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"Ex-ante" Taylor rules
(2008)
This paper addresses the question whether financial market participants apply the framework of Taylor-type rules in their forecasts for the G7 countries. Therefore, we use the Consensus Economic Forecast poll providing us a unique data set of inflation, interest and growth rate forecasts for the time period 1989 - 2007. We provide evidence that Taylor-type rules frameworks are present in forecasts of financial markets. Thus, the paper, uses ex-ante data for the estimation of Taylor rules. This is novel, since so far only ex-post (revised) or real-time data have been applied.
At the beginning of their career civil servants in Germany can choose between the social health insurance (SHI) system and a private plan combined with a direct reimbursement of the government of up to 70 percent. Most civil servants chose the latter, not only but also because they have to cover all contribution payments in the social system themselves, while normal employees get nearly 50 percent from their employers. The city state of Hamburg decided to change the system by paying a share of the contributions if civil servants choose the social plan. We use a stochastic microsimulation model to analyse which socio-economic types of civil servants could benefit from the Hamburg plan and if this changes the mix of insured persons in the SHI system. Our results show that low income and high morbidity types as well as families have a substantially higher incentive to choose SHI. This reform might thereby increase the adverse selection of high risk cases towards SHI.
We consider a public and congested airport served by airlines that may have market power, and two types of travelers with different relative values of time. We find that in the absence of passenger-type-based price discrimination by airlines, it can be useful to increase the airport charge so as to protect passengers with a great relative time value from excessive congestion caused by passengers with a low relative time value. As a result, the socially efficient airport charge can be substantially higher than what we learned from the recent literature on congestion pricing with non-atomistic airlines.
This paper develops a tractable model of third-degree price discrimination in airline markets that features two types of passengers with different time valuations, carriers in Cournot competition and a congested infrastructure. We find that price discrimination always leads to a loss of social welfare when, in the first stage, the congestion charge is chosen to maximize welfare by incorporating carriers’ behavior in the second stage. We also show that the welfare loss can be small if, in the process of choosing the optimal airport charges, carriers were treated as atomistic.
This paper considers a congested airport that provides aeronautical services to airlines and concessions to retailers or, respectively, car rental companies. It is shown that airport retailers exert downward pressure on the private aeronautical charge. On the other hand, the effect of car rentals on the private aeronautical charge is ambiguous. By contrast, the first-best airfare and aeronautical charge are independent of retail profits, while they are positively related to car rentals. Finally, the comparison of private and welfare-oriented airport behavior shows that private behavior can lead to the welfare-optimal outcome when commercial services exist.
The economic analysis of trade-secret protection has traditionally focused on the interests of companies to conceal information from competitors in order to gain a competitive advantage through trade-secret law. This has neglected cases in which the interest is not in concealing information from competitors, but from trading partners. We investigate the social efficiency effects of trade-secret protection in such cases. Many results from economic theory state that asymmetric information (and therefore also its legal protection) is socially undesirable since it leads to inefficient trade. At the same time, protecting private information might create incentives for socially desirable investments. We model this trade-off in a simple buyer-seller model and
nd that, indeed, trade-secret protection has ambiguous welfare effects. However, a simple, informationally undemanding rule, conditioning the applicability of legal protection on a minimum investment by the informed party to conceal the information, helps to apply trade-secret protection only when it increases welfare. This rationalizes important features of current legal practice.
Anwendung der Erfolgsfaktoren-Analyse zur Diagnose der betrieblichen Informationsverarbeitung
(1993)
Central bank projections have gained considerable attention for monetary policy modeling. However, less is known about the nature of central bank projections. This letter explores the unbiasedness and rationality of more than 2; 000 growth and in ation projections published by 15 major central banks. The results indicate that central bank projections are in most cases rational and unbiased. Interestingly,
in ation projections are more biased than growth projections.
We use oil price forecasts from the Consensus Economic Forecast poll to analyze how forecaster build their expectations. Our findings point into the direction that the extrapolative as well as the regressive expectation formation hypothesis play a role. Standard measures of forecast accuracy reveal forecasters' underperformance relative to the random-walk benchmark. However, it seems that this result might be biased due to peso problems.
