Diese Dissertation befasst sich mit Arbeitsmarkterfolg und Konsum sozioökonomischer Gruppen. Die ersten zwei Kapitel untersuchen konjunkturelle Auswirkungen auf Arbeitsmärkten für Hoch- und Niedrigqualifizierte. Zunächst wird ein qualifikationsspezifisches Konjunkturmodell mit Suchkosten entworfen. Es zeigt, dass imperfekte Substitution zwischen hoch- und niedrigqualifizierter Arbeit ein Grund für Veränderungen auf den Teilmärkten ist. Gemeinsam mit qualifikationsneutralen und -verzerrten Technologieschocks ist das Modell in der Lage, fallende Beveridge-Kurven zu generieren. Das zweite Kapitel erweitert diesen Ansatz um eine Verbindung zwischen qualifikationsabhängigen Arbeitsmärkten mit endogenen Investitionen in Humankapital. Idiosynkratische Schocks wirken auf den Anteil qualifizierter Arbeit und verändern die Arbeitsmarktdichte auf den Teilmärkten. Neutrale Schocks wirken zweistufig auf die Gesamtarbeitslosigkeit: Zuerst reduzieren sie geringqualifizierte Arbeitslosigkeit, und dann verringern sie rapide hochqualifizierte Arbeitslosigkeit. Eine hohe Substitutions-Elastizität zwischen den beiden Qualifikationen führt zu einer höheren Volatilität und einer höheren Korrelation zwischen Arbeitslosigkeit und freien Stellen. Das dritte Kapitel untersucht die Verbindung zwischen Gruppen-Konsumwachstum und dessen Volatilität, wenn die Agenten heterogen sind und eine Konsumexternalität vorliegt. Die Präferenzen der Haushalte hängen mit der Konsumwachstumsvolatilität insofern zusammen, als diese Vermögensentscheidungen treffen müssen: Die Volatilität verringert sich mit der Geduld und steigt mit dem Wunsch, das Konsumniveau der Vergleichsgruppe zu halten. Darüber hinaus sollten Konsumwachstum und dessen Volatilität positiv korrelieren. Diese letzte Hypothese wird mit Daten aus dem Sozio-oekonomischen Panel und der Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe überprüft, wobei sich ein U-förmiger Zusammenhang zwischen Konsumwachstum kurzlebiger Güter und dessen Volatilität ergibt. / This dissertation addresses the labor market performance and consumption dynamics of different socioeconomic groups. The first part examines the connection between cyclical variations in skilled and unskilled labor markets. Using a business cycle model with search frictions in skill-specific markets, I find that imperfect substitution between skilled and unskilled labor creates an important channel for variations in the skill-specific markets. Together with a skill-neutral or -biased technology shock, the model generates downward-sloping Beveridge curves in aggregate and skill-specific labor markets. I extend the study to allow for a dynamic link between the skill-specific labor markets. Human capital investment is determined endogenously and idiosyncratic shocks shift the skilled labor share and change tightness in both skilled and unskilled markets. Upon a neutral shock, the decrease of total unemployment is two-staged: Firstly with a reduction in unskilled unemployment, and then with a sharp decline of skilled unemployment when skill substitution dominates. A larger elasticity of substitution between the two types of labor leads to higher volatility of the model variables and higher correlation between unemployment and vacancies. The second part studies the link between group-specific consumption growth and its volatility in a framework of heterogeneous agents, under the assumption of a consumption externality. Household preferences are related to the consumption growth volatility through asset holding decisions: The volatility decreases with groups'' patience, and increases with the eagerness to keep up with the group average. Moreover, consumption growth is expected to be positively related to its volatility. This last hypothesis is tested using household data imputed from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the German Income and Expenditure Survey, where a U-shaped relationship is found between nondurable consumption growth and its volatility.

