Who gets promoted? Personality factors leading to promotion in highly structured work environments: evidence from a German professional football club

Much of the research on how human capabilities contribute to labour market success focuses on traditional human capital predictors. However, researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the important role of personality traits in determining individual labour market outcomes, both positive and negative. Using data from young professional football players in Germany, this study investigates the relationship between individual personality traits and cognitive abilities on career success. Our results suggest that individuals who score low on the tendency to be principled but high on cognitive processing speed are significantly more likely to enjoy career success through job promotion.     

The effect of sporting success and management failure on attendance demand in the Bundesliga: a revealed and stated preference travel cost approach

This study examines the private consumption benefits of sports attendance using revealed and stated preference data from 28 Football Bundesliga teams across three divisions. Survey respondents were presented with positive (sporting success) and negative (management failure) scenarios and asked for the number of game trips if each scenario occurred. The results of a pooled random effects Poisson model show that travel costs and ticket price have a significant negative effect on the number of home game trips. The weighted consumer surplus per game trip including travel costs and ticket prices is €345. Consumer surplus per game trip was found to change by €41 (first division) and €98 (second and third division) if the positive scenario occurred and by €39 if the negative scenario occurred.     

The demonstration effect of transactions between strangers on those between acquaintances: evidence from land rentals in rural China

ABSTRACT

Over the last decade, introducing outer village lessees has been an important approach to increasing the marketization of land rentals in rural China. However, with large numbers of informal features among acquaintances, the effect of introducing outer village lessees is ambiguous. In this paper, data from the 2015 China Household Finance Survey are used to analyse the demonstration effect of land rentals between strangers on those between acquaintances, and land rent is used to represent the marketization of land rentals. The estimated results indicate that with the emergence of outer village lessees, lessors transacting with acquaintances are more likely to obtain high land rents and to rent out farmland for profit. Evidence shows that profit motives are the key pathway by which the presence of outer village lessees affects land rents. The analysis using the sample of lessees supports our findings. Our analysis implies that the demonstration effect exists in land rental markets, and also provides a feasible instrument for promoting market-oriented land rentals between acquaintances.     

The effect of ethnic diversity on the participation in social groups: Evidence from trade unions

This paper advances the hypothesis that individuals in more ethnically fragmented societies, participate less in social groups. More precisely, the empirical analysis places the spotlight on trade unions and investigates whether ethnic diversity affects the decision of workers to participate in them. The analysis takes place along two layers: (a) country-level and (b) individual-level. First, building on a set of innovative instruments derived from the parasite-stress theory of values and sociality, our country-level analysis seeks to exploit exogenous sources of variation in ethnic diversity and establish a convincing causal relationship between ethnic diversity and trade union density across countries. In turn, we employ individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and investigate whether immigrants who cοme from more ethnically fragmented societies participate less in trade unions in their European countries of residence. Consistent with the prediction of the theory, both layers of the empirical analysis provide robust evidence of a negative, sizeable and highly significant effect of ethnic diversity on the participation in trade unions.     

The effect of working time and labor force participation on unemployment: A new argument in an old debate

This paper introduces a new argument into the theoretical literature on labor market effects of changes in working hours and labor force participation. We advance a general equilibrium model in which increased labor supply reduces unskilled unemployment via consumer demand: longer work hours and higher labor force participation imply higher incomes and less (leisure) time. In consequence, home production is reduced in favor of outsourcing domestic tasks to the market, shifting consumer demand toward unskill-intensive goods. Relative demand for unskilled labor rises and unemployment falls.     

The late take-off phenomenon in the diffusion of telecommunication services: network effect and the critical mass

Telecommunication services are distinctive in that their adoptions are influenced by network effect resulting in the late take-off phenomenon and the critical mass problem. In this paper we examined the late take-off phenomenon in the diffusion process of telecommunication services. We first compared the parameters of the diffusion process of consumer durables with those of fax services in the US and Korea. By analyzing the parameters of a new diffusion model based on the threshold model proposed by Markus, we found that the late take-off phenomenon resulted from the low heterogeneity of the threshold distribution for the potential adopters. A simulation approach was proposed for the theoretical implication of the critical mass problem in the start-up telecommunications services.     

“Opt out” or kept out? The effect of stigma,structure, selection,and sector on the labor force participation of married women in India

Using the 61st and 68th rounds of National Sample Survey data, we investigate the role of stigma, the economy’s structure, potential selection bias, and sectoral differences in explaining the low labor force participation (LFP) of middle and secondary educated women in India relative to low‐ and high‐educated women (the “U‐shape”). Estimating LFP regressions on a sample of prime‐aged married women, we show that, controlling for background characteristics, if a woman’s husband works in a white‐collar job in a region with a high share of blue‐collar jobs, she is less likely to participate in the labor market (stigma). We also find a positive effect of an increase in an index of white‐collar job growth (structure) on married women’s LFP. These effects are present in both rural and urban sectors but are strongest in the rural sector. However, middle and secondary educated women are still found to have substantially lower LFP than low‐ and graduate‐educated women in both sectors. Indeed, over time, the U‐shape persists in the rural sector and deepens in the urban sector. Because unobservables are quite large in the urban sector, we use the method of instrumental variables and find an increasing return at middle levels but stagnation at higher levels.     

The January effect in the foreign exchange market: Evidence for seasonal equity carry trades

In this study, we investigate monthly seasonality in the foreign exchange market. Given the well-known recurrent higher returns in some month than in others in stock markets around the world, we consider it likely that a seasonal outperformance of a country’s stock market over another is associated with similar seasonal patterns in capital flows and exchange rates. A seasonal profit (carry trade) opportunity can be created by the simultaneous appreciation of a country’s currency and the outperformance of its stock market. By focusing on the world’s key currency pairs, the US dollar-Deutsche mark and the US dollar-euro, and by using a Markov-switching framework, we document persistent January and December effects in the foreign exchange market from 1971 to 2017. Analysis of the German-US stock returns differential and their bilateral capital flows reveal similar month effects in 65% of the whole sample.