Publication bias in the German social sciences: an application of the caliper test to three top-tier German social science journals

Systematic research reviews have become essential in all empirical sciences. However, the validity of research syntheses is threatened if the preparation, submission or publication of research findings depends on the statistical significance of these findings. The present study investigates publication bias in three top-tier journals in the German social sciences, utilizing the caliper test. For the period between 2001 and 2010, we have collected 156 articles that appeared in the Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (KZfSS), the Zeitschrift für Soziologie (ZfS) and the Politische Vierteljahresschrift (PVS). In all three journals, we found empirical evidence for the existence of publication bias at the 10 % significance level. We also investigated possible causes linked to this bias, including single versus multiple authorship as well as academic degree. We found only weak support for the relationships between individual author characteristics and publication bias.     

Dissecting the German export miracle: Plant-level evidence

Wage moderation in Germany is often cited as a major cause of its recent export success. We construct competitiveness measures at both industry and plant level using OECD STAN data in order to confront this hypothesis with empirical evidence. Our results show that plants’ export intensity is positively correlated with German competitiveness. Exploiting a plant-level competitiveness measure, we use a corner solution model that enables us to decompose the total effect into its component effects at the intensive and extensive margins. Our results indicate a positive and significant effect of competitiveness at both margins, but this turns out to be insignificant before the introduction of the Euro. A one standard deviation increase in a plant's competitiveness (about 70%) is associated with a 2% higher probability to become an exporter. At the intensive margin, the same increase in competitiveness leads to a 0.49 percentage point increase in export intensity.     

The social dilemma of big data: Donating personal data to promote social welfare

When using digital devices and services, individuals provide their personal data to organizations in exchange for gains in various domains of life. Organizations use these data to run technologies such as smart assistants, augmented reality, and robotics. Most often, these organizations seek to make a profit. Individuals can, however, also provide personal data to public databases that enable nonprofit organizations to promote social welfare if sufficient data are contributed. Regulators have therefore called for efficient ways to help the public collectively benefit from its own data. By implementing an online experiment among 1696 US citizens, we find that individuals would donate their data even when at risk of getting leaked. The willingness to provide personal data depends on the perceived risk level of a data leak but not on a realistic impact of the data on social welfare. Individuals are less willing to donate their data to the private industry than to academia or the government. Finally, individuals are not sensitive to whether the data are processed by a human-supervised or a self-learning smart assistant.     

From plan to market: financial statements and economic transition in the East German enterprise

This article examines the changing role of financial accounting in the former East Germany as that country underwent the transition from a centrally planned to a market-driven economy. The German government's insistence on a sales model of privatization in preference to some form of mass privatization, combined with legal requirements to make up equity shortfalls in eastern German enterprises, resulted in a highly centralized and interventionist approach to accounting change. The article reviews and analyses the historical, technical, economic and political aspects of this change process.     

Building the New Europe: western and eastern roads to social partnership

This article focuses on the struggle for a social Europe by examining social partnership developments in two western countries, Germany and Britain, and two eastern countries, Bulgaria and Poland. The resurgence of social partnership in the west, even in the weakest case (Britain), is paradoxically driven in part by neoliberal EU economic policies. In the east, post-communist tripartism helped preserve social peace with the coming of markets, while both international lending agencies and subsequent EU accession processes pushed domestic actors towards social dialogue. The coming or deepening of markets has therefore surprisingly promoted or reinforced relations of social partnership throughout Europe.     

Introducing dimensional analysis to the social sciences

This study serves to introduce dimensional analysis to the social sciences. Dimensional analysis, a method fundamental to research in the physical sciences, is presented first in a conceptual framework. Questions such as: what makes the method work, what use is it, and what are its limitations … are dealt with summarily. The method is then applied to the modeling of interurban migration. The selection of independent variables, the synthesis of dimensionless groups, and the analysis of data are considered in some detail.While a blanket endorsement of the method must be withheld pending further research, results of the present study are encouraging. Dimensional analysis may eventually find wide application in the social sciences.     