Asian financial markets
(1999)
Companies may realise all major knowledge management tasks, i.e. knowledge acquisition, accumulation and exploitation, not only internally but also externally. Therefore, we propose the integrate-or-relate decision in knowledge accumulation as a complement to the well-known make-or-buy and keep-or-sell decisions in knowledge acquisition and exploitation. A key factor for taking adequate decisions, for building up appropriate organisational capabilities and for realising a firm’s knowledge potentials are unbiased attitudes to the knowledge management tasks. While past research has focused on the NIH syndrome as a negative attitude to external knowledge acquisition, a more holistic view is adopted in this article by extending prior research on two dimensions. Firstly, we consider all major knowledge management tasks and do not limit our analysis to knowledge acquisition; secondly, we take into account that apart from too negative attitudes also overly positive attitudes to the external realisation of knowledge management tasks may exist. Building on prior research, we identify the following six syndromes: ‘not-invented-here’ vs. ‘buy-in’ in knowledge acquisition, ‘all-stored-here’ vs. ‘relate-out’ in knowledge accumulation and ‘only-use-here’ vs. ‘sell-out’ in knowledge exploitation. After briefly reviewing research into NIH and developing a knowledge management framework, the syndromes are defined, and possible antecedents, consequences and managerial actions are described.
Balanced Scorecard
(1998)
Business angels in Germany
(2000)
This study provides novel insights to the ongoing debate how market efficiency is challenged by investor behavior. Applying search engine data we find that retail investor attention can enhance market efficiency. High attention is associated with better incorporation of idiosyncratic stock information, which we interpret as improved pricing efficiency. This effect is even more pronounced in bullish markets. In bearish markets, however, retail investor attention leads to a deterioration of pricing efficiency, which might be explained with herding behavior. Our evidence holds for a broad sample of European and US stocks.
Empirical organizational research has serious methodological limitations if it is based on the perceptions of single informants. Single informant studies are likely to suffer from a systematic measurement error, a so-called method error or informant bias which negatively impacts the validity of their empirical findings. Previous empirical innovation research is based on single informants. This causes substantial doubts regarding the validity of findings in past empirical innovation research based on perceptual, self-reported measures and their managerial implications. This study undertakes a comprehensive theoretical and empirical investigation into the causes and the effects of a single informant bias in empirical innovation research. Based on multiple informant data on various aspects of innovation management in a company, multitrait-multimethod analyses are applied in order to quantify the extent of the informant bias. The results show that the informant bias is substantial and that construct validity cannot be achieved based on the assessments of a single informant only. Only multiple informant data allows the selection of an appropriate informant depending on the organizational trait to be measured based on formal statistical criteria. The higher the level of interfunctional integration and the higher the intensity of vertical communication inside the organization, the lower is the informant bias. This information can be used by researchers to assess whether an informant bias is likely to occur prior to conducting empirical surveys. The findings of this study substantiate the presumed doubts about the validity of past single informant studies in innovation research and demand the use of multiple informants in future empirical studies.
The paper analyzes firms' expansion paths within and across industries and specifically different patterns along these paths. Using a procedure previously applied in statistical process control and employing longitudinal data on the expansion of 91 German firms, we analyzed firms' clustering behavior regarding different characteristics. Results reveal that expansion is a heterogeneous process: the clustering behavior along the expansion path does not only differ between firms, but also within one firm regarding different characteristics of its expansion path.
Airlines frequently use code-share agreements allowing each other to market seats on flights operated by partner airlines. Regulation may allow code-share agreements with antitrust immunity (cooperative price setting), or without antitrust immunity, or not at all. I compare relative welfare effects of these regulation regimes for complementary airline networks. A crucial point is that such agreements are used to identify and price discriminate interline passengers. I find that interline passengers always benefit from code-share agreements while non-interline passengers are worse off. Furthermore, I show that the second effect questions the overall usefulness of code-share agreements from a welfare perspective.
Corporate Raider
(2002)
This paper examines the sensitivity of profit shifting to the corporate tax rate difference between a subsidiary and its parent company. We exploit tax rate variation stemming from European tax reforms over the period 2003-2013 while accounting for tax base adjustments that might affect firms’ profit shifting response to tax rate changes. We find that affiliates’ profits are sensitive to tax rate changes. However, tax base broadening reforms mitigate the tax rate incentives for profit shifting and significantly reduce the semi-elasticity of profits with respect to corporate tax rates. Finally, we provide evidence of a downward trend in the tax sensitivity of profit shifting, suggesting that the spread of anti-avoidance regulation may have successfully constrained profit-shifting strategies.
