Prof. Dr. Karsten Hank (Universität zu Köln)

„Liebe in den Zeiten von COVID-19: Wie sich die Pandemie auf Partnerschaften auswirkt“

Am 10. November lädt ECONtribute zur ersten virtuellen Veranstaltung der Vortragsreihe „Reinhard Selten Equal Opportunity Talks (ReStart)“ ein.

Die COVID-19-Pandemie und die mit ihr einhergehenden Einschränkungen haben nicht nur den Arbeitsmarkt, sondern insbesondere auch Familien hart getroffen. Auf Basis von Daten einer Sonderbefragung des Beziehungs- und Familienpanels pairfam, die es erlauben, die Situation unmittelbar vor und während der Coronakrise miteinander zu vergleichen, betrachtet der Vortrag unmittelbare Auswirkungen der Pandemie auf Partnerschaften in Deutschland. Im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung stehen zwei zentrale Aspekte von Partnerschaften, nämlich (1) die Beziehungszufriedenheit und (2) die Aufteilung der Hausarbeit und Kinderbetreuung zwischen den Partner*innen. Neben z.T. deutlichen Veränderungen weisen die Befunde gleichzeitig auf eine erhebliche Stabilität etablierter Verhaltensmuster in Paarbeziehungen hin.

ECONtribute setzt mit der neuen Vortragsreihe ReStart einen besonderen Fokus auf Gleichstellungsthemen. Mehrmals im Jahr halten Expert*innen aus dem Cluster und hochrangige Gäste Vorträge, die verschiedene Gleichstellungsaspekte beleuchten und einem breiten Publikum aus der Wissenschaft und der interessierten Öffentlichkeit näherbringen. Anschluss gibt es die Möglichkeit, in einem virtuellen Raum angesprochene Themen zu vertiefen.

Die Veranstaltung findet online via Zoom statt, um Anmeldung wird hier gebeten.

 

Programm:

17:00 – Begrüßung und Vorstellung des Exzellenzclusters ECONtribute und der Vortragsreihe ReStart (Barbara Boelmann)

17:10 – Vortrag „Liebe in den Zeiten von COVID-19: Wie sich die Pandemie auf Partnerschaften auswirkt“ (Prof. Dr. Karsten Hank)

17:45 – Diskussion mit dem Publikum

18:15 – virtueller Empfang

18:30 – Ende der Veranstaltung

 

Das Poster zur Veranstaltung finden Sie hier.

 

The Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy and the Institute for Economic Policy at the University of Cologne (iwp) cordially invite you to the panel: “Women, Men and Taxes“: On the discrimination of women by the tax and transfer system at this year’s VfS virtual annual conference.

The German tax system is superficially “gender-neutral”. Direct or immediate discrimination based on gender would have long since been examined and rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court.

From a gender perspective, however, there are factorswhich place women and men in certain social positions. In Germany, for example, the issue of spousal splitting has been discussed for decades.The tax system distinguishes between married couples and singlesand has deduction possibilities for tax-payers with children. Are those deductionsgender-neutral?Also, thepension system has rules for crediting time on parental leave or care of the elderly. What is the effect?

The discussion will not only focus on whether and which discriminatory regulations in the tax and transfer system can be identified from an economic point of view, but also on whether reforms in these areas are more likely to encounter practical implementation problems or actual political conflicts.

The panel discussion centers around the following questions:

• How does the tax and transfer system interfere with the lives ofmen and women? E.g. is the labor market participation of women more discouraged than the labor participation of men?
• To what extent is there undesirable discrimination?
• What are avenues for reform?
• Why is there persistent discrimination? Why are reforms politically difficult?

Panel discussion:

• Prof. Miriam Beblo (University of Hamburg, Expert Commission of the German Federal Government’s 9th Family Report, Independent Expert Commission for the Third Gender Equality Report of the German Government)
• Prof. Andreas Peichl (ifo Center for Macroeconomics and Survey, University of Munich)
• Dr. Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn (Habilitated economist, member of the German Bundestag and spokesperson for labor market policy of the parliamentary group of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen)

Moderation:

Prof. Michael Krause (Institute for Economic Policy at the University of Cologne [iwp], Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy)

The panel takes place as part of the annual conference of the Verein für Socialpolitik.

Date & time: 29th of September, 16:45 – 18:15 o’clock.

More infomation & registration

 

Starting Grants from the European Research Council (ERC) are highly coveted, because they provide young researchers with funding of up to 1.5 million euros over five years. In economics, three researchers from the University of Bonn and the Behavior and Inequality Research Institute (briq) will now benefit from this funding. The successful candidates are also members of the Clusters of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy and the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM).

Prof. Dr. Francesc Dilmé works at the Institute for Microeconomics at the University of Bonn and is a member of the Clusters of Excellence ECONtribute, Hausdorff Center for Mathematics and a cross-locational Collaborative Research Center with Mannheim. He wants to use the ERC Starting Grant to investigate price negotiations in dynamic markets: “The aim is to develop a new systematic analysis of markets where market participants have different levels of information.”

