Overview of Selected Externally Funded Projects

Contact person: Sara Bormann, Anna Rohlfing-Bastian

Duration: 01.04.2022 - 31.03.2025

Description: This project investigates how personality traits influence self-selection into work and incentive environments, as well as the effects of organizational design elements. Particular attention is paid to task complexity, monetary incentives, and feedback. Using a laboratory experiment, the project examines whether personality traits can explain inconsistent findings regarding incentive effects and meaningfully complement traditional firm-related factors.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Timo Dimitriadis

Duration: 01.07.2025 - 31.12.2025

Description: This project advances the CORP methodology for evaluating calibrated predictions. Its objective is to develop robust inference methods for binary regressions and extend them to point forecasts and risk measures such as Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall. The resulting methods are intended to make existing tests in regression diagnostics, backtesting, and financial risk management more stable, reproducible, and interpretable.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Georg Dürnecker

Duration: 01.02.2023 - 31.01.2025

Description: This project investigates the causes of structural transformation and the role of household production in sectoral reallocation. It examines how employment, value added, and consumption expenditures shift across the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors. The analysis focuses on the extent to which self-produced household services are replaced by market-based services and how this substitution influences structural transformation.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Esther Faia

Duration: 01.09.2022 - 31.08.2025

Description: This project investigates how firms form inflation expectations and which factors shape these expectations. It focuses on three transmission channels: labor costs and trade unions, the competitive environment, and consumer demand. Through a survey experiment, the project analyzes how firms respond to different types of information and adjust their expectations regarding inflation, prices, and costs.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Oliver Hinz

Duration: 01.01.2024 - 31.12.2024

Description: This project investigates how disinformation can be regulated through new institutional structures and processes. Building on the distinction between law "in books" and law "in action," it addresses key challenges of effective regulation, including the definition of disinformation, the allocation of responsibilities, and the identification of appropriate countermeasures. Using the Digital Services Act as a case study, it examines tensions between freedom of expression and the protection of fair elections.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Oliver Hinz

Duration: 01.01.2023 - 31.12.2025

Description: This project examines how information contained in earnings conference calls can be used for corporate forecasting through machine learning techniques. While previous research has primarily analyzed transcripts using natural language processing, this project focuses on audio recordings. Its goal is to identify "audio cues"—signals conveyed by how something is said—and assess whether they provide predictive advantages for market participants.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Oliver Hinz

Duration: 01.11.2023 - 30.04.2026

Description: The COMET project addresses the monopolization of smart living data. Through COMET Connect and the COMET Personal Data Market, users gain greater control over their personal data, while companies obtain access to high-quality data for AI-driven innovation. In doing so, the project strengthens the SmartLivingNEXT data space and promotes responsible, self-determined data sharing.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Oliver Hinz

Duration: 01.01.2023 - 31.12.2026

Description: The SECAI project develops AI-based solutions to optimize heating demand in private homes and residential complexes. It focuses on the interplay between edge and cloud technologies to enable decentralized, privacy-preserving, and resource-efficient data processing. Using federated learning, the project aims to optimize heating schedules, account for user behavior, and ensure both data sovereignty and tenant acceptance.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Rainer Klump

Duration: 01.06.2023 - 31.05.2025

Description: This project investigates why companies do not adopt sustainability-linked financing structures in external financing. Based on a survey of DZ BANK AG's corporate clients, it analyzes key barriers, particularly in carbon-intensive sectors and among small and medium-sized enterprises. It also examines the role banks can play in overcoming these challenges.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Michael Kosfeld

Duration: 01.07.2024 - 01.07.2027

Description: This project develops the Behavioral Measurement Toolbox (BMT) to standardize and improve access to behavioral measurements in the quantitative social sciences. The platform is intended to enable researchers to apply measurement protocols in a flexible, transparent, and comparable manner. Its objective is to establish valid measurement approaches, facilitate interdisciplinary research, and provide empirical evidence on the predictive validity of the BMT.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Jan Landwehr

Duration: 01.04.2022 - 31.03.2025

Description: This project investigates fluency effects in marketing, namely how easily processed stimuli influence consumer preferences. It aims to systematically review the existing literature and conduct a meta-analysis of the robustness, replicability, and moderating factors of these effects. Selected findings will also be replicated to distinguish robust effects from context-dependent or weaker fluency effects.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Alexander Meyer-Gohde

