German Data Research Articles

Modeling the production function with the account for the change of factors’ output over time on the example of manufacturing industry in Germany

The article analyzes production functions, investigates the features of the Cobb-Douglas function in its multiple variations. On the basis of the analysis carried out, as well as the practical needs of modeling the production systems, the necessity of modeling the production function with the account for the change in the output of production factors over time, is substantiated. As well as with the account for the factor of the modern industrial revolution, characterized by the digitalization of manufacturing. An approach to the development of a function is proposed, which takes into account the change in the output of production factors over time in the context of digitalization. The corresponding production function was modeled based on the example of the manufacturing industry over 2000-2019 in Germany, which is a country that is among the first to introduce modern technologies, including digital ones. The results of modeling the value added using the production function with and without the account for the change in the weight coefficients of the factors over time are presented. It was found that adding the correction factors that define the change in weight coefficients for the factors of the production function over time increased the accuracy of the calculations. Also, a decrease in the resulting (after taking into account the coefficient change over time) exponent coefficient was revealed in the digitalization factor and its increase in the factor of fixed assets involved in the production process (the cost of machinery and equipment) – the output on fixed assets increases annually, and the output of the digitalization factor decreases by about the same extent. It was found that since the relative output of digitalization decreases over time, if there is a need to achieve growth in output through digitalization, it has to be carried out at a growing pace, that is, investments should increase over time. In addition, the earlier investments are introduced, the greater the effect they will give. When modeling the sectors of the Ukrainian economy, it’s advisable to use correction coefficients calculated based on the German data, rather than calculate them based on past periods on the basis of Ukrainian data. From the point of view of practical calculations, this is justified not only by the belated repetition of the technological development processes of developed countries by developing ones (that is, Ukrainian enterprises are introducing the same technologies, but with a delay of 5-10 years or more), but also by the greater relevance of German statistics to the needs of modeling.

Health monitoring of finishing pigs by secondary data use \u2013 a longitudinal analysis

BackgroundIn Germany, animal welfare has become an increasingly important issue. Since 2006, German legislation demands self-monitoring of animal welfare by farmers, but there is a lack of prescribed indicators for governmental monitoring. Since recording of the health status through examinations on individual farms requires many resources, secondary data use is obvious. Therefore, this study deals with the overall evaluation and utilization of existing production data from the German pork production. Performance data and information on antibiotic usage and meat inspection were used for a benchmarking system of animal health in finishing pigs.ResultsSeven health scores and one total score were evaluated for 184 finishing pig herds on semi-annual basis between July 2017 and June 2019, based on the health indicators mortality, average daily gain, feed conversion ratio, treatment frequency, respiratory lesions, exterior lesions and animal management. In preparation, the selected health indicators were brought to the same scale and skewed data were transformed to build scores (MOR, ADG, FCR, TF, RESP, EXT and MANG). A differentiated analysis was carried out for three classes of initial body weight regarding to farmers’ fattening management strategies.ConclusionsThe present study shows that existing production data of German finishing pigs are usable for welfare monitoring. However, preparatory editing steps are crucial. The total score can only be an estimate of health status because partly bad or good performance could be disguised. It has also been demonstrated, that relative benchmarking is suitable for depicting temporary fluctuations in the investigated collective.

Occupational Recognition and Immigrant Labor Market Outcomes

We analyze how the formal recognition of foreign qualifications affects immigrants’ labor market outcomes. The empirical analysis is based on a novel German data set that links respondents’ survey information to their administrative records, allowing us to observe immigrants at monthly intervals before, during, and after their application for occupational recognition. We find that 3 years after obtaining recognition, immigrants earn 19.8% higher wages and are 24.5 percentage points more likely to be employed than immigrants in the control group. We further document that occupational recognition leads to full convergence of immigrants’ earnings to those of their native counterparts.

Fetal growth restriction in a cohort of migrants in Germany

BackgroundMigrant women may have an increased risk of adverse birth outcomes. This study analyses the occurrence of low birth weight, preterm birth and intrauterine growth restriction / fetal growth restriction (IUGR/FGR) in pregnant migrants.MethodCross-sectional study of 82 mother-child pairs of pregnant migrants attending medical care in Germany.ResultsThe Median age was 27 years, 49% of patients were of oriental-asian ethnicity and median year of migration was 2015. At least one previous pregnancy was reported in 76% of patients, in 40% the delivery mode was caesarian section. Median gestational age was 39.7 weeks. Preterm birth occurred in 6.1% of pregnancies. Median gestational age for preterm birth was 32.3 weeks. Low birth weight (< 2500 g) occurred in 6.1%. Birth weights below the 10th percentile of birth weight for gestational age were observed in 8.5% of the total cohort.ConclusionsCompared to German data no increased occurrence of low birth weight, preterm birth or IUGR/FGR was found. We note that the rate of caesarian section births was higher than in the general population for reasons yet to be identified. The authors propose stratification according to migration status for the national documentation of birth outcomes in Germany.