This paper employs event study methods to evaluate the effects of ECB’s nonstandard monetary policy program announcements on 10-year government bond yields of euro area member states. It covers data from 11 euro area countries from January 1, 2007 to August 31, 2017 and distinguishes between the more solvent countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands) and the less solvent ones (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain). The paper makes three contributions to the literature. First, it is the first paper to reveal that measurable effects of announcements arise with a one-day delay meaning that government bond markets take some time to react to ECB announcements. Second, it quantifies the country-specific extent of yield reduction which seems inversely related to the solvency rating of the corresponding countries. The reduction of the spread between both groups in response to an event is due to a stronger decrease in the less solvent group. Third, this result is confirmed by letting the announcement variable interact with the spread level, which is an innovation in this strand of literature. By employing different data as control variables, it turns out that the results are robust for a given event set.
This paper studies the cross-base tax elasticity of capital gains realizations to labor income taxes when capital gains are taxed at a separate proportional tax rate. Using a longitudinal panel of over 265,000 individuals in Sweden, this paper shows in a regression kink design that labor income taxes affect capital gains at the extensive and intensive margins. An increase in the marginal labor income tax rate increases the likelihood of realizing capital gains and the amount of realized capital gains. One implication of this result is that the excess burden of labor income taxation is affected by cross-base tax elasticities.
In der deutschen Gesundheitspolitik wird seit langem unter dem Stichwort Bürgerversicherung über die Einbeziehung aller Bürger in das System der Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung diskutiert. Dabei wird meistens die Perspektive der GKVVersicherten eingenommen, seltener diejenige der Versicherten der PKV. Es stellt sich jedoch insbesondere für die Gruppe der Beihilfeberechtigten die Frage, welche monetären Konsequenzen durch eine Bürgerversicherung für sie entstehen und in welcher Höhe daraus Kompensationszahlungen abgeleitet werden können. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen: Selbst, wenn diese Kompensationen weniger als die Hälfte der Differenz der Versicherungsleistungen zwischen PKV/Beihilfe und einer
Bürgerversicherung abdecken, hat der Business Case Bürgerversicherung für die Gebietskörperschaften zumindest kurzfristig negative fiskalischen Folgen.
Das Family Office
(2006)
Das Hamburger Beihilfemodell
(2017)
Zu Beginn ihrer Karriere verfügen Beamte über das Privileg zwischen einer Absicherung im System der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherungen (GKV) und den privaten Krankenversicherungen (PKV) wählen zu dürfen. Bislang entscheiden sich die meisten Beamten für letztere, auch weil sie in der GKV sowohl Arbeitnehmerals auch Arbeitgeberbeitrag zahlen müssten, in der PKV dagegen eine Kostenbeteiligung im Rahmen der Beihilfe vorgesehen ist. Die Stadt Hamburg hat nun jedoch beschlossen, zukünftig Arbeitgeberzuschüsse zur GKV zu leisten, um damit eine „echte Wahlfreiheit“ herzustellen. Wir zeigen anhand eines Vergleichs der internen Renditen in beiden Systemen, dass sich das Kalkül für den Durchschnittsbeamten trotz dieser gefeierten Reform kaum verändern wird. Vielmehr wird es wahrscheinlich zu einer verstärkten adversen Selektion von hohen Gesundheitsrisiken zu Lasten der GKV kommen.
Delegated monitoring
(2012)
To highlight the value of delegated monitoring through bond trustees, we examine the high-yield corporate bond market where default risk is high, covenants are numerous, and market values are particularly sensitive to wealth transfers. We show that bond trustees that also act as underwriters in the low-grade bond segment, but not the market’s largest trustees, reduce firms’ at-issue bond yields by 33 to 40 basis points. Accordingly, we report significantly lower bond default and downgrade risks associated with superior monitoring by these trustees. These pricing effects remain when we control for self-selection and do not hinge on whether we solely consider trustee identity or interaction terms of trustees with covenant variables that measure necessary monitoring effort. Our results can be interpreted as evidence for informational and reputational spillover effects of banks providing several services in the high-yield market segment.