Policies to enhance social development through the promotion of SME and social entrepreneurship: a study in the Colombian construction industry

Abstract

The intent of this research is to propose and analyse a set of policies in the construction industry to enhance social development. First, the paper shows the connections between the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and social entrepreneurship (SE), the reduction of the leakage, and then the generation of social value (SV) for sustainable regional development. For that, the article analyses briefly the literatures on SE and leakage, and focuses on the relevance of SME and social entrepreneurs as promoters of SV creation and development. Second, the paper proposes a framework and proposes a set of 20 policies aimed to reduce leakage, reinforce SMEs and entrepreneurship and also to promote SE behaviour by the diverse economic agents in the construction industry, in order to increase the generation of SV and sustainable development. Then, the paper analyses the acceptability, feasibility and viability of these proposed polices, which can be useful for academics and practitioners. For that, the study uses the Delphi methodology, applied to an expert-group of 23 professionals (representatives of the private and public sector) belonging to the Colombian construction industry. The results emphasize the relevance of the development of local incumbents and the social focus of firms to increase the generation of SV. Oppositely, policies interfering economic freedom and free trade receive the lowest rates in the three criteria considered.     

论实现社会公平的途径

社会公平问题随着我国社会的不断向前发展愈加显得突出,如何实现社会公平问题显得更加重要。政府部门、全社会应该高度重视,认真深入地研究并解决这一问题,以缓解社会矛盾。文章比较详尽地论述了实现社会公平的途径。     

目标：为社会提供“专家级”服务

北京移动通信有限责任公司(以下简称北京移动)隶属于中国移动通信集团。1999年8月从原北京电信分营出来独立运作,2000年11月完成境外上市,成为国有控股的境外上市公司。几年来,北京移动紧密围绕“建首强之网,创优质服务,向世界一流通信企业迈进”的奋斗目标和“服务与业务领先”的战略重点,实现了企业的持续、快速、健康发展。1999年北京移动刚成立时,资产仅50多亿元,客户不到百万。现在,公司资产总额超过160亿元,客户总数已超过1000万户,年运营收入超过100亿元(占北京市GDP比重超过3%),年累计上缴各项税收超过20亿元。“服务与业务领先”…     

基于德国铁路物流经验的借鉴研究

介绍了德国铁路物流的发展历程和现状.通过对德国铁路物流的特点分析.结合我国铁路实际,查找和吸取发展我国铁路物流值得借鉴的经验.并提出发展我国铁路物流的应对策略和具体措施。     

Rent sharing to control noncartel supply in the German cement market

A challenge for many cartels is avoiding a destabilizing increase in noncartel supply in response to having raised price. In the case of the German cement cartel that operated over 1991–2002, the primary source of noncartel supply was imports from Eastern European cement manufacturers. Testimonies in a private enforcement case have claimed that the cartel sought to control imports by sharing rents with intermediaries in order to discourage them from sourcing foreign supply. Specifically, cartel members would allow an intermediary to issue the invoice for a transaction and charge a fee even though the output went directly from the cartel member's plant to the customer. We investigate this claim by first developing a theory of collusive pricing that takes account of the option of bribing intermediaries. The theory predicts that the cement cartel members are more likely to share rents with an intermediary when the nearest Eastern European plant is closer and there is more Eastern European capacity outside of the control of the cartel. Estimating a logit model that predicts when a cartel member sells through an intermediary, the empirical analysis supports both predictions.     

Consumer response to social entrepreneurship: the case of the Big Issue in Scotland

The Big Issue is the most prominent example of social entrepreneurship in the UK. Initially started as a nonprofit organisation, it is now a limited company that provides homeless individuals with the opportunity to earn an income and donates its profits to a charity that addresses problems of homelessness. The paper explores how consumer response to the Big Issue is influenced by the fact that the magazine is sold by homeless people themselves. The findings suggest that consumers buy it both because they like the magazine and because they believe that they are helping the homeless, often paying more than the magazine cover price for the latter reason. The results also reveal that consumers see the direct involvement of homeless people in the exchange positively, recognising it as an empowering process. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

Data revisions to German national accounts: Are initial releases good nowcasts?

