E-Dissertationen

Essays on Human Capital

2026-05-11T11:30:12Z

Essays on Human Capital Heiler, Simon Julian This thesis comprises three essays that examine how human capital shapes economic outcomes across three distinct dimensions: as a motive for individual choices, as a determinant of industry composition, and as a measure of allocative efficiency. Each essay combines novel empirical evidence with quantitative macroeconomic models to study a specific channel through which the accumulation, availability, or distribution of human capital influences economic activity.
Chapter 1, "Worker Heterogeneity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance", studies how endogenous human capital accumulation interacts with the design of unemployment insurance (UI). Using an OLG model with learning-by-doing, depreciation during unemployment, and worker heterogeneity in age and ability, calibrated to US data, I show that fully conditional age- and ability-dependent benefits generate welfare gains of 0.35% of consumption. A simple non-conditional policy combining a replacement rate with a benefit floor and cap captures roughly 60% of these gains (about 0.2% of consumption). The non-linearity introduced by floor and cap mimics the targeting of conditional policies because income correlates strongly with age and ability, allowing policymakers to align UI with workers' own incentives to invest in experience without conditioning benefits on individual characteristics.
Chapter 2, "Demographic Change and Technological Choice", analyzes how demographic shifts alter the relative availability of human capital and thereby reshape firms' technology choices across sectors. Applying the German Federal Employment Agency's labor scarcity methodology over an extended horizon, I document a structural break around 2010 after which labor scarcity rises sharply in both production and services, accompanied by a pronounced increase in software and R&D investment in production sectors but largely flat investment in services. I develop a multi-sector model that combines demography-induced capital abundance with directed technological change, in which the substitutability between machines and human capital determines whether a sector becomes high-tech or low-tech. The model replicates the observed investment patterns and shows that secular structural change and technological polarization are, in part, the consequence of a fundamental change in the availability of human capital.
Chapter 3, "Labor Market Mismatch", examines how the alignment of idle human capital and vacant positions across geography and occupation affects labor market efficiency. Building on historical reports of the German Federal Employment Agency and the Sample of Integrated Labour Market Biographies (SIAB), I construct a novel dataset on vacancies and searching workers in Germany spanning nearly four decades. Extending the framework of Şahin, Song, Topa, and Violante (2014), I derive an explicit planner solution and develop measures of mismatch that account for sectoral heterogeneity in matching efficiency, job loss rates, and labor productivity. The results indicate economically meaningful mismatch in the German labor market, but also suggest that the distributional costs of policies aimed at reducing it are likely to far exceed their efficiency gains.
Taken together, the three essays underscore that there is no single, universally applicable concept of human capital: each perspective requires its own measurement and modeling strategy. At the same time, the underlying mechanisms are deeply interconnected, as individual accumulation decisions, sectoral demand for skills, and the spatial and occupational distribution of workers jointly shape aggregate outcomes. The thesis advances both methodology and data for the analysis of human capital and points to several promising avenues for future research.; Die vorliegende Dissertation umfasst drei Aufsätze, die untersuchen, wie Humankapital wirtschaftliche Ergebnisse entlang dreier unterschiedlicher Dimensionen prägt: als Motiv individueller Entscheidungen, als Determinante der sektoralen Zusammensetzung einer Volkswirtschaft und als Maß der allokativen Effizienz. Jeder Aufsatz verbindet neue empirische Evidenz mit quantitativen makroökonomischen Modellen, um einen spezifischen Kanal zu analysieren, über den die Akkumulation, die Verfügbarkeit oder die Verteilung von Humankapital wirtschaftliche Aktivität beeinflusst.