In diesem Artikel findet eine tiefgreifende Untersuchung des Einflusses der Logistik auf den Unternehmenserfolg statt. Die Wirkungen der Logistikleistung und der Logistikkosten auf die Erfolgskomponenten Anpassungsfähigkeit, Markterfolg und wirtschaftlichen Erfolg werden in einem Kausalmodell integriert, das mit dem statistischen Programmpaket LISREL 8 validiert wird. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen, dass die Logistik eine erhebliche Erfolgswirkung auf sämtliche Komponenten des Unternehmenserfolgs besitzt.
Der Family Office Manager
(2009)
We analyze the effects of limited feedback on beliefs and contributions in a repeated public goods game setting. In a first experiment, we test whether exogenously determined feedback about a good example (i.e., the maximum contribution in a period) in contrast to a bad example (i.e., the minimum contribution in a period) induces higher contributions. We find that when the type of feedback is not transparent to the group members, good examples boost cooperation while bad examples hamper it. There is no difference when the type of feedback is transparent. In a second experiment, feedback is endogenously chosen by a group leader. The results show that a large majority of the group leaders count on the positive effect of providing a good example. This is true regardless whether they choose the feedback type to be transparent or non-transparent. Half of the group leaders make the type of feedback transparent. With endogenously chosen feedback about good examples no difference in contributions can be observed among transparent and non-transparent feedback selection. In both experiments feedback shapes subjects’ beliefs. With exogenously chosen feedback, transparent feedback tends to reduce beliefs when good examples are provided as feedback and tends to increase beliefs in when bad examples are provided as feedback compared to the respective non-transparent cases. Our results shed new light on the design of feedback rovision in public goods settings.
Desorptive capacity
(2004)
As competition is becoming increasingly knowledge-based, companies do not only have to develop the competence of managing knowledge internally but also need the competence of managing the acquisition and emission of knowledge in order to appropriately leverage its value. Regarding the external acquisition of knowledge, a consistent theoretical framework has been developed with the concept of absorptive capacity probably being the most important construct. In research into absorptive capacity, it is assumed either explicitly or by implication that the knowledge is applied internally. However, companies may also directly commercialize disembodied knowledge which is a growing phenomenon in practice. This trend is especially remarkable against the background of the imperfections of the markets for knowledge, which make such external commercialization of knowledge a difficult task. Accordingly, a company should build up an organizational capability to adequately manage the external knowledge commercialization process. Therefore, we develop the construct of desorptive capacity as a complementary concept to absorptive capacity in the area of external knowledge exploitation. The construct is defined, and it is shown that desorptive capacity is path-dependent. Moreover, it is highlighted how a firm may actively manage its desorptive capacity. Finally, the issue of operationalizing desorptive capacity is addressed, and implications of the theoretical analysis for research and practice are presented.
Companies may not only apply their knowiedge assets intemally, i.e. in own products and/or Services, they may also exploit the knowiedge assets extemally, i.e. commercialize them in disembodied form. While the extemal acquisition of knowiedge in general and the concept of absorptive capacity in particular have received great attention by researchers, the extemal exploitation of knowiedge has long been neglected despite its increasing importance in practice. To bridge the resulting gaps in prior research, the concept of desorptive capacity as a complement to absorptive capacity is proposed by taking a capability-based approach to the extemal knowiedge exploitation. Building on this theoretical concept, measures are developed, and data from a questionnaire-based study in 136 European Companies across industries is used to examine various hypotheses relating potential sources of desorptive capacity to the success of firms in extemally commercializing disembodied knowiedge. Thus, this work also constitutes the first large-scale study that intends to empirically identify success factors of extemally leveraging knowiedge assets. The findings of the study provide strong Support for the desorptive capacity concept, which helps to explain the discrepancies between the very positive view on the extemal knowiedge commercialization in most works in the literature and the considerable difficulties with managing these activities that are often perceived in practice.
