Silke Uebelmesser
Biographic Data
| ID | 4382292 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Silke Uebelmesser |
| GIVEN NAMES | Silke |
| FAMILY NAME | Uebelmesser |
| SIGNATURE | UEBELMESSER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Carl Zeiss (Germany) |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5889-9061 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Regional Determinants of Attitudes Toward Immigrants in Germany
Attitudes toward immigrants play a crucial role in voting behavior. Such attitudes are shaped by individual characteristics, but also by the environment. This paper examines the role of regional factors in Germany. We use individual‐level survey data and district‐level administrative data. Specifically, we examine regional differences in economic growth, voting patterns, and immigrant characteristics and their relation to beliefs about and attitu…
Preferences for wealth redistribution: The role of social background and merit
This paper investigates preferences for wealth redistribution using a vignette experiment in which participants evaluate hypothetical taxpayers with a net wealth exceeding one million euros. The design allows us to study attitudes toward taxing the very wealthy. We differentiate between two forms of luck that may affect these preferences: brute luck such as random shocks unrelated to background or effort and circumstantial luck reflected in a pri…
Priming attitudes toward immigrants: Implications for migration research and survey design
Using data from two representative population surveys with more than 3000 participants, we examine the effect of randomized priming interventions on attitudes toward immigrants and preferences for immigration policy. We document robust null effects of these interventions in two experimental settings, across two surveys, and for a range of specifications. Our results suggest that (economic) attitudes toward immigrants may be less sensitive to prim…
Early warning models for systemic banking crises: Can political indicators improve prediction
This study provides a novel attempt to assess whether an early warning system (EWS) for systemic banking crises can produce better predictions when political indicators are used alongside traditional macro-financial indicators. Based on a dataset covering 32 advanced economies for the period 1975–2017, we show that the inclusion of political indicators significantly improves the predictive performance of the model. Our results suggest several cha…
International applicability of education and migration aspirations
We analyze perceptions of international applicability of one’s education and migration aspirations and intentions among university students in Czechia, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain. Students in law perceive their education as least internationally applicable. Perceived international applicability strongly predicts migration aspirations and intentions even after controlling for study fields, individual characteristic…
Pension reform preferences in Germany: Does information matter
Demographic change has an impact on pay-as-you-go pension systems. To maintain their financial sustainability, reforms are necessary, but often lack public support. Using representative survey data from Germany, we conduct a survey experiment to investigate whether salience or information about demographic change increases preferences for reforms in general and for specific reform measures. We find that salience and information provision increase…
Risk attitudes and migration decisions
This paper analyzes the relationship between individuals' attitudes towards risk and their decision to migrate. We consider migration in the United States across metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) between 1997 and 2015, based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Using random‐effects specifications, we find that being relatively more willing to take risks is positively and significantly related to cross‐MSA migration. For cro…
Coming to stay or to go? Stay intention and involved uncertainty of international students
Countries compete for young talents to alleviate skilled‐labor shortage. International students, who stay after graduation, allow host countries to overcome this challenge. This study investigates the factors associated with international students' intention to stay or to go after graduation from a host country's perspective. In contrast to the literature, this analysis employs survey data collected from first‐semester students. This assures that…
Job changes and interregional migration of graduates
Using panel data from a German graduate survey, we analyse determinants of graduates’ decisions to out-migrate from a region and how the importance of these determinants varies over job changes. Estimating Heckman and fixed-effects Heckman selection models, we find that the propensity to out-migrate significantly varies with graduates’ migration experience as well as individual, study-related and regional characteristics. While previous migration…
Quality of Education and the Number of Students: A General-Equilibrium Analysis
For a closed economy, we analyze the relation between the quality of higher education and the number of students. Within a two-period general-equilibrium model, we derive the optimal education policy - i.e., quality of and access restrictions to higher education - with observable ability, and contrast this with a setting where ability is unobservable and financial instruments are restricted to either taxes or fees. If the number of students incre…
The Political Economics of Higher-Education Finance for Mobile Individuals
We study voting over higher-education finance in an economy with two regions and two separated labor markets. Households differ in their financial endowment and their children's ability. Nonstudents are immobile. Students decide where to study; they return home after graduation with exogenous probability. The voters of the two regions decide on whether to subsidize higher-education costs or to rely on tuition fees only. We find that in equilibriu…