Investment decisions of family firms in the three largest euro countries: the role of the financial crisis

This study aims to investigate the impact of family ownership on the investment-cash flow sensitivity relationship. Our main hypotheses are tested through fixed effects regression analysis on panel data of French, German, and Italian listed firms over the 2007-2015 timeframe. The main findings suggest that family ownership is more likely to reduce the investment-cash flow sensitivity, suggesting more family firms’ more efficient investment behaviors. Moreover, during the financial crisis, family firms are particularly able to collect external funds to undertake investment projects, even if the internally generated cash-flow is not adequate to sustain investment policies.

Is There a Rejuvenating Effect of (Grand)Childcare? A Longitudinal Study on German Data.

Provision of grandchild care has been found to be associated with a youthful subjective age. Yet, previous studies on this topic were cross-sectional and ignored the increasing proportions of older people growing old without the opportunity to become a grandparent. This study investigates the effects of childcare to grandchildren and to other children on subjective age using panel data. We exploit the longitudinal nature of data from the German Ageing Survey (DEAS) to examine the association between grandparental childcare and care to other children with subjective age, using fixed-effects regression analyses on a sample of 50-85 years old individuals (men: N = 11,151; n = 3,984; women: N = 10,687; n = 3,746, where N is the number of observations and n is the number of individuals). The results from cross-sectional analyses show a "rejuvenating effect" of provision of both types of childcare in later life, especially for women. However, longitudinal analyses find very small and statistically insignificant effects. We show for the first time that both grandchild care and childcare outside the grandparent-grandchild relationship are associated with a youthful subjective age for older people. However, these associations are likely due to selection effects, that is, unobserved characteristics of people that make them more likely to engage in childcare and are also associated with subjective age. Our results warn against causal interpretation of associations found in previous studies, but also open up new research questions on the role played by childcare other than to grandchildren.

On transferability and calibration of pedestrian and car motion models in shared spaces

ABSTRACT Modelling and simulation of mixed-traffic zones is an essential tool for transportation planners to assess safety, efficiency, and human-friendliness of future urban areas. This paper addresses the calibration and transferability of existing shared space models for pedestrians and cars. Specifically, our first contribution is enhancing the Game-Theoretic Social Force Model (GSFM) by a generic methodology for largely automated model calibration. The second contribution is an investigation into the transferability of shared space models. We define criteria for model transferability and present a case study, in which we evaluate transferability of the model we constructed based on the ``German data set'' to a different shared space environment from China. Our results indicate that although the model faces difficulties replicating road users’ motion from a new environment, by adding social norms (derived through analysis) of that environment to our model, satisfactory improvement of model accuracy can be obtained with little effort.

Beautiful Inequality: Are Beautiful People More Willing To Redistribute?

As winners of the “genetic lottery”, beautiful people have several advantages over their life course: they earn more, find better jobs, and are happier than their peers. We investigate whether good-looking individuals are willing to share their fortune by supporting income redistribution. Using German data, we show that beauty is associated with lower support for redistribution. Furthermore, we show that attractive individuals are more likely to believe that income should be based solely on individual achievements. To check whether the set of questions used to measure taste for redistribution captures the underlying preferences, we then investigate a possible correlation between voting behavior and beauty. We show that beauty correlates with voting for the Free Democratic Party (FDP) thus suggesting that the correlation between beauty and preferences for redistribution is channeled through party affiliation. Our findings resist to a broad set of robustness checks. A plausible mechanism that drives our findings is the self-serving bias, that is to say: people tend to attribute success to their own merit and failure to external factors. Overall, our results suggest that benefiting from random luck, such as winning the “genetic lottery”, reduces taste for redistribution.

