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Donations and unpaid working are two important forms of non-market activities that are usually considered separately in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test hypotheses on determinants of giving to organizations. In particular, the importance of voluntary work for giving behavior is examined in comparison to other unpaid activities. In addition, the aim is to find out whether mutual dependencies exist and to what extent benefits, measured by satisfaction, can be derived from both forms. Estimates using data from the Socio-Economic Panel for the years 2019/2020 lead to the following results for Germany: - Personality traits and individual assessment, under which conditions a society is judged to be just, are important for donation behavior. These two aspects are widely neglected in the literature. - If honorary offices are exercised as a major activity, a clear positive donation effect is derived in contrast to a secondary activity. - Participation in citizens' initiatives shows a similar correlation. In contrast, unpaid overtime in professional life shows a negative link. - No effect can be discerned, based on an honorary office, for payments to unrelated individuals. - Donations to organizations and voluntary work show mutual dependencies. - Life satisfaction is increased both by donating and by doing voluntary work.

In diesem Beitrag wird die regionale Ausbreitung von COVID-19-Infektionen untersucht. Unter Verwendung der Hauptkomponentenanalyse, des LARS- und RLASSO-Auswahlverfahrens erfolgt eine Variablenreduktion. Geprüft wird die Bedeutung von Zustandsabhängigkeit, unbeobachteter Heterogenität und Strukturbrüchen. Die empirische Analyse zeigt, dass sowohl regionale Strukturvariablen als auch regional aggregierte Persönlichkeitsmerkmale bedeutsam sind für die unterschiedliche Corona-Ausbreitung. Die nord-östlichen Bundesländer weisen einen geringeren Grad an Betroffenheit auf. Regionen mit hohem Migrantenanteil zeigen eine höhere Inzidenz als andere. Werden Persönlichkeitsmerkmale vernachlässigt, so wird die Bedeutung des Migrationseinflusses überschätzt. Mit der Schulbildung, der Armutsgefährdung und der Haushaltsgröße wurden drei weitere wichtige Merkmale identifiziert. In Bundeslädern mit überproportional vielen Menschen ohne Schulabschluss werden tendenziell weniger COVID-19-Fälle ausgewiesen. Je mehr Kooperationsbereitschaft und emotionale Labilität ausgeprägt sind, umso höher ist die Gefahr der Ansteckung. Ein positiv signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen Infektionen und Tests wird durch die Schätzungen abgebildet. Eine weniger klare Verknüpfung zeigt sich zwischen Impfungen und der Zahl der Infektionen. Über die drei Corona-Wellen hinweg, offenbaren sich deutliche Veränderungen. Dies betrifft die Bedeutung des Migrantenanteil, der armutsgefährdete Familien und die geographische Lage der Bundesländer.

This paper investigates the regional differences in the spread of COVID-19 infections in Germany. A machine learning selection procedure is used to reduce variables from a pool of potential influencing variables. The empirical analysis shows that both regional structural variables and regionally aggregated personality traits are significant for the different corona spread. The latter characteristics express differences in mentality between the federal states. The north-east of the country shows a lower degree of affectedness. Regions with a high proportion of migrants show a higher incidence than others. If personality traits are neglected, the migrants' influence is overestimated. With school education and the risk of poverty, two further important regional characteristics are identified. Federal states that have a disproportionately high share of the population with low school education tend to have fewer COVID-19 cases. With regard to poverty, no clear statement can be made. The more the population tends to be responsible towards fellow human beings, the higher is the risk of a more pronounced spread. Where there is a tendency towards altruism, which consists of helping other people, a higher level of COVID-19 infections is revealed. A significant positive correlation between infections and testing is shown by the estimates. The link between vaccinations and the number of infections is less clear. Across the three corona waves,significant changes emerge. This relates in particular to the proportion of migrants and the proportion of families at risk of poverty. The effects decrease over the course of the pandemic.

Das IAB wurde im Rahmen der Beratung des Sozialausschusses des Schleswig-Holsteinischen Landtags, zusammen mit dem Wirtschafts- und Finanzausschuss, um seine schriftliche Stellungnahme zu zwei Anträgen gebeten ("Home-Office steuerlich berücksichtigen" - Antrag der Abgeordneten des SSWund "Mobiles Arbeiten gesetzlich regeln" - Alternativantrag der Fraktion der SPD). Mit der Covid-19-Pandemie gewinnt das Arbeiten von zu Hause zunehmend an Bedeutung. Obgleich Vorteile für Betriebe wie Beschäftigte auszumachen sind, kann erst die Zukunft zeigen, auf welchem Niveau sich die Ausweitung einpendeln wird. Handlungsbedarf besteht vor allem bei der IT-Ausstattung, bei der Regelung der Arbeitszeit sowie den Themen der Mitarbeiterführung und der Zusammenarbeit. Es erscheint schwierig, die Einführung steuerlicher Anreize zielgenau zu gestalten, da hierzu verschiedenste Punkte diskutiert werden und Berücksichtigung finden müssen. In the context of the counselling of the Social Committee of the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein in cooperation with the Economic and Financial Committee, the IAB was asked for advice regarding the rules for tax incentives of working from home. During the Covid-19 crisis working from home gained more importance. Although advantages of working from home can already be seen for employees as well as employers, the future development will determine the upcoming level of working from home. Areas that need to be improved include the IT-equipment, the working time rules, management and cooperation. It seems to be difficult to precisely target tax incentives, because different aspects must be considered in the discussion.