The Mobility of Students and the Highly Skilled: Implications for Education Financing and Economic Policy
Analyses of the interrelated mobility of students and the highly skilled that consider its implications for fiscal policy, higher education financing, and economic development. The mobility of students in developed countries has dramatically increased over the last fifty years. Students do not necessarily remain in their countries of origin for higher education and work; they might be born in one country, attend university in a second, and find e…
Financing Higher Education in a Mobile World
Why Go to France or Germany, if You Could as Well Go to the UK or the US? Selective Features of Immigration to the EU ‘Big Three’ and the United States: Selective Features of Immigration to the Eu ‘Bi…
Building on a new data set which is constructed from a combination of national micro-data bases, we highlight differences in the structure of migrants to four countries – namely, France, Germany, the UK and the US – which receive a substantial share of all immigrants to the OECD world. Looking at immigrants by source country, we illustrate the important role of distance, both geographical and cultural, immigration policies and migrant networks. D…
Financing Higher Education and Labor Mobility
The Provision of Higher Education in a Global World--Analysis and Policy Implications
Mobile students and graduates react to the institutional framework of higher education and on their turn induce changes in governmental policies. In this article, we are interested in how governmental decisions about the financial regime and the quality level of higher education interact with individual incentives to invest in higher education in closed economies and in economies open to migration. We show that mobility of (part of) the populatio…
On the Optimal Timing of Implicit Social Security Taxes Over the Life Cycle
Are there still opportunities for welfare-improving reforms in unfunded pension systems? To answer this question, we analyze the intertemporal structure of implicit taxes in pay-as-you-go pension schemes. We demonstrate that these tax rates are declining over the life cycle. This timing is optimal if periodic wage elasticities of labor supply are inversely related to the tax structure. Using German micro data for men and married women, we estimat…
Job changes and interregional migration of graduates
Using panel data from a German graduate survey, we analyse determinants of graduates’ decisions to out-migrate from a region and how the importance of these determinants varies over job changes. Estimating Heckman and fixed-effects Heckman selection models, we find that the propensity to out-migrate significantly varies with graduates’ migration experience as well as individual, study-related and regional characteristics. While previous migration…
Why Go to France or Germany, if You Could as Well Go to the UK or the US? Selective Features of Immigration to the EU ‘Big Three’ and the United States: Selective Features of Immigration to the Eu ‘Bi…
Building on a new data set which is constructed from a combination of national micro-data bases, we highlight differences in the structure of migrants to four countries – namely, France, Germany, the UK and the US – which receive a substantial share of all immigrants to the OECD world. Looking at immigrants by source country, we illustrate the important role of distance, both geographical and cultural, immigration policies and migrant networks. D…
On the Optimal Timing of Implicit Social Security Taxes Over the Life Cycle
Are there still opportunities for welfare-improving reforms in unfunded pension systems? To answer this question, we analyze the intertemporal structure of implicit taxes in pay-as-you-go pension schemes. We demonstrate that these tax rates are declining over the life cycle. This timing is optimal if periodic wage elasticities of labor supply are inversely related to the tax structure. Using German micro data for men and married women, we estimat…
Financing Higher Education and Labor Mobility
The Provision of Higher Education in a Global World--Analysis and Policy Implications
Mobile students and graduates react to the institutional framework of higher education and on their turn induce changes in governmental policies. In this article, we are interested in how governmental decisions about the financial regime and the quality level of higher education interact with individual incentives to invest in higher education in closed economies and in economies open to migration. We show that mobility of (part of) the populatio…
Why Go to France or Germany, if You Could as Well Go to the UK or the US? Selective Features of Immigration to the EU ‘Big Three’ and the United States: Selective Features of Immigration to the Eu ‘Bi…
Building on a new data set which is constructed from a combination of national micro-data bases, we highlight differences in the structure of migrants to four countries – namely, France, Germany, the UK and the US – which receive a substantial share of all immigrants to the OECD world. Looking at immigrants by source country, we illustrate the important role of distance, both geographical and cultural, immigration policies and migrant networks. D…
Financing Higher Education in a Mobile World
The Mobility of Students and the Highly Skilled: Implications for Education Financing and Economic Policy
Analyses of the interrelated mobility of students and the highly skilled that consider its implications for fiscal policy, higher education financing, and economic development. The mobility of students in developed countries has dramatically increased over the last fifty years. Students do not necessarily remain in their countries of origin for higher education and work; they might be born in one country, attend university in a second, and find e…