Duration: 01.09.2021 - 01.09.2024

Description: This project investigates the numerical limitations of linear approximations in macroeconomic DSGE models. It focuses on how finite-precision arithmetic affects quantitative predictions and how researchers can assess the stability and reliability of their models. To this end, the project develops new methods, algorithms, and openly accessible software to solve and analyze linear models more robustly.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Thomas Otter

Duration: 01.05.2022 - 30.04.2025

Description: This project develops discrete choice models based on the concept of rational inattention to better capture strategically incomplete information processing in decision-making. Its objective is to estimate preferences while accounting for varying levels of attention and to test these models empirically. The project also investigates implications for marketing decisions and regulation, particularly in contexts involving complex information and heterogeneous consumers.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Kai Rannenberg

Duration: 15.12.2022 - 14.12.2025

Description: The FIIPS-at-Home project develops open and accessible security solutions for private home networks and smart homes. A mobile application is designed to identify connected devices, assess vulnerabilities, and raise security awareness. In addition, the project develops a FIIPS stick for continuous attack detection and a middlebox providing active protection. Its goal is to enhance IT security, user autonomy, and technological sovereignty in the digital home.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Christian Schlag, Maik Schmeling

Duration: 01.01.2022 - 31.12.2025

Description: This project empirically investigates how ETF inflows and outflows affect market quality and market risk. It focuses on whether passive investment products influence tail risks, liquidity, and price discovery in equity markets. By exploiting changes in index compositions and using granular instrumental variables, the project aims to identify the causal effects of ETF ownership and of active and passive intermediaries on prices, liquidity, and volatility

Further information: Link

Contact person: Maik Schmeling

Duration: 01.01.2022 - 31.12.2025

Description: This project investigates the interaction between financial intermediaries, monetary policy communication, and asset prices. Using text analysis of central bank documents, it develops a dictionary of central bank communication to improve the economic interpretation of monetary policy shocks. The objective is to measure intermediary-specific communication shocks and quantify the transmission of monetary policy through financial intermediaries.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Cornelia Storz

Duration: 01.08.2021 - 31.07.2024

Description: This project investigates collaborations between Chinese universities and European companies. Using web scraping and WeChat scraping techniques, it identifies cooperation formats at 68 Chinese "Double First Class" universities. A complementary survey explores the conditions under which such collaborations generate legitimacy gains and innovation benefits for European firms.Collaborative Project: European Corporate Collaborations with Chinese Universities: Forms and Effects

Further information: Link

Contact person: Uwe Walz

Duration: 01.04.2024 - 31.03.2027

Description: This project links SOEP and ALLBUS survey data with information on political representatives in Germany. Its objective is to improve the analysis of politicians' responses to external shocks and their influence on political preferences. Using data from abgeordnetenwatch.de, natural language processing, and entity matching techniques, the project develops new research datasets for the social sciences.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Eveline Wuttke

Duration: 24.05.2022 - 31.05.2024

Description: This study, led by Prof. Dr. Eveline Wuttke, investigates how training programs can empower talented individuals in artificial intelligence to establish start-ups. It focuses on identifying which program components increase entrepreneurial intentions and prepare founders for future challenges. Particular attention is given to groups that are less likely to found businesses, such as women and individuals with migration backgrounds.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Eveline Wuttke

Duration: 01.02.2025 - 31.01.2028

Description: The EVerFit project develops a technology-based assessment to measure young people's action-oriented financial literacy. The project focuses on students attending vocational schools. Using situational judgment tests, it examines how young people make decisions and respond in various financial situations.

Further information: Link

Contact person: Oliver Hinz

Duration: 01.09.2024 - 31.08.2026

Description: As the adoption of Web3 technologies increases, so do the associated cybersecurity risks. This project quantifies these risks by linking specific attack vectors to the damages they cause and examining how attacks affect protocols and users. Based on these findings, it develops a risk assessment framework and derives recommendations for regulatory action.

Contact person: Raimond Maurer

Duration: 01.04.2025 - 31.03.2031

Description: This project supports research and teaching activities in the fields of investment, portfolio management, and retirement provision. It focuses on the portfolio and risk management of institutional investors, the life-cycle investment decisions of private households, and public, occupational, and private pension systems.