonstellationen durch das wirtschaftliche Aufholen der Schwellenländer. Bei der Türkei ist diese Diskussion zusätzlich interessant, da die Frage, ob die Türkei sich von der westlichen Welt, Nordamerika und Europa, abwendet, berücksichtigt wird. Mittels Dummy-Variablen für verschiedene Regionen in einem Gravitätsmodell werden die türkischen Handelsdaten zuerst insgesamt und nach Sektoren analysiert und die Veränderungen über verschieden Perioden des türkischen Außenhandels betrachtet. Es zeigt sich, dass in den türkischen Handelsbeziehungen eine Regionalisierung und eine Diversifizierung der Handelspartner stattfinden. Allerdings geht dies nicht mit einer Abkehr von westlichen Handelspartnern einher.
The influence of affect on vocal parameters has been well investigated in speech portrayed by actors, but little is known about affect expression in more natural or authentic speech behavior. This is partly due to the difficulty of generating speech samples that represent authentic expression of speaker affect. The present work investigates the influence of speaker affect on the vocal fundamental frequency (F0) in comparatively authentic speech samples. Three well-documented psychophysiological research methods were applied for the induction of affective states in German native speakers in order to obtain speech samples with authentic affect expression: the Cold Pressor Test (CPT), the Stroop Color-Word Test (SCWT) and the presentation of slides from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS). The here reported results show that the influence of affect on F0 is differentially modulated by psychophysiological processes as well as socio-cultural influences. They also indicate that this approach may be useful for future research and further to gain a deeper understanding of authentic vocal affect expression. Moreover, F0 may constitute an additional non-invasive, easy to obtain measure for the established psychophysiological research methodology.
Attitudes are "the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology" (Allport, 1935, p. 798). This outstanding position of the attitude concept in social cognitive research is not only reflected in the innumerous studies focusing on this concept but also in the huge number of theoretical approaches that have been put forth since then. Yet, it is still an open question, what attitudes actually are. That is, the question of how attitude objects are represented in memory cannot be unequivocally answered until now (e.g., Barsalou, 1999; Gawronski, 2007; Pratkanis, 1989, Chapter 4). In particular, researchers strongly differ with respect to their assumptions on the content, format and structural nature of attitude representations (Ferguson & Fukukura, 2012). This prevailing uncertainty on what actually constitutes our likes and dislikes is strongly dovetailed with the question of which processes result in the formation of these representations. In recent years, this issue has mainly been addressed in evaluative conditioning research (EC). In a standard EC-paradigm a neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS) is repeatedly paired with an affective stimulus (unconditioned stimulus, US). The pairing of stimuli then typically results in changes in the evaluation of the CS corresponding to the evaluative response of the US (De Houwer, Baeyens, & Field, 2005). This experimental approach on the formation of attitudes has primarily been concerned with the question of how the representations underlying our attitudes are formed. However, which processes operate on the formation of such an attitude representation is not yet understood (Jones, Olson, & Fazio, 2010; Walther, Nagengast, & Trasselli, 2005). Indeed, there are several ideas on how CS-US pairs might be encoded in memory. Notwithstanding the importance of these theoretical ideas, looking at the existing empirical work within the research area of EC (for reviews see Hofmann, De Houwer, Perugini, Baeyens, & Crombez, 2010; De Houwer, Thomas, & Baeyens, 2001) leaves one with the impression that scientists have skipped the basic processes. Basic processes hereby especially refer to the attentional processes being involved in the encoding of CSs and USs as well as the relation between them. Against the background of this huge gap in current research on attitude formation, the focus of this thesis will be to highlight the contribution of selective attention processes to a better understanding of the representation underlying our likes and dislikes. In particular, the present thesis considers the role of selective attention processes for the solution of the representation issue from three different perspectives. Before illustrating these different perspectives, Chapter 1 is meant to envision the omnipresence of the representation problem in current theoretical as well as empirical work on evaluative conditioning. Likewise, it emphasizes the critical role of selective attention processes for the representation question in classical conditioning and how this knowledge might be used to put forth the uniqueness of evaluative conditioning as compared to classical conditioning. Chapter 2 then considers the differential influence of attentional resources and goal-directed attention on attitude learning. The primary objective of the presented experiment was thereby to investigate whether attentional resources and goal-directed attention exert their influence on EC via changes in the encoding of CS-US relations in memory (i.e., contingency memory). Taking the findings from this experiment into account, Chapter 3 focuses on the selective processing of the US relative to the CS. In particular, the two experiments presented in this chapter were meant to explore the moderating influence of the selective processing of the US in its relation to the CS on EC. In Chapter 4 the important role of the encoding of the US in relation to the CS, as outlined in Chapter 3, is illuminated in the context of different retrieval processes. Against the background of the findings from the two presented experiments, the interplay between the encoding of CS-US contingencies and the moderation of EC via different retrieval processes will be discussed. Finally, a general discussion of the findings, their theoretical implications and future research lines will be outlined in Chapter 5.