Gschmöis – Crowdsourcing grammatical data of Swiss German

AbstractIn recent years, a number of applications on Swiss German have been released. They all crowdsource dialectological data, yet until recently their main focus has been on lexical and phonological features. In 2018, we launched the appgschmöis, an app designed to (1) give users an insight into dialectological research, and (2) collect Swiss German data on all linguistic levels, but with a strong emphasis on morphosyntactic phenomena. At the beginning, three rounds were published. Since then new rounds were published periodically. By including not only lexical and phonological features, we want speakers of Swiss German to become aware of differences in the grammar of various Swiss German dialects.The same linguistic phenomena are covered by multiple questions, and some of the questions are duplicated from more traditional projects, like atlas projects on Swiss German. This allows for comparison across different question types (i.e. translation tasks vs. multiple choice questions), different collection methods (fieldwork methods used in the SDS, written questionnaires used in the SADS, and crowdsourcing via the smartphone applicationgschmöis), and different groups of informants (NORMs vs. speakers of Swiss German of various gender and age groups). Furthermore, the older data of previous projects can directly be compared with the crowdsourced data, so that recent dialect change can be detected.

Embedded imperatives in Semitic, Germanic, and other languages

Several Semitic and Germanic languages, just as languages belonging to other language families (Slovenian, Korean), embed imperatives and thus use direct speech in syntactical context, where most other languages would use subordinate clauses. This kind of embedding can entail “shifting indexicals” and “imposters”, i.e. the reference to one and the same person with different persons in the verbal and pronominal system, even within one and the same phrase. In this paper, departing from the Germanic and other data presented so far in this context, I attempt a descriptive analysis of this phenomenon focusing on Semitic, with only hints to elements of a formal analysis.

Academics’ Societal Engagement in Diverse European Binary Higher Education Systems: A Cross-Country Comparative Analysis

This article aims to investigate whether national differences in the institutionalization of the binary divide between universities and Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) lead to different outcomes in performing Academics’ Societal Engagement (ASE). Two institutional theory-based core differences of European binary higher education (HE) systems were used to select a theory-led purposeful sample: First, the sequence of UAS-institutionalization and ASE-policy emphasis and second the political drive for a practically oriented research drift. Based on the Finnish, German and Portuguese survey data provided by the cross-country study “Academic Profession in Knowledge Society,” three dimensions of ASE are derived: techno-commercial ASE, dissemination ASE and training-related ASE. These ASE-dimensions cover the diversity of ASE across different disciplinary fields. Survey results of the Finnish sample show that all three ASE-dimensions are more strongly performed by UAS-academics than by university-academics. In Germany, robust stronger correlations of research (productivity) and all three ASE-dimensions for UAS-academics, compared to university-academics, were observed. In Portugal, convergence of ASE performed by UAS-academics and university-academics was indicated. Thus, core country-differences in the institutionalization of ASE in binary HE-systems are reflected in the results.

Assessing the relevance of atmospheric heavy metal deposition with regard to ecosystem integrity and human health in Germany

BackgroundThe critical values for heavy metal fluxes for protecting the human health and ecosystem’s integrity in Germany, especially the Federal Immission Control Act (BImSchG in Gesetz zum Schutz vor schädlichen Umwelteinwirkungen durch Luftverunreinigungen, Geräusche, Erschütterungen und ähnliche Vorgänge (Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetz-BImSchG), 1974/2020) with its implementing ordinances (especially the 39th BImSchV in Neununddreißigste Verordnung zur Durchführung des Bundes-Immissionsschutzgesetzes Verordnung über Luftqualitätsstandards und Emissionshöchstmengen vom 2. August 2010, zuletzt geändert durch Art. 2 V v. 18.7.2018 I 1222, 2010, 2018), the Federal Soil Protection Ordinance (BBodSchV in Bundes-Bodenschutz- und Altlastenverordnung (BBodSchV) (GBBl. I S. 1554 vom 12. Juli 1999, zuletzt durch Artikel 3 Absatz 4 der Verordnung vom 27. September 2017 (BGBl. I S. 3465) ge-ändert, 1999/2015) and the Technical Instructions on Air Quality Control (Luft in Erste Allgemeine Verwaltungsvorschrift zum Bundes–Immissionsschutzgesetz (Technische Anleitung zur Reinhaltung der Luft – TA Luft), 2002), were analysed, assessed with regard to the possibilities and applicability of the risk assessment, and were prepared for evaluation in comparison to the respective atmospheric deposition modelled with the chemical transport model LOTOS-EUROS. For a comparison of the critical values, the critical loads for cadmium, lead and mercury inputs were updated for Germany on a scale of 1:1 Mio, and critical loads for additional heavy metals (arsenic, copper, zinc, chromium and nickel) were computed, respectively. Due to the methodological differences of their derivation, the critical values of the individual regulations are only conditionally comparable to one another and to the critical loads. Sometimes major differences exist due to different levels of protection, various protective goods and the effect relationship. Only with the critical load calculations, inputs and outputs can be balanced.ResultsFor two unregulated metals (thallium and vanadium) a preliminary rough estimate of the risk of inputs in the receptors was provided as a calculated balance for in- and acceptable outputs. The uncertainty analysis shows, that the highest deviations occurred in the metal contents in plants used to calculate the output through the harvesting of the biomass. The critical load calculation has the highest sensitivity to changes in the pH value. The critical loads for heavy metal fluxes for protecting the human health (CL(M)drink) and ecosystem’s integrity CL(M)eco) for arsenic, nickel, zinc and chromium were not exceeded in Germany for 2009–2011. CL(M)drink and CL(M)eco are exceeded by Hg and Pb inputs, especially in the low rainfall regions of Germany (Brandenburg, lowlands of Saxony-Anhalt, Leipzig Bay, Ruhr valley) with wood vegetation; in addition CL(Cu)eco is exceeded by copper deposition 2010 in the area surrounding Berlin and in the Ruhr valley. The critical loads for cadmium for the protection of drinking water CL(Cd)drink and for the protection of human food from wheat products CL(Cd)food are not exceeded in the German data set due to atmospheric deposition in 2010, but in the worst-case scenario the maximum atmospheric deposition in 2010 could exceeded the lowest CL(Cd)drink and CL(Cd)food.ConclusionsThat assessment of risks was based on deposition from the atmosphere, which represents only a fraction of the inputs compared to the inputs from the use of fertilisers and other sources. This study suggests the conclusive recommendation to methodically deepen and broaden the assessment and evaluation of atmospheric deposition. This is especially true for the spatial validation and specification of exposure for ecosystem types.

