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Sustainable development and responsible use of resources are pressing concerns for humanity today. Individuals tend to make myopic decisions, leading to waste and overuse of resources available today, with detrimental consequences for future generations. In our research, we take a multidisciplinary perspective combining business administration, economics, finance, and informatics to study incentives for the use of human and financial resources in the context of increasing inequality and social tensions.
Learn more about recent research projects with significant societal impact in this Thought Leadership Area.
On the Path to Greener Financial Markets
Prof. Zacharias Sautner is a leading expert in sustainable finance. From examining the
impact of corporate lobbying on climate action to developing innovative tools for measuring
climate risks, his work exemplifies the vital connection between academic research and practical application.
Directed Technical Change in Labor and Environmental Economics (David Hémous and co-authors)
Carbon Taxes Path Dependency and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Automotive Industry (David Hémous and co-authors)
(Not) thinking about the future: inattention and maternal labor supply (Ana Costa-Ramón, Anne Ardila Brenøe and co-authors)
Impact: The study highlights the importance of raising awareness about the long-term financial implications of part-time work to help mothers make better-informed decisions for their future.
Tertiary Education Expansion and Regional Firm Development (Uschi Backes-Gellner and co-authors)
Impact: This article shows that after the establishment of new UASs in Switzerland, profits per firm are higher in municipalities with a new UAS compared to the firms in regions without a UAS.
Social Norms and Gendered Occupational Choices of Men and Women: Time to Turn the Tide? (Patrick Lehnert, Uschi Backes-Gellner and co-authors)
Impact: The paper shows that occupational choices in Switzerland are strongly driven by regional gender norms and that these effects are even stronger for men than for women. Adolescent males in regions with stronger traditional social gender norms are much more likely to apply for gender-typical male occupations in comparison to males in regions with stronger gender equality norms. In contrast, adolescent females are more independent from traditional gender norms and are in general more open to gender atypical occupations than men. The results underscore the importance of gender equality policies that encourage adolescent males to reconsider traditional norms and atypical occupational choices in order to improve oc-cupational matching and to reduce gender differences in the labor market. The study thus provides important guidance for educational policy makers and firms that help to reduce gender inequalities in the labor market.
The value of specific skills under shock: High risks and high returns (Uschi Backes-Gellner and co-authors)
Impact: The paper shows that workers with specific skills profit more from positive demand shocks due to globalization than workers with general skills; but with negative demand shocks workers with specific skills are faced with larger earnings losses. Thus there are important trade-offs in designing occupational curricula that are important to know for educational policy makers and for individuals’ occupational choices.
Occupational Tasks and Wage Inequality in Germany: A Decomposition Analysis (Uschi Backes-Gellner and co-authors)
Impact: The paper shows the role of occupational tasks as drivers of West German wage inequality from 1978 to 2006 using RIF regression-based decompositions. It finds that changes in the returns to tasks explain up to half of the increase in West German wage inequality from the 1990s until the mid-2000s, both at the top and the bottom ends of the wage distribution. Increasing returns to “abstract tasks” drive the upper wage gap, while increasing returns to “interactive tasks” and decreasing returns to “routine tasks” drive the lower wage gap. The paper also documents important changes in occupational task contents: the shares of “routine” and “manual tasks” decrease over time, while the shares of “abstract” and “interactive tasks” increase. The share of routine tasks is largest in occupations at the bottom end of the wage distribution and this share slowly declines with increasing wages. Thus, the study does not confirm previous research, particularly in other countries, which found that occupations in the middle of the wage distribution have the largest routine-task intensity and incur the largest wage losses. These study thus provide important guidance for educational policy makers, particularly for stakeholder who design educational curricula such as industry organizations, educational policy makers or firms.
Does updating education curricula accelerate technology adoption in the workplace? Evidence from dual vocational education and training curricula in Switzerland (Uschi Backes-Gellner and co-authors)
Impact: The paper studies the effects of a first wave of digitalization in the 1990s in which three new technologies CNC (computerized numerical control), CAD (computer-aided design) & DP (desktop publishing) were introduced into dual vocational education & training curricula. It finds that firms who train in occupations with updated curricula are 12 percentage points more likely to use CNC, CAD or DP in the workplace when the first graduates are available. The updating of VET curricula helps to speed up the diffusion of digital technologies. The diffusion effect is strongest in mainstream firms (i.e., SMEs that are not at the innovation frontier) who make the greatest strides in catching up to the innovation frontier after the curricula updates. Thus, systematic educational updates with digital skills for middle-skill occupations act as an effective diffusion device and can help to bring the latest digital technologies into firms’ workplaces. The study provides important insights for educational policy makers that design educational curricula in times of fast technological changes and digitalization.