Stress has been considered one of the most relevant factors promoting aggressive behavior. Animal and human pharmacological studies revealed the stress hormones corticosterone in rodents and cortisol in humans to constitute a particularly important neuroendocrine determinate in facilitating aggression and beyond that, assumedly in its continuation and escalation. Moreover, cortisol-induced alterations of social information processing, as well as of cognitive control processes, have been hypothesized as possible influencing factors in the stress-aggression link. So far, the immediate impact of a preceding stressor and thereby stress-induced rise of cortisol on aggressive behavior as well as higher-order cognitive control processes and social information processing in this context have gone mostly unheeded. The present thesis aimed to extend the hitherto findings of stress and aggression in this regard. For this purpose two psychophysiological studies with healthy adults were carried out, both using the socially evaluated-cold pressor test as an acute stress induction. Additionally to behavioral data and subjective reports, event related potentials were measured and acute levels of salivary cortisol were collected on the basis of which stressed participants were divided into cortisol-responders and "nonresponders. Study 1 examined the impact of acute stress-induced cortisol increase on inhibitory control and its neural correlates. 41 male participants were randomly assigned to the stress procedure or to a non-stressful control condition. Beforehand and afterwards, participants performed a Go Nogo task with visual letters to measure response inhibition. The effect of acute stress-induced cortisol increase on covert and overt aggressive behavior and on the processing of provoking stimuli within the aggressive encounter was investigated in study 2. Moreover, this experiment examined the combined impact of stress and aggression on ensuing affective information processing. 71 male and female participants were either exposed to the stress or to the control condition. Following this, half of each group received high or low levels of provocation during the Taylor Aggression Paradigm. At the end of the experiment, a passive viewing paradigm with affective pictures depicting positive, negative, or aggressive scenes with either humans or objects was realized. The results revealed that men were not affected by a stress-induced rise in cortisol on a behavioral level, showing neither impaired response inhibition nor enhanced aggressive behavior. In contrast, women showed enhanced overt and covert aggressive behavior under a surge of endogenous cortisol, confirming previous results, albeit only in case of high provocation and only up to the level of the control group. Unlike this rather moderate impact on behavior, cortisol showed a distinct impact on neural correlates of information processing throughout inhibitory control, aggression-eliciting stimuli, and emotional pictures for both men and women. At this, stress-induced increase of cortisol resulted in enhanced N2 amplitudes to Go stimuli, whereas P2 amplitudes to both and N2 to Nogo amplitudes retained unchanged, indicating an overcorrection and caution of the response activation in favor of successful inhibitory control. The processing of aggression-eliciting stimuli during the aggressive encounter was complexly altered by stress differently for women and men. Under increased cortisol levels, the frontal or parietal P3 amplitude patterns were either diminished or reversed in the case of high provocation compared to the control group and to cortisol-nonresponders, indicating a desensitization towards aggression-eliciting stimuli in males, but a more elaborate processing of those in women. Moreover, stress-induced cortisol and provocation jointly altered subsequent affective information processing at early as well as later stages of the information processing stream. Again, increased levels of cortisol led opposite directed amplitudes in the case of high provocation relative to the control group and cortisol-nonresponders, with enhanced N2 amplitudes in men and reduced P3 and LPP amplitudes in men and women for all affective pictures, suggesting initially enhanced emotional reactivity in men, but ensuing reduced motivational attention and enhanced emotion regulation in both, men and women. As a result, these present findings confirm the relevance of HPA activity in the elicitation and persistence of human aggressive behavior. Moreover, they reveal the significance of compensatory and emotion regulatory strategies and mechanisms in response to stress and provocation, indorsing the relevance of social information and cognitive control processes. Still, more research is needed to clarify the conditions which lead to the facilitation of aggression and by which compensatory mechanisms this is prevented.