Cross corpus multi-lingual speech emotion recognition using ensemble learning

Receiving an accurate emotional response from robots has been a challenging task for researchers for the past few years. With the advancements in technology, robots like service robots interact with users of different cultural and lingual backgrounds. The traditional approach towards speech emotion recognition cannot be utilized to enable the robot and give an efficient and emotional response. The conventional approach towards speech emotion recognition uses the same corpus for both training and testing of classifiers to detect accurate emotions, but this approach cannot be generalized for multi-lingual environments, which is a requirement for robots used by people all across the globe. In this paper, a series of experiments are conducted to highlight an ensemble learning effect using a majority voting technique for cross-corpus, multi-lingual speech emotion recognition system. A comparison of the performance of an ensemble learning approach against traditional machine learning algorithms is performed. This study tests a classifier’s performance trained on one corpus with data from another corpus to evaluate its efficiency for multi-lingual emotion detection. According to experimental analysis, different classifiers give the highest accuracy for different corpora. Using an ensemble learning approach gives the benefit of combining all classifiers’ effect instead of choosing one classifier and compromising certain language corpus’s accuracy. Experiments show an increased accuracy of 13% for Urdu corpus, 8% for German corpus, 11% for Italian corpus, and 5% for English corpus from with-in corpus testing. For cross-corpus experiments, an improvement of 2% when training on Urdu data and testing on German data and 15% when training on Urdu data and testing on Italian data is achieved. An increase of 7% in accuracy is obtained when testing on Urdu data and training on German data, 3% when testing on Urdu data and training on Italian data, and 5% when testing on Urdu data and training on English data. Experiments prove that the ensemble learning approach gives promising results against other state-of-the-art techniques.

Public Pension Design and Household Retirement Decisions: A Comparison of the United States and Germany

Social Security provides retirement benefits to age-eligible workers and their spouses. Benefits are permanently increased if initial receipt is delayed. For benefits paid to spouses, these incentives reflect a complex interaction of the worker’s and spouse’s earnings histories, benefit claiming decisions, and age difference. We demonstrate that the benefit increment from delaying initial receipt of spousal and survivor benefits is substantial for some households. Past studies find that workers respond to potential increments in their own benefit by delaying labor force exit. Using a nationally representative panel, we investigate whether an additional dollar in expected lifetime benefits paid to the worker directly is treated the same as an additional dollar paid to the worker’s spouse from spouse and survivor benefits. We find minimal evidence that workers or their spouses change retirement behavior in a way that is theoretically consistent with spouse and survivor benefit claiming incentives. The lack of responsiveness suggests that incentives to delay claiming for benefits other than the worker’s own are not salient in the worker’s decision-making. This may reflect the complexity of benefit rules or different preferences concerning benefits paid to others. A parallel analysis using German data, where rules surrounding survivor benefits are simpler, finds that workers respond in a theoretically consistent way, but small sample sizes prevent conclusive results. Our findings suggest models estimating the policy impact of reducing spousal and survivor benefits on female labor supply are likely overstated, and that a greater understanding of survivor benefits may lead to better claiming decisions for couples.

