For decades, academics and practitioners aim to understand whether and how (economic) events affect firm value. Optimally, these events occur exogenously, i.e. suddenly and unexpectedly, so that an accurate evaluation of the effects on firm value can be conducted. However, recent studies show that even the evaluation of exogenous events is often prone to many challenges that can lead to diverse interpretations, resulting in heated debates. Recently, there have been intense debates in particular on the impact of takeover defenses and of Covid-19 on firm value. The announcements of takeover defenses and the propagation of Covid-19 are exogenous events that occur worldwide and are economically important, but have been insufficiently examined. By answering open research questions, this dissertation aims to provide a greater understanding about the heterogeneous effects that exogenous events such as the announcements of takeover defenses and the propagation of Covid-19 have on firm value. In addition, this dissertation analyzes the influence of certain firm characteristics on the effects of these two exogenous events and identifies influencing factors that explain contradictory results in the existing literature and thus can reconcile different views.

Recent non-comparative studies diverge in their assessments of the extent to which German and Japanese post-Cold War foreign policies are characterized by continuity or change. While the majority of analyses on Germany find overall continuity in policies and guiding principles, prominent works on Japan see the country undergoing drastic and fundamental change. Using an explicitly comparative framework for analysis based on a role theoretical approach, this study reevaluates the question of change and continuity in the two countries" regional foreign policies, focusing on the time period from 1990 to 2010. Through a qualitative content analysis of key foreign policy speeches, this dissertation traces and compares German and Japanese national role conceptions (NRCs) by identifying policymakers" perceived duties and responsibilities of their country in international politics. Furthermore, it investigates actual foreign policy behavior in two case studies about German and Japanese policies on missile defense and on textbook disputes. The dissertation examines whether the NRCs identified in the content analysis are useful to understand and explain each country- particular conduct. Both qualitative content analysis and case studies demonstrate the influence of normative and ideational variables in foreign policymaking. Incremental adaptations in foreign policy preferences can be found in Germany as well as Japan, but they are anchored in established normative guidelines and represent attempts to harmonize existing preferences with the conditions of the post-Cold War era. The dissertation argues that scholars have overstated and misconstrued the changes underway by asserting that Japan is undergoing a sweeping transformation in its foreign policy.

Many developed countries, including Germany, face a steady rise in the share of individuals obtaining higher education. While rising education itself bears a series of advantages as extensively studied in previous literature, it is also conceptually linked to a higher likelihood of working in an occupation that does not match one’s normal qualifications. Previous studies have predominantly evaluated how demographic or job‐related aspects correlate with the likelihood of being educationally ﴾mis﴿matched. However, they have largely ignored institutional facets of the educational system or industrial organization. Moreover, little is known about how private wealth affects educational mismatch or whether job satisfaction is homogenously affected among individuals once such a mismatch occurs. The five projects collected in this thesis aim to answer these open questions in the literature for Germany, using data from the Socio‐Economic Panel and employing different time intervals between 1984 and 2022. Beginning with the educational system in early childhood, Chapter 2 evaluates the impact of school‐starting age on the likelihood of over‐ and undereducation. It exploits the exogenous variation in school‐entry rules across federal states and years in Germany with regression discontinuity designs. The results report a negative impact of school‐starting age on the likelihood of undereducation, but no systematic relationship with overeducation. Subsequently, Chapter 3 explores the variation in education costs by leveraging the quasi‐experimental setting induced by the time‐limited introduction of tuition fees in several German federal states between 2006 and 2014. The increase in education costs among treated graduates results in a significantly higher likelihood of overeducation, which endures even several years post‐graduation. Chapter 4 focuses on the industrial relations system and examines the correlation between trade union membership and the likelihood and extent of educational ﴾mis﴿match. The results reveal that trade union members report significantly less overeducation at both the intensive and extensive margin and also a higher likelihood of being matched compared to non‐members. Furthermore, the heterogeneity analysis provides evidence that this correlation is driven by improved bargaining power instead of informational advantages. Chapter 5 focuses on private wealth as a determinant of educational mismatch by investigating the impact of a wealth shock through inheritances, lottery winnings or gifts on the likelihood of over‐ and undereducation. Due to the diminishing marginal returns of wages with increasing windfall gains the likelihood of undereducation is expected to decrease, while that of overeducation is expected to increase. Empirically, these suppositions are supported for overeducation, as its likelihood increases significantly after the windfall gain. Further analyses reveal that this effect is driven by individuals switching occupations while increasing their leisure time, and it materializes only for medium to large windfall gains. Contrary to the previous chapters, Chapter 6 focuses on educational mismatch, more precisely on overeducation, as the independent variable. In particular, it investigates the correlation between overeducation and job satisfaction. The results align with the previously established negative correlation for private sector employees exclusively. In contrast, interaction and subsample analyses reveal a positive correlation for public sector employees. This link is driven by individuals with a high degree of altruistic motivation and family orientation.