In splitting theory of locally convex spaces we investigate evaluable characterizations of the pairs (E, X) of locally convex spaces such that each exact sequence 0 -> X -> G -> E -> 0 of locally convex spaces splits, i.e. either X -> G has a continuous linear left inverse or G -> E has a continuous linear right inverse. In the thesis at hand we deal with splitting of short exact sequences of so-called PLH spaces, which are defined as projective limits of strongly reduced spectra of strong duals of Fréchet-Hilbert spaces. This class of locally convex spaces contains most of the spaces of interest for application in the theory of partial differential operators as the space of Schwartz distributions , the space of real analytic functions and various spaces of ultradifferentiable functions and ultradistributions. It also contains non-Schwartz spaces as B(2,k,loc)(Ω) and spaces of smooth and square integrable functions that are not covered by the current theory for PLS spaces. We prove a complete characterizations of the above problem in the case of X being a PLH space and E either being a Fréchet-Hilbert space or a strong dual of one by conditions of type (T ). To this end, we establish the full homological toolbox of Yoneda Ext functors in exact categories for the category of PLH spaces including the long exact sequence, which in particular involves a thorough discussion of the proper concept of exactness. Furthermore, we exhibit the connection to the parameter dependence problem via the Hilbert tensor product for hilbertizable locally convex spaces. We show that the Hilbert tensor product of two PLH spaces is again a PLH space which in particular proves the positive answer to Grothendieck- problème des topologies. In addition to that we give a complete characterization of the vanishing of the first derivative of the functor proj for tensorized PLH spectra if one of the PLH spaces E and X meets some nuclearity assumptions. To apply our results to concrete cases we establish sufficient conditions of (DN)-(Ω) type and apply them to the parameter dependence problem for partial differential operators with constant coefficients on B(2,k,loc)(Ω) spaces as well as to the smooth and square integrable parameter dependence problem. Concluding we give a complete solution of all the problems under consideration for PLH spaces of Köthe type.
Veterinary antibiotics are released to arable agricultural soil together with manure, including nutrients, organic matter, and microorganisms. Previously, the effects of antibiotic-contaminated manure on soil microbial community activity, function, structure, and resistance have been reported under controlled experimental conditions. This thesis further evaluated the antimicrobial effects as influenced by different manure compositions, soil microhabitats and moisture regimes, plants, and different distances to roots. Microbial community responses were determined by phenotypic phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) and genotypic 16S rRNA gene fragment analyses. (Chapter 3) demonstrates that medication of pigs with difloxacin (DIF) and sulfadiazine (SDZ) alters the molecular-chemical pattern of slurries, confounding the detection of a consistent antibiotic effect in bulk and respective rhizosphere soil. This was evaluated in a 63-day mesocosm experiment considering typical agricultural manure applications to maize planted soil. Fecal bacteria were detected even 14 days after manure amendment. Manure of DIF- and SDZ-medicated pigs clearly affected the microbial community in mesocosm bulk and rhizosphere soil, temporarily matching antibiotic effects reported in previous studies. (Chapter 4) discusses the influences of different soil microhabitats on antibiotic fate and the effects on soil microflora. Total extractable SDZ was more than two-fold larger in earthworm burrows and soil macroaggregate surfaces compared to bulk soil or the interior fraction of aggregates. Furthermore, soil microbial communities were affected by a combination of soil microhabitat and treatment, which was reflected by different structural and functional community responses to SDZ in laboratory and under field conditions. (Chapter 5) evaluates if SDZ effects on microbial communities are more pronounced in soils which undergo periodic changes in soil moisture by drying-rewetting dynamics compared to soils without such moisture fluctuations. This was tested in a 49-day climate chamber soil pot experiment grown with grass. Manure-amended pots without or with SDZ contamination were incubated under a dynamic moisture regime with repeated drying and rewetting changes of more than twenty percent maximum water holding capacity compared to the control moisture regime. The microbial biomass, but less pronouncedly the community structure, showed an increased responsiveness to the combined stress of SDZ and dynamic moisture changes in the laboratory. Similar responses were documented under field conditions. (Chapter 6) indicated adverse effects of SDZ on root geotropism, number of lateral roots, and water uptake by plants in a 40-day greenhouse experiment with willow and maize grown in soil with environmentally relevant and worst-case antibiotic contamination. (Chapter 7) showed that the associated microbial community responded to a combination of plant species, distance to the root, and antibiotic spiking concentration. In highly antibiotic-contaminated soils, the structural and functional responses of the microbial community were dominated by indirect antibiotic effects on plants and roots.