111 Use of gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) or equine and human chorionic gonadotrophins for oestrus synchronization and their influence on embryo viability and progesterone levels on day 16 and 30 of goats receiving GnRH 5 days after intrauterine insemination or natural service

Gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) or equine and human chorionic gonadotrophins (eCG and hCG) were evaluated for oestrus/ovulation synchronization (E/OS), as well as the influence of GnRH 5 days post-breeding (dpb) on embryo viability (EV), and progesterone (P4) levels on Day 16 and 30 after laparoscopic AI (LAI) or natural service (NS). Fifty-four lactating/non-lactating Alpine breed goats (average of 3.82±1.2s.d. years of age) of mixed parity were E/OS during the early transitional breeding phase using 12±1 day of 300mg of P4 and 2mL of prostaglandin F2α analogue given at P4 removal. The experiment included a sub-group from a larger study in which a completely randomised design was used. The germane data were arranged as a 2×2×2 factorial. This study focused on goats receiving 120IU of eCG and 60IU of hCG (n=40), or GnRH analogue (n=14) 24h after P4 removal. At 5 dpb, 25 goats received 1mL (IM) of GnRH and the control (n=29) received 1mL of physiologic saline. Goats were time-bred 48h after P4 withdrawal by LAI (n=33) or NS (n=21). Pregnancy was diagnosed at 18 to 24, 30, and 40 dpb by non-return to oestrus, pregnancy-specific protein B, and ultrasound, respectively. EV was evaluated as the difference between pregnancy diagnosis results. Blood serum P4 was evaluated at 5, 16, and 30 dpb. A logistic regression model was used for statistical analysis. Pregnancy rate (PR) for LAI or NS, at 18–24, 30, and 40 days was 73 vs. 76%, 67 vs. 62%, and 64 vs. 67%, respectively (P&amp;gt;0.72). In contrast, when GnRH was used for E/OS, the 5 dpb GnRH influenced EV at 30 days (95 vs. 81%; P=0.06) but not at 40 days (89 vs. 86%; P&amp;gt;0.35), compared with placebo. Similarly, with the exception of PR at 40 days (43 vs. 72%; P=0.05), for the GnRH and eCG/hCG E/OS groups, respectively, PR was not affected (P&amp;gt;0.12) by either E/OS or GnRH 5 dpb or their interaction (P&amp;gt;0.35) at any pregnancy diagnosis (i.e. 18–24, 30, or 40 dpb). Likewise, levels of P4 at 5, 16, and 30 dpb did not affect PR at 18–24, 30, and 40 dpb (P&amp;gt;0.92, 0.71, and 0.11). As shown in Table 1, the level of P4 was not influenced for goats receiving GnRH or placebo at 5, 16, or 30 dpb. The baseline mean P4 blood serum level for goats receiving GnRH 5 dpb differed at 16 but not at 30 dpb (P&amp;lt;0.001). Table 1 Blood serum progesterone (P4, ng mL−1) in response to gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) or placebo given 5 days post-breeding Sampling day GnRH Placebo P &amp;gt;1 Mean ±SE Mean ±SE 5 (baseline) 6.2a 0.83 5.7a 0.72 0.66 16 11.7b 1.11 11.0b 1.05 0.65 30 6.2a 0.89 7.6c 0.84 0.26 a–cMean values with different superscripts within a column signify statistical difference for GnRH (P&amp;lt;0.001) and placebo (P&amp;lt;0.02). 1Probability for mean differences in the same row.

To Diversify or Not to Diversify? – Questioning the Diversification Discount in Germany

The decision to realign a company through diversification is highly relevant not only for the board and corporate development functions but also for shareholders and other stakeholders. In research and practice, the diversification of risk and return is always considered against the background of effects on stock market valuation. In this context, the question of the extent to which diversified companies are better or worse valued by the capital market has to be answered time and again. Against this background, this study examines the effects of diversification on capital market valuations using German data. Although the fact that conglomerates trade at a discount seems to be common knowledge, the results for the German market are ambiguous and outdated. Using a 2SLS approach, our study confirms the existence of a conglomerate discount, which ranges from 6.3% to 14% depending on the measure of market value. However, we find that this discount is not caused by diversification but by the factors that affect the propensity to diversify.