Dilmé expects the EU funding to enable him to attract leading researchers from his field to Bonn and to have more time for his research. “The Starting Grant allows me to contribute to the understanding of how information is transmitted through prices in decentralized markets, such as real estate and financial markets,” he says. He also wants to examine the efficiency of these markets and assess the effectiveness of different regulations.

Dilmé studied physics and mathematics in Barcelona (Spain) before graduating in economics at the London School of Economics (England) and completing a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania (USA). He joined the University of Bonn in 2013 and has been a professor there since 2019. In 2017 he spent a six-month research stay at the University of California, Berkeley.

New possibilities for data analysis

Prof. Dr. Joachim Freyberger from the Institute of Finance and Statistics at the University of Bonn is a member of the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics and plans to use his Starting Grant to develop new statistical methods. “The increasing availability of large data sets and, at the same time, the greatly increased processing power of computers offer new possibilities for analyzing data,” says Freyberger. Various applications of the new methods should result in more reliable conclusions.

He would like to use the EU funding to strengthen his networking with international researchers and to train doctoral students.

Born in Bonn, he studied econometrics and operations research in Maastricht (Netherlands) and received his doctorate in economics from Northwestern University (USA). After six years at the University of Wisconsin (USA), Freyberger has been a professor at the University of Bonn since 2019.

How do our memories influence opinions and expectations?

Economics assumes that people act with foresight. Decisions depend on individual perceptions and expectations, for example when buying shares. “The aim of the project is to better understand the process through which opinions and expectations are formed,” says Prof. Dr. Florian Zimmermann. “The approach here is to use insights from memory research.”

The researcher works at the Behavior and Inequality Research Institute (briq) at the University of Bonn and is a member of ECONtribute. The project, which is supported by the ERC with a Starting Grant, is based on the assumption that when forming opinions and expectations, the mind is often intuitively asked about prior knowledge and experience on a certain topic. “Belief-based decisions are not only relevant for individual economic outcomes but may also have important effects on the economy as a whole,” says the researcher.

Zimmermann studied economics in Mannheim and at the University of California, Los Angeles (USA) and earned his doctorate at the Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE) at the University of Bonn. After research stays at the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University as well as a postdoctoral period at the University of Zurich, he joined briq in 2017, where he has been a professor since 2019.

ERC Starting Grants support excellent young researchers

The European Research Council awards Starting Grants to outstanding young researchers. The funding from Brussels is up to 1.5 million euros for five years.

Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute and Hausdorff Center for Mathematics

ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy is the only economic Cluster of Excellence and a joint initiative of the universities of Bonn and Cologne. The Cluster’s research focuses on markets at the interface between business, politics and society. The Cluster aims to advance a new paradigm for the analysis of market failure in light of fundamental societal, technological and economic challenges, such as increasing inequality and political polarization or global financial crises.

The Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM) is a Cluster of Excellence of the University of Bonn. With six units, its research spectrum ranges from pure and applied mathematics to mathematically oriented questions of economics and interdisciplinary research. A central goal of the HCM is the promotion of young researchers in an independent and international environment.

Download the German version of the press release.

Media contact:

Katrin Tholen

PR Manager

ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy

Tel. +49-(0)228-737808

E-mail: katrin.tholen@uni-bonn.de

 

Prof. Dr. Francesc Dilmé

Institut für Mikroökonomik der Universität Bonn

Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute und Hausdorff-Zentrum für Mathematik

Tel. +49-(0)228-737957

E-mail: fdilme@uni-bonn.de

 

Prof. Dr. Joachim Freyberger

Institut für Finanzmarktökonomie und Statistik der Universität Bonn

Exzellenzcluster Hausdorff-Zentrum für Mathematik

Tel. +49-(0)228-739268

E-mail: freyberger@uni-bonn.de

 

Prof. Dr. Florian Zimmermann

Behavior and Inequality Research Institute (briq)

Exzellenzcluster ECONtribute

Tel. +49-(0)228-3894704

E-mail: florian.zimmermann@briq-institute.org

Seit Beginn der Corona-Pandemie stecken viele europäische Länder in einer Rezession. Um die wirtschaftlichen Folgen besser abzufedern, formulieren führende Wirtschaftswissenschaftler, darunter die Ökonomen Moritz Kuhn und Christian Bayer von der Universität Bonn, in einem offenen Brief Grundsätze für die Wirtschaftspolitik um die wirtschaftlichen Folgen der Coronakrise zu bewältigen.

