We analyze social mobility of decennial citizenry cohorts of Zurich born between 1780 and 1870. We categorize individuals according to their occupations and use different measures to show the level, change, and components of intergenerational mobility. Mobility was imperfect and weakly decreasing over time. Both level and change are driven by intergenerational persistence of occupations with a low socioeconomic position and low transition between low and high socioeconomic position.
In this paper, we analyze whether structured PhD programs operate at optimal size and whether there are differences between different disciplinary fields. Theoretically, we postulate that the relation between the size of a PhD program and program performance is hump shaped. For our empirical analysis, we use hand-collected data on 86 Research Training Groups (RTGs) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). As performance indicators, we use (a) the number of completed PhDs and (b) the number of publications by RTG students (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers). Applying DEA with constant and variable returns to scale, we find that the optimal team size varies between 10 and 16 RTG students in the humanities and social sciences. In contrast, our empirical analysis does not uncover a systematic relation between size and performance for RTGs in the natural and life sciences.
Firms generate new knowledge that leads to innovations by recombining existing knowledge sources. A successful recombination depends on the availability of a knowledge stock (human capital pool) and the flow of knowledge within the firm (induced by HRM systems). While human resource theory expects complementarities between human capital pools and HRM systems, it does not explicitly address how knowledge exchange may be guaranteed or fostered. Moreover, empirical approaches neglect the complexity of such complementarities. In this study we develop a model that integrates a firm's knowledge stock and flow into a knowledge creation (KC) system comprising four ideal types. This system explains the occurrence of superior incremental innovation performance. We empirically analyze the KC system by applying fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and identify configurations concurring with our ideal types. The results show that the use of human capital and HRM practices depends on firm size and industry dynamism.
We analyze the factors that drive an individual’s self-selection decision between (1) working individually and being paid for individual performance and (2) working on a team and being paid for team performance. While the literature has focused on task specific ability as a self-selection criterion, we also investigate the effects of teamwork skills, expectations concerning the task specific ability and teamwork skills of potential teammates, and task type. Thus we account for multidimensional sorting. Considering these additional factors might explain the empirical puzzle that some studies have found a positive relation between an individual’s task specific skills and the propensity to join a team, and others found a negative relation. Confronting our predictions with data from a real-effort pen-and-paper experiment, we find that the less able are attracted by teamwork and team incentives but that teamwork skills and expectations concerning the ability of potential teammates might in fact compensate for this adverse self-selection effect. Regarding task type we find that teamwork is more attractive, if the task offers a high potential for complementarities between team members.
Even though betting exchanges are considered to be the superior business model in the betting industry due to less operational risk and lower information costs, bookmakers continue to be successful.We explain the puzzling coexistence of these two market structures with the advantage of guaranteed liquidity in the bookmaker market. Using matched panel data of over 1.8 million bookmaker and bettingexchange odds for 17,410 soccer matches played worldwide, we find that the bookmaker offers higherodds and bettor returns than the betting exchange when liquidity at the betting exchange is low.
This article develops a game-theoretical model to analyze the effect of subsidies on player salaries, competitive balance, club profits, and welfare. Within this model, fan demand depends on win percentage, competitive balance, and aggregate talent. The results show that if a large market club receives a subsidy and fans have a relatively strong preference for aggregate talent, compared to competitive balance and own team winning percentage, club rofits and welfare increase for both clubs. If the small-market club is subsidized, a small subsidy increases competitive balance and player salaries of both clubs.