Quality of Education and the Number of Students: A General-Equilibrium Analysis
For a closed economy, we analyze the relation between the quality of higher education and the number of students. Within a two-period general-equilibrium model, we derive the optimal education policy - i.e., quality of and access restrictions to higher education - with observable ability, and contrast this with a setting where ability is unobservable and financial instruments are restricted to either taxes or fees. If the number of students incre…
The Political Economics of Higher-Education Finance for Mobile Individuals
We study voting over higher-education finance in an economy with two regions and two separated labor markets. Households differ in their financial endowment and their children's ability. Nonstudents are immobile. Students decide where to study; they return home after graduation with exogenous probability. The voters of the two regions decide on whether to subsidize higher-education costs or to rely on tuition fees only. We find that in equilibriu…
Job changes and interregional migration of graduates
Using panel data from a German graduate survey, we analyse determinants of graduates’ decisions to out-migrate from a region and how the importance of these determinants varies over job changes. Estimating Heckman and fixed-effects Heckman selection models, we find that the propensity to out-migrate significantly varies with graduates’ migration experience as well as individual, study-related and regional characteristics. While previous migration…
Risk attitudes and migration decisions
This paper analyzes the relationship between individuals' attitudes towards risk and their decision to migrate. We consider migration in the United States across metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) between 1997 and 2015, based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Using random‐effects specifications, we find that being relatively more willing to take risks is positively and significantly related to cross‐MSA migration. For cro…
Coming to stay or to go? Stay intention and involved uncertainty of international students
Countries compete for young talents to alleviate skilled‐labor shortage. International students, who stay after graduation, allow host countries to overcome this challenge. This study investigates the factors associated with international students' intention to stay or to go after graduation from a host country's perspective. In contrast to the literature, this analysis employs survey data collected from first‐semester students. This assures that…
Pension reform preferences in Germany: Does information matter
Demographic change has an impact on pay-as-you-go pension systems. To maintain their financial sustainability, reforms are necessary, but often lack public support. Using representative survey data from Germany, we conduct a survey experiment to investigate whether salience or information about demographic change increases preferences for reforms in general and for specific reform measures. We find that salience and information provision increase…
Priming attitudes toward immigrants: Implications for migration research and survey design
Using data from two representative population surveys with more than 3000 participants, we examine the effect of randomized priming interventions on attitudes toward immigrants and preferences for immigration policy. We document robust null effects of these interventions in two experimental settings, across two surveys, and for a range of specifications. Our results suggest that (economic) attitudes toward immigrants may be less sensitive to prim…
Early warning models for systemic banking crises: Can political indicators improve prediction
This study provides a novel attempt to assess whether an early warning system (EWS) for systemic banking crises can produce better predictions when political indicators are used alongside traditional macro-financial indicators. Based on a dataset covering 32 advanced economies for the period 1975–2017, we show that the inclusion of political indicators significantly improves the predictive performance of the model. Our results suggest several cha…
International applicability of education and migration aspirations
We analyze perceptions of international applicability of one’s education and migration aspirations and intentions among university students in Czechia, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain. Students in law perceive their education as least internationally applicable. Perceived international applicability strongly predicts migration aspirations and intentions even after controlling for study fields, individual characteristic…
Regional Determinants of Attitudes Toward Immigrants in Germany
Attitudes toward immigrants play a crucial role in voting behavior. Such attitudes are shaped by individual characteristics, but also by the environment. This paper examines the role of regional factors in Germany. We use individual‐level survey data and district‐level administrative data. Specifically, we examine regional differences in economic growth, voting patterns, and immigrant characteristics and their relation to beliefs about and attitu…
Preferences for wealth redistribution: The role of social background and merit
This paper investigates preferences for wealth redistribution using a vignette experiment in which participants evaluate hypothetical taxpayers with a net wealth exceeding one million euros. The design allows us to study attitudes toward taxing the very wealthy. We differentiate between two forms of luck that may affect these preferences: brute luck such as random shocks unrelated to background or effort and circumstantial luck reflected in a pri…
Economics (14 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Demographic economics (6 works) · Geography (6 works) · Business (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth (4 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (4 works) · Economic geography (3 works)