Feedback in der Schule? Das bedeutet häufig eine kurze Rückmeldung der Lehrer*innen an die Schüler*innen zu deren Mitarbeit. Dabei bietet eine etablierte Feedbackkultur im Unterricht breite Möglichkeiten, demokratisches Handeln zu üben und die Unterrichtsqualität zu verbessern, und muss keineswegs nur einseitig ausfallen.

Globalization significantly transforms labor markets. Advances in production technologies, transportation, and political integration reshape how and where goods and services are produced. Local economic conditions and diverse policy responses create varying speeds of change, affecting regions' attractiveness for living and working -- and promoting mobility. Competition for talent necessitates a deep understanding of why individuals choose specific destinations, how to ensure their effective labor market integration, and what workplace factors affect workers' well-being. This thesis focuses on two crucial aspects of labor market change -- Migration and workplace technological change. It contributes to our understanding of the determinants of labor mobility, the factors facilitating migrant integration, and the role of workplace automation for worker well-being. Chapter 2 investigates the relationship between minimum wages (MWs) and regional worker mobility in the EU. EU citizens are free to work anywhere in the common market, which allows them to take advantage of the significant variation in MWs across the EU. However, although MWs are set at the national level, it is also their local relevance that varies substantially -- depending on factors such as the share of affected workers or the extent to which they shift local compensation levels. These variations may attract workers from elsewhere, from within a country or from abroad. Analyzing regional variations in the Kaitz index, a measure of local MW impact, reveals that higher MWs can significantly increase inflows of low-skilled EU workers, particularly in central Europe. Chapter 3 examines the inequality in returns to skills experienced by immigrants, focusing on the role of linguistic proximity between migrants' origin and destination countries. Harmonized individual-level data from nine linguistically diverse migrant-hosting economies allows for an analysis of the wage gaps faced by immigrants from various origins, implicitly indicating how well they and their skills are integrated into the local labor markets. The analysis reveals that greater linguistic distance is associated with a higher wage penalty for highly skilled immigrants and a lower position in the wage distribution for those without tertiary education. Chapter 4 investigates an institutional factor potentially relevant for the integration of immigrants -- the labor market impact of Confucius Institutes (CIs), Chinese government-sponsored institutions that promote Chinese language and culture abroad. CIs have been found to foster trade and cultural exchange, indicating their potential relevance in shaping attitudes and trust of natives towards China and Chinese individuals. Examining the relationship between local CI presence and the wages of Chinese immigrants in local labor markets of the United States, the analysis reveals that CIs associate with significantly reduced wages for nearby residing Chinese immigrants. An event study demonstrates that the mere announcement of a new CI negatively impacts local wages for Chinese immigrants, independent of the CI's actual opening. Chapter 5 explores how working in automatable jobs affects life satisfaction in Germany. Following earlier literature, we classify occupations by potential for automation, and define the top third of occupations in this metric as \textit{automatable jobs}. We find workers in highly automatable jobs reporting a lower life satisfaction. Moreover, we detect a non-linearity, where workers in moderately automatable jobs (the second third of the distribution) experience a positive association with life satisfaction. Overall, the negative relationship of automation is most pronounced among younger and blue-collar workers, irrespective of the non-linearity.

