id,collection,dc.contributor.author,dc.contributor.contact,dc.contributor.firstReferee,dc.contributor.furtherReferee,dc.contributor.gender,dc.date.accepted,dc.date.accessioned,dc.date.available,dc.date.issued,dc.description,dc.description.abstract[de],dc.format.extent,dc.identifier.uri,dc.identifier.urn,dc.language,dc.rights.uri,dc.subject,dc.subject.ddc,dc.title,dc.title.translated[de],dc.type,dcterms.accessRights.dnb,dcterms.accessRights.openaire,dcterms.format[de],refubium.affiliation[de],refubium.mycore.derivateId,refubium.mycore.fudocsId "30d989b9-a698-49d8-b019-09dc91261969","fub188/14","Neher, Frank","frank.neher@fu-berlin.de","Prof. Drs. Giacomo Corneo","Prof. Dr. Lars Börner","m","2012-10-24","2018-06-07T17:17:16Z","2012-11-12T14:22:09.825Z","2012","Introduction and Methodological Issues …………………………………………… 7 Markets wanted: the overshooting of competition beliefs in transition countries…… 15 Preferences for Redistribution around the World…………………………………… 55 Income Inequality and Symbolic Values: an exploratory analysis………………… 103 Summary in German (deutsche Zusammenfassung)………………………………… 215","There are three essays assembled in this doctoral thesis. They are titled “Markets wanted: the overshooting of competition beliefs in transition countries”, “Preferences for Redistribution around the World” and “Income Inequality and Symbolic Values: an exploratory analysis” and are all single authored. All essays are based on the premise that economic agents make their choices within some kind of social structure. In the first essay on competition beliefs during transition, this structure only consists of shared information. The second essay analyses the determinants of preferences for redistribution. It is implicitly assumed that individual self-interest and social structure, both, determine individual preferences for redistribution. Concerns for social status, altruism, information about social mobility, fairness considerations and moral evaluations are shown to have a statistical relation with preferences for redistribution. The third essay undertakes an explorative analysis of the relation between symbolic values and the income distribution. The analysis is motivated by the implicit assumption that symbolic values are important elements in a multitude of economic decisions. Symbolic values correlate with individual choices across generations and/or across individuals. The notion of symbolic values goes back to Corneo (2010) and Corneo and Jeanne (2009, 2010). They provide a theoretical approach to tackle questions of endogenous preference formation while side-stepping methodological problems typically arising in the treatment of preference formation. More precisely, the theory of symbolic values succeeds in endogenizing individuals’ value systems and simultaneously allows for welfare judgments based on the Pareto-criterion. 1\. “Markets Wanted – The overshooting of competition beliefs in transition economies” The first paper relates to the literature on economic transition, on media capture and on the socialist legacy. It documents and rationalizes the overly optimistic embrace of market competition at the beginning of the transition from centrally planned communist economies to market economies. At the onset of this process, individuals in transition countries with basically no experience of the functioning of markets had far more positive attitudes toward competition than individuals experienced with market economies. Over time these beliefs converged toward levels observed in long time market economies. It is argued, that these strong beliefs in the benefits of competition allowed for the implementation of far reaching market reforms. In fact, competition beliefs are shown to have a positive statistical association with attitudes towards political and economic reform. These empirical findings are rationalized with a simple signalling model. An outside consultant with experience of markets provides information on their desirability. Since individuals in transition countries have no experience with market economies, they use this signal to form beliefs about markets. However, in their belief formation they are aware that the outside consultant might follow some special interests and provide biased information. Overshooting and subsequent convergence can result from a pro market expert who provides a positive signal that is contradicted by experience, or from a neutral or anti-market expert who reports realistic messages but is not believed. In virtually every modern society there is a constant struggle over state responsibilities for schooling, health, basic needs and most other aspects of life; should the government provide respective goods and services or should the individual decide for herself? This paper on the evolution of competition beliefs indicates that biased outside information made transition countries adopt more liberal reform policies since the electorate formed too high expectations of the net-benefits of markets. 