Im Zeitraum 1989 bis 2005 sind per Saldo 1,6 Millionen Menschen aus den neuen in die alten Bundesländer gezogen. Die Mehrheit dieser Binnenwanderer war zwischen 18 und 29 Jahre alt und die Mehrheit war weiblich. Als Ergebnis dieser anhaltenden geschlechtsselektiven Wanderung ist in den neuen Bundesländern eine stark unausgewogene Geschlechterproportion in der Wohnbevölkerung entstanden. In der Altersgruppe der 18- bis 29-Jährigen lag die Geschlechterproportion in den neuen Bundesländern (einschließlich Berlin) im Jahr 2005 nur bei 90 Frauen zu 100 Männern und sank in zahlreichen Landkreisen auf Werte von weniger als 85 zu 100. Eine so unausgewogene Geschlechterproportion ist auch im europäischen Maßstab ungewöhnlich und kommt in keinem ähnlich großen und dicht besiedelten Gebiet vor. Als eine wesentliche Ursache der disproportionalen Wanderung wird ein erhebliches Bildungsgefälle zwischen jungen Frauen und Männern in den neuen Bundesländern identifiziert. Das hohe Bildungsniveau von Frauen ist dabei nicht nur als ökonomischer Faktor für den Fortzug zu sehen: Da Frauen Partnerschaften mit geringer gebildeten Partnern meiden, werden auch Paarbeziehungen mit westdeutschen Männern und damit das Verbleiben in Westdeutschland wahrscheinlicher. Als Ursache für die Auseinanderentwicklung des Bildungsniveaus von Frauen und Männern in den neuen Bundesländern sieht die Studie die Kollision eines Geschlechterarrangements, das seine Wurzeln in der DDR-Geschichte hat, mit den ökonomischen und gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen nach der Wiedervereinigung. Das Rollenbild von Frauen, gekennzeichnet durch hohe Wertschätzung ökonomischer Selbstständigkeit und Orientierung auf Tätigkeiten im qualifizierten Dienstleistungsbereich, erweist sich im wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Strukturwandel als prinzipiell anpassungsfähiger als jenes der Männer, deren klassische Tätigkeiten in Industrie und Handwerk eine tief greifende Entwertung erfahren haben. / Between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the year 2005, 1.6 million people have migrated from East Germany (the former German Democratic Republic – GDR) to West Germany. The majority of these migrants were female and between the ages of 18 and 29. This unbalanced migration has caused a disproportionate sex ratio in the East German population. The sex ratio (in the age group between 18 and 29) in 2005 was only 90 women per 100 men and in many remote counties the ratio was less than 85 to 100. In such a large and densely populated area this phenomenon is unique within Europe. This study identifies the development of a considerable discrepancy in educational levels between women and men in Eastern Germany as one important cause for the disproportionate sex ratio in migration. The higher educational level of women is not only an economic factor: Since women generally prefer partners with at least the same educational level, relationships between East German women and West German men has become much more likely than the opposite. As a cause for the discrepancy in educational levels the study highlights a clash between gender roles rooted in GDR history and structural changes that took place after German reunification. The role model of women – a high valuation of economic independence and orientation towards professions in the service sector – proves to be more adaptable to the economic and social changes in East Germany than the role model of men, whose classical vocations in industry and crafts experience a considerable devaluation.

Over the past decade, the explosive growth of the Internet has led to a surge of interest to understand and predict aggregate behavior of large number of people or agents, particularly when they are connected through an underlying network structure. Numerous Internet-based applications have emerged that are as diverse as getting micro-tasks executed through online labor markets (also known as crowd sourcing) to acquiring new skills through massively open online courses (also known as MOOCs). However, there has been a major inadequacy in existing studies with respect to evaluating the impact of strategic behavior of the agents participating in such networks, crowds, and classrooms. The primary focus of this doctoral work is to understand the equilibrium behaviour emerging from these real-world, strategic environments by blending ideas from the areas of game theory, graph theory, and optimization, to derive novel solutions to these new-age economic models. In particular, we investigate the following three research challenges: (1) How do strategic agents form connections with one another? Will it ever happen that strategically stable networks are social welfare maximizing as well? (2) How do we design mechanisms for eliciting truthful feedback about an object (perhaps a new product or service or person) from a crowd of strategic raters? What can we tell about these mechanisms when the raters are connected through a social network? (3) How do we incentivize better participation of instructors and students in online edu-cation forums? Can we recommend optimal strategies to students and instructors to get the best out of these forums?