Kapitel 1, "Worker Heterogeneity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance", untersucht das Zusammenspiel von endogener Humankapitalakkumulation und der Ausgestaltung der Arbeitslosenversicherung. In einem auf US-Daten kalibrierten OLG-Modell mit Learning-by-Doing, Humankapitalabschreibung während der Arbeitslosigkeit und Heterogenität der Beschäftigten in Alter und Fähigkeit zeige ich, dass eine vollständig konditionale, alters- und fähigkeitsabhängige Politik Wohlfahrtsgewinne in Höhe von 0,35 % des Konsums erzielt. Eine einfache nicht-konditionale Politik, bestehend aus einer Lohnersatzrate, einem Mindest- und einem Höchstbetrag, realisiert rund 60 % dieser Gewinne (etwa 0,2 % des Konsums). Die durch Mindest- und Höchstbetrag erzeugte Nichtlinearität imitiert die Zielgenauigkeit konditionaler Politiken, da Einkommen stark mit Alter und Fähigkeit korreliert ist. Auf diese Weise lässt sich die Arbeitslosenversicherung mit den Anreizen der Beschäftigten zur Investition in Erwerbserfahrung in Einklang bringen, ohne Leistungen an individuelle Merkmale zu knüpfen.
Kapitel 2, "Demographic Change and Technological Choice", analysiert, wie demografische Veränderungen die relative Verfügbarkeit von Humankapital verschieben und dadurch die Technologieentscheidungen von Unternehmen über Sektoren hinweg beeinflussen. Mittels einer neuartigen Anwendung der Methodik der Bundesagentur für Arbeit zur Messung von Arbeitskräfteknappheit über einen längeren Zeithorizont dokumentiere ich einen Strukturbruch um das Jahr 2010, ab dem die Arbeitskräfteknappheit sowohl in der Produktion als auch im Dienstleistungssektor deutlich zunimmt, begleitet von einem starken Anstieg der Investitionen in Software sowie Forschung und Entwicklung in den Produktionssektoren bei weitgehend stagnierenden Investitionen im Dienstleistungssektor. Ich entwickle ein Mehrsektorenmodell, das demografisch bedingte Kapitalreichlichkeit mit gerichtetem technologischem Wandel verknüpft und in dem die Substituierbarkeit zwischen Maschinen und Humankapital darüber entscheidet, ob ein Sektor zu einem High-Tech- oder Low-Tech-Sektor wird. Das Modell repliziert die beobachteten Investitionsmuster und zeigt, dass struktureller Wandel und technologische Polarisierung zumindest teilweise Folge einer fundamentalen Verschiebung in der Verfügbarkeit von Humankapital sind.
Kapitel 3, "Labor Market Mismatch", untersucht, wie die räumliche und berufliche Zuordnung ungenutzten Humankapitals zu offenen Stellen die Effizienz des Arbeitsmarktes beeinflusst. Aufbauend auf historischen Berichten der Bundesagentur für Arbeit und der Stichprobe der Integrierten Arbeitsmarktbiografien (SIAB) konstruiere ich einen neuen Datensatz zu offenen Stellen und Arbeitsuchenden in Deutschland, der nahezu vier Jahrzehnte umfasst. In Erweiterung des Rahmens von Şahin, Song, Topa und Violante (2014) leite ich eine explizite Lösung des Planerproblems her und entwickle Mismatch-Maße, die sektorale Heterogenität in Matching-Effizienz, Trennungsraten und Arbeitsproduktivität berücksichtigen. Die Ergebnisse weisen auf einen ökonomisch relevanten Mismatch im deutschen Arbeitsmarkt hin, legen jedoch zugleich nahe, dass die Verteilungskosten von Politiken zu seiner Reduktion deren Effizienzgewinne voraussichtlich deutlich übersteigen.
In ihrer Gesamtheit verdeutlichen die drei Aufsätze, dass es kein einheitliches, universell anwendbares Konzept von Humankapital gibt: Jede Perspektive erfordert eine eigene Mess- und Modellierungsstrategie. Zugleich sind die zugrunde liegenden Mechanismen eng miteinander verflochten, da individuelle Akkumulationsentscheidungen, sektorale Nachfrage nach Qualifikationen sowie die räumliche und berufliche Verteilung der Beschäftigten gemeinsam aggregierte Ergebnisse prägen. Die Arbeit leistet damit sowohl methodische als auch empirische Beiträge zur Analyse von Humankapital und weist auf vielversprechende Felder für künftige Forschung hin.

Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics

2026-05-11T10:48:10Z

Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics Musolff, Robin Jakob This dissertation examines how informational framing, cognitive complexity, and political identity shape beliefs and subsequent behavior. Across four chapters based on experimental studies, it investigates fairness judgments under inequality framings, the link between beliefs and actions under model uncertainty, misperceptions of others' political reasoning, and polarization dynamics following the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
The first chapter shows that framing income changes in absolute versus relative terms — though informationally equivalent — systematically alters fairness judgments and redistributive choices, likely by inducing different underlying notions of inequality. The second chapter (co-authored with Florian Zimmermann) finds that while stated beliefs correctly reflect uncertainty over competing models, actions do not: particularly under high computational complexity, participants behave as if the most likely model were certainly correct and express unwarranted confidence in the accuracy of their estimates. The third chapter (co-authored with Guy Yanay) shows that although actual belief updating exhibits no evidence of motivated reasoning, both lay participants and academic experts systematically overestimate the degree to which others update in a partisan manner — distorted meta-beliefs that may themselves reinforce polarization. The fourth chapter (co-authored with Florian Zimmermann) exploits the 2024 U.S. presidential election as a natural experiment and documents increased polarization in ideological preferences, factual beliefs, and political salience, driven primarily by Democrats disappointed by the election outcome.
Taken together, the four chapters show that beliefs are systematically shaped by how information is presented, by cognitive constraints, and by political identity. Rather than reflecting purely rational updating, beliefs emerge as context-dependent, influenced by framing, complexity, stereotypes, and identity.

Essays in Nonparametric Econometrics

2026-03-31T14:33:05Z

Essays in Nonparametric Econometrics Scherer, Jan This dissertation consists of three chapters on inference in various non- and semiparametric problems. The chapters are self-contained and can be read separately. Each chapter ends with an appendix that collects the proofs and technical details.
In the first chapter, we study inference on parameters of the form ϕ(θ₀), where ϕ is a known directionally differentiable transformation and θ₀ is an unknown parameter. We focus on settings, where θ₀ is an unknown function estimated using some nonparametric estimator θ_n. As many nonparametric estimators do not converge in distribution, existing extensions to the Delta method are not applicable in our setting. We propose to use strong approximations to the distribution of θ_n as an alternative concept to convergence in distribution. Further, we present a notion of directional differentiability which is sufficiently flexible to handle the irregularity of nonparametric estimators. These concepts enable us to derive a new Delta method which approximates the distribution of the plug-in estimator ϕ(θ_n). Since these distributional approximations are rarely pivotal, we suggest a simulation-based estimator and provide conditions for its consistency. Confidence intervals based on this estimator are shown to provide local size control under conditions on the directional derivative of ϕ. We illustrate the applicability of our results in two examples and study its finite sample performance in a simulation study.
Anti-concentration bounds play an important role in the modern theory on confidence intervals and testing in settings such as high-dimensional and nonparametric statistics. In the second chapter, we establish such a bound for sublinear and continuous functionals of tight Gaussian random vectors in real-valued Banach spaces. The bound is dimension-free and therefore equally applies to finite- as well as infinite-dimensional settings. It imposes only weak restrictions on the covariance structure of the Gaussian vectors. As an application of our anti-concentration bound, we derive Berry-Esseen type bounds for sublinear and continuous functionals of high-dimensional mean vectors and kernel-type estimators.
The last chapter, which is joint work with Michael Vogt, studies estimation and inference in the high-dimensional partially linear model Y = δ + m(T) + X^T β + ϵ, where m is a smooth unknown function and β a sparse unknown regression parameter. The dimension of the covariates X is allowed to increase with the sample size and in particular is allowed to be larger than the sample size. We propose an estimator of β which attains the same rates as the infeasible Lasso estimator which knows the unknown function m. Further, we show that ad-hoc estimators of m might be biased due to the estimation of the high-dimensional parameter β and propose an orthogonalized Nadaraya-Watson estimator of m which effectively decreases this high-dimensional bias. This estimator is shown to converge at the same rates as an infeasible Nadaraya-Watson estimator which knows the true value of β. Based on this estimator, we propose a test for the hypothesis that m = 0 which generalizes the idea of significance testing in linear models to allow for general nonlinear effects of T on Y. Moreover, we propose a consistent multiplier bootstrap in order to set the critical values and show uniform consistency of the resulting set against local Hölder balls. We study the finite sample performance of our proposed test in a simulation study and demonstrate its good debiasing and power properties.

