Anlässlich der Fußballweltmeisterschaft 2006 wurde erstmals der Marktwert der Mannschaften ('Transferwert') als eine einfache und transparente Basis für die Prognose des Ausgangs eines großen Fußballturniers vorgeschlagen. Und tatsächlich wurden die Teams mit den höchsten Marktwerten 2006...

Rwanda and Burundi have both emerged from civil wars over the past 20 years and foreign donors have provided significant contributions to post-conflict reconstruction and development in the two countries. Yet although Rwanda and Burundi share several important characteristics, the social,...

Der Nahostkonflikt ist ein wiederkehrendes Thema bei den Sitzungen der Generalversammlung der Vereinten Nationen. Besonders dem Staat Israel kommt große Aufmerksamkeit zu. In einer neuen Studie wird anhand verschiedener Indikatoren untersucht, inwiefern sich diese Fokussierung erklären lässt.

We exploit the fact that disagreements in the German leadership after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 led to a quasi-exogenous division of Alsace and Lorraine to provide rare evidence of group identity formation within historically homogeneous regions. In line with the rejection-identification...

There is a considerable amount of literature analyzing factors of success in music contests, in particular those where the audience votes for the winner. However, one factor that is highlighted by the economic theory of stardom is generally neglected in the literature. In this paper, we tackle...

While most economic studies of crime have focused on its determinants, we study the reverse question: does crime affect economic behavior? Being such an important social phenomenon, one would expect crime to affect economic decisions. Using local data on crime rates and savings per capita in a...

This essay proposes the artist Joseph Beuys and his work as paradigmatic for art that through its own diversity of approach can show possibilities for addressing diverse audiences, diverging receptions and modes of participation. It arises from a symposium on the occasion of the 20th anniversary...

This paper shares the approach of social constructivism, and maintains that diversity should be examined not 'par excellence', as an entity in itself, but as reflected in people's minds and expressed in their attitudes and perceptions. On the basis of an empirical Bulgarian-Finnish intercultural...

We show that the Matthew effect, or Matthew mechanism, was present in the artificial cultural market Music Lab when social influence between individuals was allowed, whereas this was not the case when social influence was not allowed. We also sketch on a class of social network models, derived...

China's urban geography has been dramatically altered over the past three decades. The co-presence of splinters in urban fabric - contrasting and continuously changing in terms of condition, use, and socio-cultural consistency - is symptomatic for the country's contemporary transition,...