2\. “Preferences for Redistribution around the World” The second paper gauges the determinants of individual preferences for redistribution. In a first step, the sample is restricted to the OECD countries and results from the relevant literature are reproduced and synthesised. One contribution thereby is the use of a larger sample and the possibility to account for changes over time. There are a considerable number of determinants proposed in the literature. Most publications single out one focus variable which is in general individually subjected to an empirical test. Since determinants found in other contributions are neglected, a missing variable bias should be present in these publications. The presently discussed paper tries to jointly estimate the effect of as many determinants as possible. Results confirm that next to income, education and gender, social status, social identity, the perceived reasons for poverty and the perception of individual autonomy and freedom are important determinants of preferences for redistribution in OECD countries. In a second step, the analysis is extended to a large set of non-OECD countries. From the 66 countries included in this sample, most have never been included in an analysis on preferences for redistribution. Income, education, social class and the perception of individual autonomy and freedom are identified as determinants for preferences of redistribution across the world. However, there are also differences between OECD and non-OECD countries. The effect of gender is weak and often insignificant in non-OECD countries. The effect of marriage and religion can not be observed at all. Instead, retirement is a significant and highly robust determinant for preferences of redistribution in non-OECD countries. 3\. “Income Inequality and Symbolic Values: an exploratory analysis” After analysing how people think or feel about inequality and redistribution, the third paper takes a look at the effects the income distribution has on symbolic values. This paper undertakes a systematic empirical exploration of associations between important symbolic values and income inequality. Symbolic valuation of work ethic, civism, obedience, honesty, tolerance, altruism and saving behaviour are analysed. The implicit theoretical argument is that in societies with different degrees of inequality, parents (and other agents of socialization) might have systematically different incentives as to what kind of values they pass on to their children (or pupils/students). Since there is no further theoretical model to guide the empirical analysis, a broad set of specifications and measures are used. For each measure of income inequality eighteen different specifications are estimated. The measures of income inequality used are the Gini coefficient of gross and net household equivalent incomes, the lags thereof ten and twenty years ago, and the mean of the gross- and net-gini over the years when the respondent was aged 18-25. In addition, the Gini of gross and net incomes is instrumented with the population ratio of the middle-aged workforce to the whole workforce. Given that there are eighteen different items used to proxy symbolic values, individual results will not be mentioned here. While there are some measurable effects of income distribution on work ethics, obedience and tolerance, for most symbolic values the income distribution does not seem to be an important determinant. The three essays show that non-economic cultural or social aspects can be fruitfully included in empirical economic analysis and add to our understanding of economic phenomena. The present work thus complements and corroborates theoretical contributions that assume importance of norms, symbolic values, beliefs and interdependent preferences.