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We analyse workplace monitoring in a principal–agent model with two types of workers who differ in their productivity. The firm decides on the effort level, the wage and the monitoring intensity for both workers. We find that the elasticities of the workers’ effort-cost function and the firm’s monitoring-cost function affect the firm’s monitoring intensity. Our results imply that the firm might monitor the low-productive worker more closely than the high-productive worker.

Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Zeitschriftenartikel

Marcus Dittrich, S. Städter

Monitoring 'lemons': Why lower productivity workers are sometimes monitored more closely

Applied Economics Letters, no. Published online: 18 June 2020

2020

DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2020.1776826

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Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Zeitschriftenartikel

Marcus Dittrich, B. Mey

Time Use Choices and Volunteer Labour Supply

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, no. Online First: 24 October 2019, pp. 1-21

2019

DOI: 10.1007/s11266-019-00179-4

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This paper examines time allocation and satisfaction with time use of volunteers and non-volunteers. Using data from the German Time Use Survey, we find that volunteers spend more time on work-related activities. Moreover, time use choices are associated with women’s propensity to volunteer and men’s satisfaction with time use, which is a proxy for individual well-being. Controlling for possible endogeneity of volunteering, our results suggest that volunteering needs to be treated as endogenous for women, while volunteering is an exogenous and positive predictor for men’s time use satisfaction.

Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Zeitschriftenartikel

Marcus Dittrich

Union membership and employment dynamics: The role of the union objective function

Theoretical Economics Letters, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 1473-1479

2019

DOI: 10.4236/tel.2019.95094

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This paper studies the behaviour of a labour union in a model with employment and membership dynamics. It is known from the literature that the relative level of employment between intertemporal and static union models is affected by the structure of the union density function. We show that this result does not hold in general but rather that it depends on the union objective function. If the union maximises the wage bill of their members, employment in the intertemporal model will differ from employment in the static model depending on the union density function. However, if the union maximises the rent from unionisation, the intertemporal model will yield the same level of employment as the static model regardless of the union density.

Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Zeitschriftenartikel

Marcus Dittrich, B. Mey

Are people satisfied with their time use?

Empirical evidence from German survey data

Economics Bulletin, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 2903-2914

2015

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Using data from the German Time Use Survey, we examine how people allocate their time and how satisfied people are with their time use. Our results suggest that people are more satisfied with the time spent on work and work-related activities than with the time spent on leisure, family, and friends. Moreover, we find that non-employed individuals are more satisfied with their time spent on private and leisure activities than employed individuals. Exploring the factors that affect overall time use satisfaction, we find - among significant age and gender effects - a much more positive effect of time spent on various leisure activities for employed than for non-employed individuals.

Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Zeitschriftenartikel

Marcus Dittrich, S. Städter

Moral hazard and bargaining over incentive contracts

Research in Economics, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 75-85

2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.rie.2014.10.002

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This paper analyses bargaining over an incentive compatible contract in a moral hazard framework. We introduce the Kalai–Smorodinsky bargaining solution and compare the outcome with the commonly applied Nash solution. Whether worker׳s effort is higher in the Nash or the Kalai–Smorodinsky solution depends on the agents׳ bargaining power. The social planner can mitigate inefficiencies arising in both bargaining solutions from the moral hazard problem and even achieve the first-best outcome by allocating the agents׳ bargaining power. If raising the worker׳s bargaining power is necessary to achieve the first-best solution, this increase must be higher in the Nash solution than in the Kalai–Smorodinsky solution.

Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Zeitschriftenartikel

Marcus Dittrich, B. Mey

Gender differences in volunteer activities: Evidence from German survey data

Economics Bulletin, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 349-360

2015

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In this study, we examine the gender differences in formal and informal volunteering using data from a Time Use Survey in Germany. Our study finds strong evidence that women are more likely to volunteer formally if they also volunteer informally, suggesting that the decisions are complementary. However, for men the decisions to volunteer formally and informally are not significantly related. Moreover, we find that gender differences in labour force participation cannot explain our results.

Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Zeitschriftenartikel

Marcus Dittrich

Gender differences in trust and reciprocity: Evidence from a large-scale experiment with heterogenous subjects

Applied Economics, vol. 47, no. 36, pp. 3825-3838

2015

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2015.1019036

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This article examines gender differences in an experimental trust game. Recent studies have shown that men trust more and that women are more reciprocal in laboratory experiments. Participants in these studies, however, are typically university students who may not be representative of the entire population. In this study, we use data from a large-scale experiment with heterogeneous subjects who are representative of the German population. We find that men exhibit not only more trusting behaviour, but also more reciprocating behaviour than women. Moreover, our results are indicative of age-dependent gender differences. For men, we find an inverse U-shaped relationship between age, on the one hand, and both trust and reciprocity, on the other; however, we do not find age effects for women.

Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Buch (Monographie)

D. Gesmann-Nuissl, R. Hartz, Marcus Dittrich

Perspektiven der Wirtschaftswissenschaften

2014

ISBN: 978-3658035990

Angewandte Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Zeitschriftenartikel

Marcus Dittrich, K. Leipold

Gender differences in time preferences

Economics Letters, vol. 122, no. 3, pp. 413-415

2014