This study tests the prediction that perceived corruption reduces ethical behavior. Integrating a standard "cheating" experiment into a broad household survey in rural Thailand, we find clear support for this prediction: respondents who perceive corruption in state affairs are more likely to cheat and, thus, to fortify the negative consequences of corruption. Interestingly, there is a small group of non-conformers. The main relation is robust to consideration of socio-demographic, attitudinal, and situational control variables. Attendance of others at the cheating experiment, stimulating the reputational concern to be seen as honest, reduces cheating, thus indicating transparency as a remedy.

Working remotely can complement and sometimes completely substitute conventional work at the workplace of the company. Until the COVID-19 crisis the share of remote workers was relatively low and empirical investigations show inconsistent results. The recent work has highlighted a dramatic shift toward working from home The objective of this contribution is to empirically analyze the relationship between working remotely and job satisfaction on the one hand, as well as between working remotely and work-life balance on the other hand, based on three waves of the German Linked Personnel Panel. Our control variables are personality traits, skills, employment and job characteristics. We present average effects and demonstrate under which conditions remote work is advantageous for employees. Work-life imbalance may be induced by job-related causes. A private life can reduce work-life balance under specific conditions, namely, if remote work takes place outside of contracted working hours and during the first phase of remote work. On average, remote work has no significant impact on work-life balance, which is conditioned by private interests. However, the termination of remote work causes a clear imbalance. In contrast, the introduction of remote work increases job satisfaction, although only temporarily. When we compare employees working from home with those who want to work at home, we find that the former are happier. If we consider remote workers only, our results reveal that job satisfaction is higher, and work-life balance is not worse under a strict contractual agreement than under a nonbinding commitment.

This study tests the prediction that a corrupt government reduces ethical behavior among its citizens. We integrate a standard "cheating" experiment into a broad household survey and find clear support for this prediction: respondents who perceive corruption in state affairs are more likely to cheat. Interestingly, there is a small group of non-conformers. The main relation is robust to consideration of many (largely insignificant) socio-demographic control variables. Attendance of others at the cheating experiment, thus stimulating the reputational concern to be seen as honest, reduces cheating. Again, this does not diminish the predictive role of corruption.

Using a new German individual data set, we investigate the influence on health with respect to personal traits measured by the Big Five, collegiality, commitment and job characteristics. Among the Big Five conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability correlate positively with good health. Job characteristics like activities combined with substantial decision authority, no physically demanding tasks, pleasant environmental conditions, little time pressure and no necessity of multitasking affect health in the same direction. If employees get help if needed from their colleagues and if they do not feel unfairly criticized by others in the firm, they usually have no health problems. For mental health, all Big Five items are influential whereas no statistical significance could be found for the number of days workers were absent due to sickness except in cases of neuroticism.

This paper investigates the role of works councils in job satisfaction. Using the recently developed Linked Personnel Panel, we consider both the direct and indirect impact via further training. Basic estimates on an individual level do not reveal clearly direct effects, but on an establishment level, the existence of a works council increases the average job satisfaction in a company. In more extended approaches, we also find a positive, weakly significant link on an individual level accompanied by positive training with regard to job satisfaction if we control for personal characteristics, working conditions, firm size, collegiality variables and industry dummies. Firms with industry-wide bargaining agreements drive this result. The effects are stronger if the firm carries the training costs and if the share of trained workers within the firm measures training. The direct impact of works councils remains positive but becomes insignificant if Lewbel's instrumental variables estimator is applied.

Many studies have shown that obesity is a serious health problem for our society. Empirical analyses often neglect a number of methodological issues and relevant influences on health. This paper investigates empirically whether neglecting these items leads to systematically different estimates. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, this study derives the following results. (1) Many combinations of weight and height lead to the same health status. (2) Obese people have a significantly worse state of health. (3) The hypothesis has to be rejected that weight is an exogenous influence on health. (4) High income helps to improve men's health while deviations between desired and actual working hours induce negative effects. (5) The more siblings a woman has and the lower her father's social status, the worse is her health status. (6) Smoking is not good for health, a well-known fact. Especially for underweight individuals we detect the negative influence on health. Women are less affected. (7) A healthy diet strengthens the resilience for individuals who are not obese. (8) Long but not too long sleeping hours and sporting activities during youth contribute to a good health status. (9) Weight fluctuations induce negative effects on the health of women only. (10) Four of the big five components of personality, namely openness, extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness, contribute to resilience against health problems for underweight people.

Many studies have shown that obesity is a serious health problem for our society. Empirical analyses often neglect a number of methodological issues and relevant influences on health. This paper investigates empirically whether neglecting these items leads to systematically different estimates. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, this study derives the following results. (1) Many combinations of weight and height lead to the same health status. (2) The relationship between health and body mass index is nonlinear. (3) Underweight strengthens individual health and severe obesity has a clear negative impact on health status. Underweight women are more affected than men but obese men are hit harder than women. (4) The hypothesis has to be rejected that weight has an exogenous influence on health. (5) A worse health status is linked with weight fluctuations and deviations between desired and actual working hours. (6) A healthy diet and long but not too long sleeping contribute to a good health status. Moreover, a good parental education and a high parental social status act favorably on health as does personal high income. (7) Four of the big five components of personality, namely openness, extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness, contribute to resilience against health problems.