||Die vorliegende Dissertationsschrift umfasst drei Aufsätze. In der Reihenfolge ihrer Anordnung tragen diese die Titel „Markets wanted: the overshooting of competition beliefs in transition countries”, „Preferences for Redistribution around the World” und „Income Inequality and Symbolic Values: an exploratory analysis”. Allen Beiträgen liegt die Annahme zugrunde, das ökonomische Aktivität innerhalb sozialer Strukturen stattfindet und von diesen beeinflusst wird. Der erste Aufsatz, „Markets wanted: the overshooting of competition beliefs in transition countries”, untersucht und erklärt die Entwicklung der Einstellung zu Wettbewerb in Transitionsländern. Es wird dokumentiert, dass in den Ländern des ehemaligen Ostblocks, deren wirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten über einen zentralen Plan koordiniert wurden, eine weitaus bessere Meinung von Wettbewerb herrschte, als dies in den Ländern mit marktwirtschaftlicher Organisation der Fall war. Dabei wird davon ausgegangen, dass Wettbewerb zentrales Element des Marktes ist und die Einstellung zu Wettbewerb also die Einstellung zu Märkten allgemein wiedergibt. Weiter wird gezeigt, dass sich die Einstellung in den Transitionsländern über die Zeit derjenigen in den Marktwirtschaften annähert. Diese Dynamik kann durch ein einfaches Signal- Model erklärt werden. Demnach wird das Meinungsbild der Bevölkerung zu Wettbewerb in Transitionsländern durch die Medien gebildet. Dabei sind sich die Akteure bewusst, dass die durch die Medien verbreitete Expertenmeinung verzerrt sein kann. Nach der Einführung von Märkten macht die Bevölkerung eigene Erfahrungen und revidiert Ihr Meinungsbild. Aus den empirischen und theoretischen Ergebnissen wird die Möglichkeit abgeleitet, dass die Marktreformen in den ehemals sozialistischen Staaten, aufgrund von überzogenen Erwartungen an die Wirkung von Märkten, umfassender waren als sie bei realistischen Erwartungen ausgefallen wären. Der zweite Beitrag, „Preferences for Redistribution around the World”, analysiert die Determinanten von individuellen Präferenzen für Umverteilung. Welche Faktoren, neben dem pekuniären Eigeninteresse, bestimmen den Wunsch nach mehr oder weniger Ungleichheit und mehr oder weniger Umverteilung in der Gesellschaft. Dabei werden zunächst die Länder, welche Mitglied der OECD sind untersucht und in einem zweiten Schritt die Analyse auf 66 weitere Staaten ausgeweitet. Es ergibt sich, dass neben Einkommen, Bildung und Geschlecht auch sozialer Status und soziale Identität, das Gefühl von Autonomie sowie vermutete Gründe für Armut einen maßgeblichen Einfluss auf Präferenzen für Umverteilung haben. In Länder, die nicht Mitglied der OECD sind, sind die Einflussfaktoren zum Teil andere. Der vermutete Grund für Armut spielt hier keine Rolle. Auch die Rolle des Geschlechts ist weniger ausgeprägt. Nachdem die Bestimmungsgründe der individuellen Einstellung zu Ungleichheit und Umverteilung analysiert wurden, wird im dritten Aufsatz, „Income Inequality and Symbolic Values: an exploratory analysis”, die Wirkung von Einkommensungleichheit, gemessen anhand des Gini-Koeffizienten der Brutto- und Nettoeinkommen, auf symbolische Werte untersucht. Das Konzept der symbolischen Werte ist der Theorie symbolischer Werte von Corneo und Jeanne entlehnt. Symbolische Werte schaffen nicht- pekuniäre Anreize in ökonomisch relevanten Entscheidungssituationen und werden den Individuen durch Sozialisation vermittelt. In dem Aufsatz wird untersucht, wie und ob Einkommensungleichheit einen systematischen Einfluss auf die Ausprägung der symbolischen Werte hat. Dabei werden folgende Werte untersucht: Arbeitsethos, Zivilität, Gehorsamkeit, Ehrlichkeit, Sparsamkeit, Toleranz und Altruismus. Es ergibt sich, dass Arbeitsethos und Gehorsamkeit im Schnitt mit der Ungleichheit der Einkommen zunimmt. Eine ungleichere Verteilung der Markteinkommen senkt hingegen die Ehrlichkeit in einer Gesellschaft. Weitere Einflüsse lassen sich nicht feststellen. Die drei Aufsätze untermauern die empirische Relevanz theoretischer Konzepte und zeigen, dass kulturelle Aspekte einen Beitrag zum Verständnis ökonomischer Phänomene liefern können.","216 S.","https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/3635||http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-7835","urn:nbn:de:kobv:188-fudissthesis000000039989-7","eng","http://www.fu-berlin.de/sites/refubium/rechtliches/Nutzungsbedingungen","culture||interdependent preferences||income inequality||preferences for redistribution","300 Sozialwissenschaften::330 Wirtschaft","Essays on aspects of culture in economics","Aufsätze zu kulturellen Aspekten in der Ökonomik","Dissertation","free","open access","Text","Wirtschaftswissenschaft","FUDISS_derivate_000000012480","FUDISS_thesis_000000039989"