Every day we are exposed to a large set of appetitive food cues, mostly of high caloric, high carbohydrate content. Environmental factors like food cue exposition can impact eating behavior, by triggering anticipatory endocrinal responses and reinforcing the reward value of food. Additionally, it has been shown that eating behavior is largely influence by neuroendocrine factors. Energy homeostasis is of great importance for survival in all animal species. It is challenged under the state of food deprivation which is considered to be a metabolic stressor. Interestingly, the systems regulating stress and food intake share neural circuits. Adrenal glucocorticoids, as cortisol, and the pancreatic hormone insulin have been shown to be crucial to maintain catabolic and anabolic balance. Cortisol and insulin can cross the blood-brain barrier and interact with receptors distributed throughout the brain, influencing appetite and eating behavior. At the same time, these hormones have an important impact on the stress response. The aim of the current work is to broaden the knowledge on reward related food cue processing. With that purpose, we studied how food cue processing is influenced by food deprivation in women (in different phases of the menstrual cycle) and men. Furthermore, we investigated the impact of the stress/metabolic hormones, insulin and cortisol, at neural sites important for energy metabolism and in the processing of visual food cues. The Chapter I of this thesis details the underlying mechanisms of the startle response and its application in the investigation of food cue processing. Moreover, it describes the effects of food deprivation and of the stress-metabolic hormones insulin and cortisol in reward related processing of food cues. It explains the rationale for the studies presented in Chapter II-IV and describes their main findings. A general discussion of the results and recommendations for future research is given. In the study described in Chapter II, startle methodology was used to study the impact of food deprivation in the processing of reward related food cues. Women in different phases of the menstrual cycle and men were studied, in order to address potential effects of sex and menstrual cycle. All participants were studied either satiated or food deprived. Food deprivation provoked enhanced acoustic startle (ASR) response during foreground presentation of visual food cues. Sex and menstrual cycle did not influence this effect. The startle pattern towards food cues during fasting can be explained by a frustrative nonreward effect (FNR), driven by the impossibility to consume the exposed food. In Chapter III, a study is described, which was carried out to explore the central effects of insulin and cortisol, using continuous arterial spin labeling to map cerebral blood flow patterns. Following standardized periods of fasting, male participants received either intranasal insulin, oral cortisol, both, or placebo. Intranasal insulin increased resting regional cerebral blood flow in the putamen and insular cortex, structures that are involved in the regulation of eating behavior. Neither cortisol nor interaction effects were found. These results demonstrate that insulin exerts an action in metabolic centers during resting state, which is not affected by glucocorticoids. The study described in Chapter IV uses a similar pharmacological manipulation as the one presented in Chapter III, while assessing processing of reward related food cues through the startle paradigm validated in Chapter II. A sample of men was studied during short-term food deprivation. Considering the importance of both cortisol and insulin in glucose metabolism, food pictures were divided by glycemic index. Cortisol administration enhanced ASR during foreground presentation of "high glycemic" food pictures. This result suggests that cortisol provokes an increase in reward value of high glycemic food cues, which is congruent with previous research on stress and food consumption. This thesis gives support to the FNR hypothesis towards food cues during states of deprivation. Furthermore, it highlights the potential effects of stress related hormones in metabolism-connected neuronal structures, and in the reward related mechanisms of food cue processing. In a society marked by increased food exposure and availability, alongside with increased stress, it is important to better understand the impact of food exposition and its interaction with relevant hormones. This thesis contributes to the knowledge in this field. More research in this direction is needed.