Essays in Applied Microeconomics

2026-02-03T10:20:11Z

Essays in Applied Microeconomics Laubel, Alexander This dissertation consists of three self-contained chapters of original research – two of which are single-authored and one with a fellow PhD student – and contributes predominantly to behavioral economics and experimental economics, with one chapter also in cultural economics.
Chapter 1, "Retelling and Memory", investigates whether biased retelling of previously encountered information makes memory of the original information biased, too. In a randomized controlled experiment, participants first evaluated hypothetical products based on brief descriptions. They were then instructed to retell these descriptions either accurately or in an overly optimistic way (between-subjects treatment variation). One day later, all participants were asked to retell the original descriptions accurately and to recall their initial ratings. Both the day-2 ratings and the day-2 retellings (as assessed by two independent human coders) revealed a large and highly significant treatment effect. That is, subjects who had retold the descriptions in an overly optimistic way on day 1 also provided exaggerated ratings and retellings on day 2 even though incentives at that point required accuracy. A robustness experiment tested whether this bias was already present immediately after the first retelling, thus assessing whether the effect reflects a genuine memory distortion. While a statistically significant average treatment effect immediately after retelling was found, it was (i) substantially smaller in magnitude, (ii) more sensitive to outliers, and (iii) not accompanied by significant distributional differences. This study provides causal evidence that biased retelling distorts memory, contributing a novel insight to the economics literature. The findings suggest that in contexts where people are likely to retell past experiences or information in a biased manner, even memory recalled under accuracy incentives may be systematically distorted. Such effects may be particularly relevant in financial, labor market or discrimination-related settings.
Chapter 2, "Illusion of Control in a Complex Environment", examines whether people believe desirable outcomes are more likely when they are more engaged in a process, even when this engagement is only pseudo-relevant. Specifically, it is tested whether the method of generating a random outcome (via a physical die vs. a computer) affects beliefs about winning a board game. To cleanly identify effects, beliefs are elicited not only from the players but also from an independent observer. Such a tendency – known as illusion of control – has been studied extensively in psychology (beginning with Langer, 1975), but has received comparatively less attention in economics. While the psychology literature consistently finds evidence for illusion of control (Presson and Benassi, 1996; Stefan and David, 2013), findings in economics have been more mixed. The results of this chapter align with the latter: in several specifications, no treatment effect for the main incentivized belief about winning the board game is observed (insignificant and point estimates close to zero), casting doubt on the robustness of the illusion-of-control findings in psychology. There is borderline significant evidence that participants who used a physical die perceived skill as more important (relative to luck), but this pattern is not limited to players and is also present among observers.
Chapter 3, "Parents' Beliefs About Cultural Transmission" (co-authored with Paul Behler), presents a dedicated survey of parents and offers two main contributions. The first part of the chapter presents detailed descriptive evidence on, for example, which agents or institutions parents believe matter for which traits at different ages, which traits they prefer to shape, and what goals and methods they pursue in this shaping. This addresses an important gap, as little is known about parents' beliefs and preferences concerning the non-genetic shaping of children's attitudes and character traits. Second, the chapter engages with the literature in cultural economics by testing two key assumptions: imperfect empathy and substitutability (Bisin and Verdier, 2001, 2011). We empirically assess whether parents indeed evaluate their children's choices using their own (the parents') preferences (imperfect empathy) and whether they invest more effort in cultural transmission when their goals are misaligned with their child's social environment (substitutability). We find robust evidence that approximately 60% of parents exhibit imperfect empathy. In contrast, we do not find support for substitutability: parents' transmission effort is not significantly affected by whether the environment is aligned, and the extremeness of their choices, if anything, moves in an anti-substitutability direction. That is, they tend to align with the perceived environment rather than compensating for it, particularly among liberal parents.