IT Skills, Occupation Specificity and Job Separations (Prof. Uschi Backes-Gellner and co-authors)
Impact: This paper shows that workers’ earnings change after involuntary job separations depending on the workers’ acquired IT skills and the specificity of their occupational training. Workers with specific skill bundles have in general higher wages, but after involuntary separations they also have the largest earnings losses. To reduce such wage losses it is essential to have generic IT skills in their specific skill bundle because the generic IT skills reduce earnings losses. In contrast, expert IT skills increase earnings losses for workers with specific skill. The situation is different for workers with general skill bundles: they generally have lower wages but after involuntary separations they also have lower problems of finding a new job with equal wages. For them neither generic nor expert IT skills have much effect on adaptability.
Different degrees of skill obsolescence across hard and soft skills and the role of lifelong learning for labor market outcomes (Uschi Backes-Gellner and co-authors)
Impact: The focus of this paper is to explore how lifelong learning can combat skill depreciation and obsolescence. The study reveals that in occupations that require a high proportion of fast-depreciating hard skills, the primary role of lifelong learning is to counteract skill depreciation and mitigate unemployment risks, rather than to increase wages. In particular, the study suggests that the benefits of lifelong learning in these occupations lie more in avoiding potential wage declines rather than boosting wages. Conversely, in occupations with more value-stable soft skills, lifelong learning can serve as a catalyst for upward career mobility and lead to wage gains. The study highlights that in these "softer" occupations, lifelong learning is often used as a tool for enhancing existing skills and acquiring new ones, resulting in a greater potential for wage growth and career advancement. These studies provide important insights for educational policy makers that develop lifelong learning measures and for individual who decide on lifelong learning paths.
Proxying economic activity with daytime satellite imagery: Filling data gaps across time and space. (Patrick Lehnert, Uschi Backes-Gellner and co-authors)
Impact: This paper develops a new proxy to measure regional economic activity at very small regional levels and across historical time spans for which reliable data are non-existent. The new proxy based on daytime satellite imagery more precisely predicts economic activity at very small regional levels than other common proxies (e.g. based on nighttime satellite imagery). The data are open access and publicly available to the scientific community for basically all countries and regions across the world starting in 1984. This study provides an important data bases for policy makers aiming at improving regional developments in either developed or developing countries.
Higher Bank Capital Requirements and Mortgage Pricing: Evidence from the Counter-Cyclical Capital Buffer (Christoph Basten)
Impact: This has informed FINMA’s position and thereby the Swiss Bundesrat decisions on increasing and later decreasing the “Counter-Cyclical Capital Buffer” (CCyB) bank capital requirements for mortgage lending. Prior evidence on the effects of the CCyB activation in 2013 suggested limited effects on bank risk-taking, as aggregate mortgage growth was practically the same afterwards as before. But with my more granular data analysis, I showed that the CCyB had shifted some new lending from banks more exposed to a mortgage market crisis to banks so far less exposed and had thereby contributed positively to Financial Stability. This was a key argument for increasing the buffer despite it being costly for banks.
Do investors care about impact? (Stefan Zeisberger and co-authors)
Impact: The research project "Do investors care about impact?" was supported by the Dutch Ministry of Finance in the Netherlands and was part of the national "Action Plan Consumer Choices". It was also picked up by various media outlets. The project was made possible by a larger collaboration with several partners from the industry.
Sustainable Finance in a Shifting World Order (Alexander Wagner)
Impact: “Sustainable Finance in a Shifting World Order” draws on a number of research papers on sustainable finance. This discussion note has been the basis for knowledge exchange seminars conducted with board members and managers of the leading Swiss financial institutions.
Educating moral sensitivity in business: An experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of a serious moral game. (Carmen Tanner and co-authors)
Impact: This paper is relevant for organizations looking for ways to promote leader’s and employee’s personal integrity. The paper not only describes a video game designed to train moral sensitivity but also shows by experimental research that the digital learning tools effective in enhancing moral sensitivity.
Does moral commitment predict resistance to corruption? Experimental evidence from a bribery game. (Carmen Tanner and co-authors)
Impact: This paper is relevant for policy makers and all organizations who wish to combat corruption. It suggests to also built on leaders and employees that are committed to moral values. Such people are less corruptible despite being in a corrupt surrounding. They are therefore relevant for (at least) inhibiting the process of normalization of corruption. This paper was also featured in «Wirtschaftspsychologie Heute» und «Psychology Today».
The German ethical culture Scale (GECS): Development and first construct testing (Carmen Tanner and co-authors)
Impact: This paper is relevant for organizations who wish to promote assess and change their organizational culture. It provides and test a scale for German-speaking countries. It allows to induce suggestions about how to steer organizations to prevent unethical behaviors.
Capable but Amoral? Comparing AI and Human Expert Collaboration in Ethical Decision Making (Abraham Bernstein and co-authors)
Impact: Has been presented to lots of practitioners (European Central Bank, CIOs, etc.) — all which whom have nodded and thought about it. It will be difficult to measure the precise impact directly from it. Also, this work was supported by Armasuisse Science and Technology (S+T) to help make decisions about the ethical use of drones.
