Publications

"Moral bandwidth and environmental concerns during a public health crisis: Evidence from Germany" (2024). Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (with Julia Berazneva, Michelle McCauley, Sabine Zinn and Peter Hans Matthews)

Former chancellor Merkel's speech to the German nation during a public health crises increased economic concerns but did not change concerns about the environment or climate.

Details

Did the COVID-19 pandemic crowd out environmental concerns, as one might expect if “pools of worry” were finite or “moral bandwidth” was limited? We use Chancellor Angela Merkel’s address to the German nation on 18 March 2020 as the threshold in a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) to evaluate the effects of an increase in COVID-based economic and health concerns on the climate and environmental concerns of respondents to the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We find no evidence of crowding out – there is even some indication that environmental concerns increased, especially on the intensive margin – and show that this result survives various robustness checks. We also share some evidence that the treatment effects are heterogeneous: the concerns of older and more patient Germans, as well as those who report more social trust, increased relative to other groups. This is consistent with the absence of bandwidth constraints, but other interpretations – hierarchical or complementary concerns, for example – are also possible.

"Reconsidering inequalities in COVID-19 vaccine uptake in Germany: a spatiotemporal analysis combining individual educational level and area-level socioeconomic deprivation" (2024). Scientific Reports (with Marvin Reis, Niels Michalski, Susanne Bartig, Elisa Wulkotte, Christina Poethko-Müller, Angelika Schaffrath Rosario, Claudia Hövener and Jens Hoebel)

Educational differences in the up-take of COVID-19 vaccinations were amplified by local socio-economic deprivation.

Details

Combining the frameworks of fundamental causes theory and diffusion of innovation, scholars had anticipated a delayed COVID-19 vaccination uptake for people in lower socioeconomic position depending on the socioeconomic context. We qualify these propositions and analyze educational differences in COVID-19 vaccination status over the first ten months of Germany’s vaccination campaign in 2021. Data from the study “Corona Monitoring Nationwide” (RKI-SOEP-2), collected between November 2021 and February 2022, is linked with district-level data of the German Index of Socioeconomic Deprivation (GISD). We estimated the proportion of people with at least one vaccination dose stratified by educational groups and within different settings of regional socioeconomic deprivation at three time points. Logistic multilevel regression models were applied to adjust for multiple covariates and to test cross-level-interactions between educational levels and levels of area-level socioeconomic deprivation. Vaccination rates were lower among respondents with lower education. With increasing area-level socioeconomic deprivation, educational differences were larger due to particularly low vaccination rates in groups with low education levels. The analysis of vaccination timing reveals that educational gaps and gaps by area-level socioeconomic deprivation had appeared early in the vaccination campaign and did not close completely before the 4th wave of COVID-19 infections.

"Restrictions to civil liberties in a pandemic and satisfaction with democracy" (2024, online first). European Journal of Political Economy (with Lorenz Meister and Panu Poutvaara)

During the early COVID-19 pandemic, German states' stay-at-home orders increased satisfaction with democracy and shifted political support toward centrist parties.

Details

In times of crises, democracies face the challenge of balancing effective interventions with civil liberties. This study examines German states’ responses during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the trade-off between civil liberties and public health. Using state-level variation in mobility restrictions, we employ a difference-in-differences design to show that stay-at-home orders notably increased satisfaction with democracy and shifted political support towards centrist parties. Stay-at-home orders increased satisfaction with democracy most among individuals who had been exposed to the authoritarian regime of the German Democratic Republic, possibly because they have gotten used to more restrictive state interventions.

"Pandemic depression: COVID-19 and the mental health of entrepreneurs" (2023). Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, 47(3): 788–830 (with Marco Caliendo, Alexander Kritikos and Johannes Seebauer)

The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the mental health of self-employed women in Germany due to financial losses and increased childcare, while self-employed men showed no significant change.