This thesis explores the entire cycle of education, from initial access to schooling, over degree completion, to returns to education. Despite recent gains in increasing access, an tens of millions of children worldwide are still out of school. Abolishing school fees has increased enrollment rates in several countries where enrollments were low and fees were high. However, such policies may be less effective, or even have negative consequences, when supply-side responses are weak. The first part of the thesis evaluates the impacts of a tuition waiver program in Haiti, which provided public financing to nonpublic schools conditional on not charging tuition. The chapter concludes that school's participation in the program results in more students enrolled, more staff, and slightly higher student-teacher ratios. The program also reduces grade repetition and the share of overage students. While the increase in students does not directly equate to a reduction in the number of children out of school, it does demonstrate strong demand from families for the program and a correspondingly strong supply response from the nonpublic sector.Pertaining degree completion, it is well established that natural disasters can have a negative effect on human capital accumulation. However, a comparison of the differential impacts of distinct disaster classes is missing. Using census data and information from DesInventar and EMDAT, two large disaster databases, the second part of the thesis assesses how geological disasters and climatic shocks affect the upper secondary degree attainment of adolescents. The chapter focuses on Mexico, given its diverse disaster landscape and lack of obligatory upper secondary education over the observed time period. While all disaster types are found to impede attainment, climatic disasters that are not infrastructure-destructive (e.g. droughts) have the strongest negative effect, decreasing educational expansion by over 40%. The effects seem largely driven by demand-side changes such as increases in school dropouts and fertility, especially for young women. The results may also be influenced by deteriorated parental labor market outcomes. Supply-side effects appear to be solely driven by infrastructure-destructive climatic shocks (e.g. floods). These findings thus call for differential public measures according to specific disaster types and an enhanced attention to climatic events given their potentially stronger impact on younger generations.It is also widely appreciated that natural disasters can have negative impacts on local labor market outcomes. However, the study of differential types of negative capital shocks, the underlying labor market mechanisms, and the context of the poorest countries have been neglected. Following testable predictions of economic theory, the third part of the thesis exploits the exogenous variation of destruction of human and physical capital caused by the 2010 Haiti earthquake to disentangle the differential impact on local individual monetary returns to education. Employing individual-level survey data from before and after the earthquake the chapter finds that the returns decreased on average by 37%, especially in equipment-capital intensive industry. Higher educated individuals adjust into low-paying self-employment or agriculture. The returns are particularly shock-sensitive for urban residents, migrants, males, and people over age 25. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis examines the measurement, applications and properties of consumer inflation expectations in the context of eight European Union countries: France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. The data proceed mainly from the European Commission's Consumer Survey and are qualitative in nature, therefore requiring quantification prior to use. This study first seeks to determine the optimal quantification methodology among a set of approaches spanning three traditions, associated with Carlson-Parkin (1975), Pesaran (1984) and Seitz (1988). The success of a quantification methodology is assessed on the basis of its ability to match quantitative expectations data and on its behaviour in an important economic application, namely the modelling of wages for our sample countries. The wage equation developed here draws on the theoretical background of the staggered contracts and the wage bargaining literature, and controls carefully for inflation expectations and institutional variables. The Carlson-Parkin variation proposed in Curto Millet (2004) was found to be the most satisfactory. This being established, the wage equations are used to test the hypothesis that the advent of EMU generated an increase in labour market flexibility, which would be reflected in structural breaks. The hypothesis is essentially rejected. Finally, the properties of inflation expectations and perceptions themselves are examined, especially in the context of EMU. Both the rational expectations and rational perceptions hypotheses are rejected. Popular expectations mechanisms, such as the "rule-of-thumb" model or Akerlof et al.'s (2000) "near-rationality hypothesis" are similarly unsupported. On the other hand, evidence is found for the transmission of expert forecasts to consumer expectations in the case of the UK, as in Carroll's (2003) model. The distribution of consumer expectations and perceptions is also considered, showing a tendency for gradual (as in Mankiw and Reis, 2002) but non-rational adjustment. Expectations formation is further shown to have important qualitative features.