In Ostafrika ist der Fußgängerverkehr die mit Abstand wichtigste Fortbewegungsart. Dies gilt für städtische und ländliche Gebiete! Tatsache ist aber, dass die Probleme der Fußgänger in der Planung nicht ausreichend berücksichtigt werden. Die Politiker richten ihre zentrale Aufmerksamkeit auf den motorisierten Individualverkehr und missachten somit die Bedürfnisse der Mehrheit der Bevölkerung. Diese Disparität kann im Zuge einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung reduziert werden. Der nicht-motorisierte sowie der öffentliche Verkehr müssen stärker gefördert werden, da der motorisierte Individualverkehr in Ostafrika auf lange Zeit der breiten Bevölkerungsschicht vorenthalten bleibt. Westliche Wohlstandsmodelle dürfen demnach nicht als Verkehrsvorbild dienen. Die Entwicklungszusammenarbeit ist aufgerufen, Projekte in den Bereichen des öffentlichen sowie des nicht-motorisierten Verkehrs gezielt zu fördern. Nur so kann eine Transportplanung erfolgen, die ökologisch nachhaltig, sozial gerecht, ökonomisch effizient, politisch regulierend und investitionsfördernd ist. Durch gezielte Maßnahmen könnte eine Trendwende erreicht werden. Die Chancen für ein Umdenken in Form angepasster Verkehrspolitik sind gegeben. Wenn Industrieländer mit gutem Beispiel vorangehen, werden sich die Entwicklungsländer diesem Trend nicht verschließen können.

Das Lernen in Projekten bietet Schüler wie kaum eine andere Unterrichtsform die Möglichkeit, an der Unterrichtsgestaltung selbstbestimmt zu partizipieren. Lernende üben sich dabei nicht nur in eigenverantwortlichem Handeln, sondern können auch selbst gesellschaftlich aktiv werden.

This thesis is comprised of three projects, all of which are fundamentally connected to the choices that individuals make about stock investments. Differences in stock market participation (SMP) across countries are large and difficult to explain. The second chapter focuses on differences between Germany (low SMP) and East Asian countries (mostly high SMP). The study hypothesis is that cultural differences regarding social preferences and attitudes towards inequality lead to different attitudes towards stock markets and subsequently to different SMPs. Using a large-scale survey, it is found that these factors can, indeed, explain a substantial amount of the country differences that other known factors (financial literacy, risk preferences, etc.) could not. This suggests that social preferences should be given a more central role in programs that aim to enhance SMP in countries like Germany. The third chapter documented the importance of trust as well as herding for stock ownership decisions. The findings show that trust as a general concept has no significant contribution to stock investment intention. A thorough examination of general trust elements reveals that in group and out-group trust have an impact on individual stock market investment. Higher out group trust directly influences a person's decision to invest in stocks, whereas higher in-group trust increases herding attitudes in stock investment decisions and thus can potentially increase the likelihood of stock investments as well. The last chapter investigates the significance of personality traits in stock investing and home bias in portfolio selection. Findings show that personality traits do indeed have a significant impact on stock investment and portfolio allocation decisions. Despite the fact that the magnitude and significance of characteristics differ between two groups of investors, inexperienced and experienced, conscientiousness and neuroticism play an important role in stock investments and preferences. Moreover, high conscientiousness scores increase stock investment desire and portfolio allocation to risky assets like stocks, discouraging home bias in asset allocation. Regarding neuroticism, a higher-level increases home bias in portfolio selection and decreases willingness to stock investment and portfolio share. Finally, when an investor has no prior experience with portfolio selection, patriotism generates home bias. For experienced investors, having a low neuroticism score and a high conscientiousness and openness score seemed to be a constant factor in deciding to invest in a well-diversified international portfolio

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht ist an der Schnittstelle zwischen Recht und Politik angesiedelt. Seine Entscheidungen haben eine hohe politische Relevanz und sehen sich nicht selten auch harscher Kritik ausgesetzt. Der Vorwurf, das Gericht würde als Ersatzgesetzgeber originäre Rechte des Parlaments beschneiden und zunehmend Politik betreiben, ist dabei oftmals zu hören. In der Bevölkerung hingegen genießt das Gericht seit jeher ein besonders hohes Vertrauen. Ihm wird die Sachkompetenz zugesprochen, das Verfassungsrecht politisch neutral zu schützen und zeitgemäß auszulegen. Wo aber liegen die kompetenziellen Grenzen zwischen Gericht und Gesetzgeber? Wie weit reicht die Entscheidungsbefugnis? Über diese spannenden und grundlegenden Fragen diskutierte ein hochkarätig besetztes Podium im Rahmen des vom Institut für Rechtspolitik veranstalteten Rechtspolitischen Kolloquiums am 18. Juli 2014.