The presented research aims at providing a first empirical investigation on lexical structure in Chinese with appropriate quantitative methods. The research objects contain individual properties of words (part of speech, polyfunctionality, polysemy, word length), the relationships between properties (part of speech and polyfunctionality, polyfunctionality and polysemy, polysemy and word length) and the lexical structure composed by those properties. Some extant hypotheses in QL, such as distributions of polysemy and the relationship between word length and polysemy, are tested on the data of Chinese, which enrich the applicability of the laws with a language not tested yet. Several original hypotheses such as the distribution of polyfunctionality and the relationship between polyfunctionality and polysemy are set up and inspected.
This thesis deals with economic aspects of employees' sickness. In addition to the classical case of sickness absence, in which an employee is completely unable to work and hence stays at home, there is the case of sickness presenteeism, in which the employee comes to work despite being sick. Accordingly, the thesis at hand covers research on both sickness states, absence and presenteeism. The first section covers sickness absence and labour market institutions. Chapter 2 presents theoretical and empirical evidence that differences in the social norm against benefit fraud, so-called benefit morale, can explain cross country diversity in the generosity of statutory sick pay entitlements between developed countries. In our political economy model, a stricter benefit morale reduces the absence rate, with counteracting effects on the politically set sick pay replacement rate. On the one hand, less absence caused by a stricter norm, makes the tax-financed insurance cheaper, leading to the usual demand side effect and hence to more generous sick pay entitlements. On the other hand, being less likely to be absent due to a stricter norm, the voters prefer a smaller fee over more insurance. We document both effects in a sample of 31 developed countries, capturing the years from 1981 to 2010. In Chapter 3 we investigate the relationship between the existence of works councils and illness-related absence and its consequences for plants. Using individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we find that the existence of a works council is positively correlated with the incidence and the annual duration of absence. Additionally, linked employer-employee data (LIAB) suggests that employers are more likely to expect personnel problems due to absence in plants with a works council. In western Germany, we find significant effects using a difference-in-differences approach, which can be causally interpreted. The second part of this thesis covers two studies on sickness presenteeism. In Chapter 4, we empirically investigate the determinants of the annual duration of sickness presenteeism using the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). Work autonomy, workload and tenure are positively related to the number of sickness presenteeism days, while a good working environment comes with less presenteeism. In Chapter 5 we theoretically and empirically analyze sickness absence and presenteeism behaviour with a focus on their interdependence. Specifically, we ask whether work-related factors lead to a substitutive, a complementary or no relationship between sickness absence and presenteeism. In other words, we want to know whether changes in absence and presenteeism behaviour incurred by work-related characteristics point in opposite directions (substitutive), the same direction (complementary), or whether they only affect either one of the two sickness states (no relationship). Our theoretical model shows that the relationship between sickness absence and presenteeism with regard to work-related characteristics is not necessarily of a substitutive nature. Instead, a complementary or no relationship can emerge as well. Turning to the empirical investigation, we find that only one out of 16 work-related factors, namely the supervisor status, leads to a substitutive relationship between absence and presenteeism. Few of the other determinants are complements, while the large majority is either related to sickness absence or presenteeism.