In dem Schreiben, das auf dem Politikanalyseportalen VoxEU und der deutschsprachigen Internetplattform „Ökonomenstimme“ veröffentlicht wurde, schlagen die Ökonomen verschiedene Maßnahmen vor und beschreiben Leitlinien für die Politik, die europaweit und frei von nationalstaatlichen Interessen zu empfehlen seien. Wichtig sei es derzeit vor allem, Haushalte, die von der Krise getroffen seien, kurzfristig durch Transferleistungen zu helfen die ökonomischen Folgen der Krise abzufedern. Transferzahlungen bieten darüber hinaus die wichtige Möglichkeit, Einschränkungen aufrecht zu erhalten, um die Gesundheitssituation unter Kontrolle zu behalten. Die Ökonomen empfehlen außerdem, mit einem Strukturwandel – wie aus der Klimapolitik gefordert – zu warten. Diesen anzugehen sei erst sinnvoll, wenn sich die Lage stabilisiere. Ansonsten drohe eine weitaus tiefere Rezession. Politische Unsicherheiten müsse man über klare Kommunikation reduzieren und frühzeitig mitzuteilen, welche politischen Regeln auf die Gesellschaft zukämen. Die Politik müsse sich bemühen, heute schon Pläne für verschiedene Szenarien zukünftiger Entwicklungen zu formulieren und zu kommunizieren.

Von der europäischen Gemeinschaft lernen

Moritz Kuhn ist Professor für Wirtschaft an der Universität Bonn und gehört dem Exzellenzcluster ECONtribute an. Er sagt: „Wichtig ist es auch, die internationale Zusammenarbeit weiterhin zu stärken, Informationen innerhalb der Staatengemeinschaft auszutauschen und zu überprüfen wo von Best-Practices gelernt werden kann. So kann populistischen Strömungen vorgebeugt werden.“ Die Ökonomen können sich als Unterstützung dazu einen unabhängigen wissenschaftlichen Wirtschaftsausschuss vorstellen. Dieser könnte die Politikmaßnahmen in den verschiedenen Regionen Europas bewerten und koordinieren, spezifische strategische Entwicklungsstrategien entwickeln und den zuständigen nationalen Ministerien wirtschaftspolitische Ideen für ihre Regionen an die Hand geben.

Multilaterale Handelsbeziehungen wieder aufnehmen

In der aktuellen Krise hat sich deutlich gezeigt, dass die Weltwirtschaft zu einem großen Geflecht an Handelsbeziehungen zusammengewachsen ist. Es gelte, diese Handelsbeziehungen so schnell wie möglich wieder aufzunehmen und die geringen innereuropäischen Handelsbeschränkungen zu nutzen. Konjunkturmaßnahmen seien notwendig, um die Volkswirtschaften wieder in Schwung zu bringen. Angesichts der derzeit niedrigen Zinssätze empfehlen die Ökonomen, dass europäische Regierungen mit finanziell stärkeren Haushalten in Länder mit schwächeren Haushalten „investieren“, ohne dass eine instabile Schuldendynamik ausgelöst würde. Dies ermögliche ein schnelleres Ende der durch die Corona-Krise ausgelösten Rezession und ist auf Grund der engen Handelsbeziehungen auch in deren eigenem Interesse.

 Zum Originaltext auf VoxEU

Zum deutschen Beitrag auf der Ökonomenstimme

 

Pressekontakt:

Katrin Tholen

ECONtribute:Markets & Public Policy

PR Manager

Tel. 0228 / 73 78 08

E-Mail: katrin.tholen@uni-bonn.de

 

Kontakt zum Autor:

Prof. Dr. Moritz Kuhn

Institut für Makroökonomik und Ökonometrie

Universität Bonn

Tel. 0228/7362096

E-Mail: mokuhn@uni-bonn.de

Equal Opportunity at ECONtribute:

What we know, what we do & what we have achieved (so far)

Given the underrepresentation of female researchers in academia, the promotion of gender equality is a central structural objective of the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy. Both the universities of Bonn and Cologne are giving a high priority to the promotion of female researchers by creating a diverse and inclusive environment and by offering a variety of support measures to female researchers.

On the basis of the new book “Women in Economics”, from the Centre of Economic Policy Research (CEPR), edited by Shelly Lundberg (Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California Santa Barbara), ECONtribute has analysed current data and research on the issues of gender economics. The book examines the role and progress of women in professional economics and reviews the barriers that women face at various stages of the training and promotional pipeline. It also evaluates programs designed to support and encourage female economists, and discusses the benefits of greater gender equality across the economics research profession.

Since its start in January 2019, ECONtribute has implemented several measures to promote equal opportunity within the Cluster of Excellence such as the award winning hiring concept (Jenny-Gusyk-Prize from the University of Cologne), increased its female professorial staff, introduced the ReStart Equal Opportunity Talks to raise public awareness as well as providing childcare facilities and Women-only Events.

ECONtribute has created two posters, that summarise the latest research of “Women in Economics” and combine it with the current equal opportunity measures within the cluster.

 

Download the Poster:

What we know and what we do | deutsche Version

What we have achieved (so far) | deutsche Version