Data revisions to national accounts pose a serious challenge to policy decision making. Well-behaved revisions should be unbiased, small, and unpredictable. This article shows that revisions to German national accounts are biased, large, and predictable. Moreover, with use of filtering techniques designed to process data subject to revisions, the real-time forecasting performance of initial releases can be increased by up to 23%. For total real GDP growth, however, the initial release is an optimal forecast. Yet, given the results for disaggregated variables, the averaging out of biases and inefficiencies at the aggregate GDP level appears to be good luck rather than good forecasting.     

Systems analysis approach to research on German education

The paper shows some of the experience of the empirical research on demographic accounting which is being carried out at Heidelberg University, F.R. of Germany. The first part of the paper presents the system including the subsystems (population system, educational system, manpower system). It contains some suggestions how to measure the connections between the subsystems. The first measure is a measure of substitution, the second deals with the degree of general use of a certain educational level in terms of occupation.

In the second part of the paper special reference is given to the empirical Heidelberg studies of the educational subsystem. At present the main purpose of the project is to try out the functional relations between the various transition rates involved in the system. There-upon a sensibility analysis will be developed which provides empirical data as to which transition rates are of strategic relevance for educational planning. Here the transition rates are defined as dependent variables, certain influencing factors or determinants as independent variables. Empirical results of the structural analysis will be published at the end of 1968, those of the sensibility analysis at the end of 1969.     

For the greater good: business networks and business social responsibility to communities

Business networks (co-operative arrangements between independent business organizations) may be the signature organizational form of the contemporary global economy. Many policy-makers and local leaders advocate business network membership as an alternative development strategy for regional economic vitality. The extant literature on business networks has focused on their association with business success. However, little is known about their impact on other aspects of community life. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the role of network membership on one non-economic dimension of the business community interface. We examined the relationship between business network membership and business social responsibility to communities, defined as the provision of leadership and support for community betterment projects. Data were gathered from telephone interviews with a random sample of 460 non-metro small business operators in the USA. Independent t-tests and ordinary least squares regression analyses controlling for theoretically important variables were conducted. Findings show that networked businesses provide more leadership and support for their communities than non-networked businesses. However, networked businesses were no more likely than non-networked businesses to use local suppliers of goods and services.     

Tiered expatriation: A social relations approach to staffing multinationals

This article applies a social relations discourse to examine the use of expatriates in Chinese multinational companies (MNCs). Expatriates are analyzed based on two sets of social relations: the social functions of expatriates (which include the global function of capital and the collective function of labor) and the pathways of expatriation (which include intra‐ and interfirm transfers). In particular, the framework incorporates the collective function of labor into the analysis of expatriation, which has received limited attention in the existing international HRM literature. Conceptually, the social relations discourse allowed us to frame staffing in an open system in which HR practices involving expatriation are shaped by the intersections between the choices of MNCs, the actions of workers, and the mediation of institutional players. Empirically, this article presents three case studies of Chinese MNCs in Europe to illustrate the tiered expatriation of managerial staff, technicians, and operational workers from interchangeable sources of labor. The HR policy implications suggest greater diversity in the formation of international staffing for MNCs.     

Language and interaction: applying sociolinguistics to social network analysis

Quality & Quantity - In recent years social network analysis, influenced by relational sociology, has taken a cultural turn. One result has been a growing interest in...     

Evaluating innovation policies: The German experience

Until recently, evaluations of technology policy were rare in the Federal Republic of Germany. Activities of this type on a larger scale were not started until the early eighties. Most of the evaluations performed concerned government incentives for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The main areas of research and development (R & D) and innovation promotion in small and medium-sized firms are the improvement of the capability and propensity to do in-house R & D, intensified cooperation in R & D between industrial firms and research establishments, the provision of more venture capital, and improved technology transfer. The underlying assumption is that these firms have bottlenecks, in particular in financing, in the personnel sector, and in obtaining information. A number of the existing support programs has meanwhile been investigated; the results of these investigations are covered in this paper. Initially, the underlying concept of impact analysis is outlined. Next, examples are presented of evaluations of general R & D funding measures, of grants for specific projects, of the debate about the most suitable instruments of promoting R & D in SME, and of technology transfer. Finally, some implications arising from the results of these analyses for technology policy in the Federal Republic of Germany are discussed.