Details

We investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed people’s mental health. Using representative longitudinal survey data from Germany, we reveal differential effects by gender: whereas self-employed women experienced a substantial deterioration in their mental health, self-employed men displayed no significant changes up to early 2021. Financial losses are important in explaining these differences. In addition, we find larger mental health responses among self-employed women who were directly affected by government-imposed restrictions and bore an increased childcare burden due to school and daycare closures. We also find that self-employed individuals who are more resilient coped better with the crisis.

"COVID-19: a crisis of the female self-employed" (2021). Journal of Population Economics, 34: 1141–118. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00849-y (with A. Kritikos and J. Seebauer)

The pandemic caused greater income losses for self-employed women in Germany than men due to industry concentration and government restrictions, suggesting a need for targeted policy measures.

Details

We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic and the government-mandated measures to contain its spread affect the self-employed — particularly women — in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face a higher likelihood of income losses due to COVID-19 than employees, women are about one-third more likely to experience income losses than their male counterparts. We do not find a comparable gender gap among employees. Our results further suggest that the gender gap among the self-employed is largely explained by the fact that women disproportionately work in industries that are more severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis of potential mechanisms reveals that women are significantly more likely to be impacted by government-imposed restrictions, e.g., the regulation of opening hours. We conclude that future policy measures intending to mitigate the consequences of such shocks should account for this considerable variation in economic hardship.

"Attitudes on voluntary and mandatory vaccination against COVID-19: evidence from Germany" (2021). PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248372 (with C. Schmidt-Petri and C. Schroeder)

Our survey in Germany found that 70% of adults would voluntarily receive a COVID-19 vaccine, with about half supporting mandatory vaccination.

Details

Several vaccines against COVID-19 have now been developed and are already being rolled out around the world. The decision whether or not to get vaccinated has so far been left to the individual citizens. However, there are good reasons, both in theory as well as in practice, to believe that the willingness to get vaccinated might not be sufficiently high to achieve herd immunity. A policy of mandatory vaccination could ensure high levels of vaccination coverage, but its legitimacy is doubtful. We investigate the willingness to get vaccinated and the reasons for an acceptance (or rejection) of a policy of mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 in June and July 2020 in Germany based on a representative real-time survey, a random sub-sample (SOEP-CoV) of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Our results show that about 70 percent of adults in Germany would voluntarily get vaccinated against the coronavirus if a vaccine without side effects was available. About half of residents of Germany are in favor, and half against, a policy of mandatory vaccination. The approval rate for mandatory vaccination is significantly higher among those who would get vaccinated voluntarily (around 60 percent) than among those who would not get vaccinated voluntarily (27 percent). The individual willingness to get vaccinated and acceptance of a policy of mandatory vaccination correlates systematically with socio-demographic and psychological characteristics of the respondents. We conclude that as far as people’s declared intentions are concerned, herd immunity could be reached without a policy of mandatory vaccination, but that such a policy might be found acceptable too, were it to become necessary.

"Social Norms and Preventive Behaviors in Japan and Germany During the COVID-19 Pandemic" (2022). Frontiers in Public Health, 10:842177. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.842177 (with C. Schmidt-Petri, T. Rieger and C. Schroeder)

The study shows that Japanese people exhibit higher willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 compared to Germans, despite similar engagement in preventive measures.

Details

According to a recent paper by Gelfand et al., COVID-19 infection and case mortality rates are closely connected to the strength of social norms: “Tighter” cultures that abide by strict social norms are more successful in combating the pandemic than “looser” cultures that are more permissive. However, countries with similar levels of cultural tightness exhibit big differences in mortality rates. We are investigating potential explanations for this fact. Using data from Germany and Japan—two “tight” countries with very different infection and mortality rates—we examined how differences in socio-demographic and other determinants explain differences in individual preventive attitudes and behaviors.

"Negative oekonomische und gesundheitliche Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie auf Selbstaendige" (2022). Jahrbuch Oekonomie und Gesellschaft, 33. (with A. Kritikos and J. Seebauer)