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PublicationThe Longevity Landscape: Value Creation for Healthy Aging( 2024-05-28)
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PublicationElites, chiefs and diversity the political economy of deforestation in Africa(Universität St. Gallen, 2022-09-19)Deforestation is one of the biggest challenges for humanity in the twenty-first century, and in Africa, its dynamics have become particularly alarming. This dissertation consists of three essays on the political economy of deforestation in Africa. The main connection among them is their contribution to the body of literature that has grown exponentially over the last two decades, highlighting that contemporary life cannot be well-understood without a consideration of its roots in the (distant) past that continue to shape our present day through a process of path dependence. While the enduring importance of the past for current political, economic, and social outcomes has already received considerable academic attention, the ecological legacies of the past, and especially those concerning deforestation, have remained understudied so far. I address this research gap. Essay 1 shows that the contemporary deforestation in Africa is associated with the evolution of ethno-linguistic cleavages over long periods of time. By using fractionalisation and polarisation indices that have dominated the empirical literature on ethno-linguistic diversity, I find that administrative units with higher ethno-linguistic diversity tend to have more intensive deforestation. Furthermore, I provide evidence that religious diversity partially mediates the association between ethno-linguistic diversity and deforestation. Taken together, these results provide insight into the fact that history can inform policy. Diversity and its historical evolution are factors to consider when the goal is to improve societies’ climate mitigation efforts. Essay 2 focuses on two factors - colonial education and political elites as its frequent consumers - and studies their association with contemporary deforestation. The proxy of political elites are cabinet ministers because they fundamentally influence the distribution of resources in settings where the official institutions are weak. I find that districts in the former British colonies with higher investments in colonial education are less deforested today. Colonial education is detrimental to contemporary forests in the former French colonies. I also show that post-colonial military political elites have consistently accelerated deforestation for lower, intermediate, and higher thresholds of deforestation, and that favouritism is a key mechanism to understand this result. In contrast, post-colonial civilian cabinet ministers, although to a rather limited extent, seem to be beneficial to forests. In this case, favouritism has no significant role in deforestation. I explain the different forest "footprints" of post-colonial civilian versus military elites as a persistent legacy of their unequal colonial-era education. Overall, the results suggest that a better understanding of human capital and of African political elites at the subnational level could be key for the future of African sustainable development. Essay 3 zooms in on the deforestation challenges of Sierra Leone by highlighting the role of traditional chiefs. While their central influence on contemporary socioeconomic development has become increasingly recognised in the academic literature, little is known about their impact on the natural environment. I study for the first time the role of chiefs' power and trust on these chiefs regarding deforestation. Locations with weaker chiefs experience higher deforestation. In contrast, local communities' trust in chiefs works against deforestation. The study concludes with a discussion on the implications of these results for the democratic decentralisation of forest management in Africa.
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PublicationVentures’ Technological Redeployability and Corporate Venture Capital Syndication Decisions( 2024)
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PublicationNew Venture Team Initiation of Lead Founders: An Exchange Theory Perspective( 2024)
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PublicationWer spricht von Wahrheit – Machterhalt ist allesMachterhalt ist alles Putins Medienmaschinerie unterscheidet sich stark von der Sowjetpropaganda, die ohne Ende den Sieg des Kommunismus verkündete. Der Herrscher im Kreml setzt auf postmoderne Polittechnologie.
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PublicationNachhaltigkeitskriterien für künstliche Intelligenz - Entwicklung eines Kriterien- und Indikatorensets für die Nachhaltigkeitsbewertung von KI-Systemen entlang des Lebenszyklus(Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung, 2021)
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PublicationService business in manufacturing companies - Identifying misconceptions and directing further research(Nova Southeastern University, 2010-09-06)Despite increasing interest in service business in manufacturing companies, the arguments for the transition from selling products to providing services still lacks theoretical robustness. By using eight focus groups with 45 participating companies, the following five misconceptions related to the economic and strategic arguments could be identified: the share of service revenue is an indicator for moving toward services, services are more profitable than products, service business is less volatile than product business, services are used for differentiating the total offering and service strategy creates sustainable competitive advantages. The reflection on these misconceptions guides further research and enriches the conceptualization of services in a manufacturing context.
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PublicationCustomer Value Anticipation, Loyalty and Word-of-Mouth - A cross-cultural Study(European Marketing Academy, 2014-06-03)
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