Local Anesthetic Usage Among Dentists: German and International Data.

The aim of this study was to analyze the use of dental local anesthetics in Germany compared with international data. The type and distribution of dental local anesthetics and added vasoconstrictors based on a representative sample of German dentists itemized over a period of 7 years (2011 to 2017) were evaluated and statistically analyzed. The results were compared with international dental local anesthetic consumption data published since 2005. With a consistent market share of nearly 98%, articaine was the first-line local dental anesthetic agent in Germany. During the investigation period, German dental local anesthetics with epinephrine 1:200,000 had ∼50% market shares, whereas formulations with epinephrine 1:100,000 had 40% to 45% market shares. Articaine, with market shares between 38% and 81%, was also the preferred anesthetic agent in various other countries, with the notable exceptions of the United Kingdom and the United States, where lidocaine was the preferred local anesthetic agent. Epinephrine was the preferred vasoconstrictor internationally, similar to Germany. The larger market share of higher concentrated epinephrine 1:100,000 was remarkable, considering the increasing number of medically compromised patients. Increased consideration for using agents with reduced dosages of epinephrine (1:200,000) is generally recommended.

Marriage Market and Labor Market Sorting

We build a novel equilibrium model in which households' labor supply choices form the link between sorting on the marriage market and sorting on the labor market. We first show that in theory, the nature of home production – whether partners' hours are complements or substitutes – shapes marriage market sorting, labor market sorting and labor supply choices in equilibrium. We then estimate our model on German data to assess the nature of home production in the data, and find that spouses' home hours are complements. We investigate to what extent complementarity in home hours drives sorting and inequality. We find that the home production complementarity – by strengthening positive marriage sorting and reducing the gender gap in hours and labor sorting – puts significant downward pressure on the gender wage gap and within-household income inequality, but it fuels between-household inequality. Our estimated model sheds new light on the sources of inequality in today's Germany and – by identifying important shifts in home production technology towards more complementarity – on the evolution of inequality over time.

An analysis of open data as a location factor

Research background: The publication of data in Germany introduces a paradigm shift in public administrations. The data silos of the administrations are thus being opened up piece by piece. There are many possible applications for these data. Optimized location determination for trade, production, and services is one of these many possible applications. It has been shown that the provision of open data can achieve economic effects and set value chains in motion. The value creation effects can arise directly, indirectly, or downstream. Public data can thus become a relevant location factor for regions and cities. Purpose of the article: The various implications of opening up data in context with location determination will be examined in this article. This will be done from an economic perspective, highlighting the positive externalities of open data. Methods: The published data of administrations will be analyzed based on a German data bank of 12,020 datasets concerning their relevance for determining location. For this purpose, hard and soft location criteria will be defined in advance. Findings &amp; Value added: The result of the study will be a newly developed publication strategy for German public administrations on location criteria. With the help of this publication strategy, open data should function as a location advantage and initiate value creation effects.

Generalklauseln im Datenschutzrecht

German data protection laws all provide for provisions that allow public authorities to process personal data whenever this is ‘necessary’ for the respective authority to fulfil its tasks or, in the case of sensitive data in the meaning of art. 9 GDPR, if this is ‘absolutely necessary’. Therewith, in theory, data protection law provides for a high degree of administrative flexibility, e. g. to cope with unforeseen situations like the Coronavirus pandemic. However, these provisions, referred to in German doctrine as ‘Generalklauseln’ (general clauses or ‘catch-all’-provisions in English), are hardly used, as legal orthodoxy assumes that they are too vague to form a sufficiently clear legal basis for public purpose processing under the strict terms of the German fundamental right to informational self-determination (art. 2‍(1), 1‍(1) German Basic Law). As this orthodoxy appears to be supported by case law of the German Constitutional Court, legislators have dutifully reacted by creating a plethora of sector specific laws and provisions to enable data processing by public authorities. As a consequence, German administrative data protection law has become highly detailed and confusing, even for legal experts, therewith betraying the very purpose of legal clarity and foreseeability that scholars intended to foster by requiring ever more detailed legal bases. In our paper, we examine the reasons that underlie the German ‘ban’ on using the ‘Generalklauseln’. We conclude that the reasons do not justify the ban in general, but only in specific areas and/or processing situations such as security and criminal law. Finally, we list several arguments that do speak in favour of a more ‘daring’ approach when it comes to using the ‘Generalklauseln’ for public purpose data processing.