In der vorliegenden Studie werden die finanzwirtschaftlichen und makroökonomischen Effekte der Einführung einer Leverage Ratio Regel in das internationale Bankensystem untersucht. Die Leverage Ratio ist eine risikoungewichtete Maßzahl zur Bestimmung der Eigenkapitalausstattung von Banken. Sie soll an die Seite der herkömmlichen Basel II Regeln gestellt werden, die das Risiko bei der Bestimmung des geforderten Eigenkapitals berücksichtigen. Die Studie kommt zu folgenden Ergebnissen: Erstens setzt die Leverage Ratio Anreize, die in eine unerwünschte Richtung gehen. Sie schafft Anreize für Banken, Bilanzpositionen in Zukunft verstärkt über den Kapitalmarkt abzuwickeln, Absicherungspositionen in Derivaten aufzulösen und das Kreditangebot zurück zu fahren. Zweitens benachteiligt die Leverage Ratio deutsche Banken stärker als andere europäische oder angelsächsische Banken. Drittens sind die volkswirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen der Einführung einer Leverage Ratio markant. Sie dürfte zu einer Reduzierung des Kreditangebots und damit zu einer Verlangsamung der wirtschaftlichen Aktivität führen. Dennoch gehen die Autoren dieser Studie davon aus, dass die Leverage Ratio als weiteres Regulierungselement kommen wird. Dieses Gutachten rät aber dazu, die Leverage Ratio nur mit einer beträchtlichen Übergangsfrist einzuführen. Dadurch kann den Banken Gelegenheit gegeben werden, die Anpassung des tatsächlichen an das regulatorische Niveau der Leverage Ratio über die Bildung von Eigenkapital zu erreichen. Dies würde auch unerwünschte volkswirtschaftliche Kosten zu vermeiden helfen.
Die ökonomische Bewertung von Arbeitsflexibilisierungsmaßnahmen mit Hilfe des Realoptionsansatzes
(1999)
Diversification research
(2006)
This paper analyzes whether a dividend tax cut for owner–managers of closely held corporations encourages income shifting, income generation, or both. We use rich Swedish administrative micro data from 2000 to 2011 comprising detailed firm- and individual-level information. We find robust evidence of extensive income shifting across tax bases in response to the 2006 Swedish dividend tax cut. Owner–managers of closely held corporations reclassify earned income as dividend income but do not increase total income. The response is more pronounced for owner–managers with tax incentives and with easier access to income shifting through a high ownership share.
This paper studies the effect of the strength of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) on FDI activity. We develop an index for the strength of international dispute settlement provisions included in BITs in order to examine the role the content of BITs plays in attracting FDI. To this end we make use of data from the UNCTAD's International Investment Agreement Mapping Project and measure the provision strength of 1,676 BITs. Using panel data of bilateral and total inward FDI flows and stocks we study the effect of BITs on FDI. Our main finding indicates that stronger international dispute settlement provisions in BITs are indeed associated with positive effects on FDI activity.
This paper studies the effect of corporate taxes on investment. Since firms with a foreign parent have more cross-country profit shifting opportunities than domestically owned firms do, their effective tax rate and, consequently, their tax-induced costs to investment are lower. We therefore expect capital investment responses to a corporate tax cut to be heterogeneous across firms. Using firm-level data on German corporations, we exploit the 2008 tax reform, which substantially cut corporate taxes as an exogenous policy shock and expect domestically owned firms' investments to be more responsive to the reform. We show exactly this in a difference-in-differences setting. We find that the reduction in corporate tax payments led to a one-to-one increase in the real investments of domestic firms. The effect is stronger for domestic firms relying more on internal funds. Correspondingly, labor investment increased more for domestic firms, ensuring a constant mix of input factors. In addition, we show that domestic firms' sales grew faster after the tax cut than the sales of foreign-owned firms. Our results imply that corporate tax changes can increase corporate investment but that domestic firms benefit more than foreign-owned firms from a tax cut through higher investment responses resulting in greater sales growth.
We use data from the Consensus Economics Forecast Poll to analyze how current account forecasters form expectations. Our results suggest that forecasts do not satisfy traditional unbiasedness and orthogonality criteria for forecast rationality. In addition, we find anti-herding behavior among forecasters for the Euro area and G7 countries. We also show that the cross-sectional heterogeneity in anti-herding is associated with cross-sectional heterogeneity in forecast accuracy. More specifically, we find some evidence indicating that forecasters who tend to herd provide more accurate forecasts than their colleagues who follow an anti-herding strategy.
We test whether dividend taxes affect corporate investments. We exploit Sweden’s 2006 dividend tax cut of 10 percentage points for closely held corporations and five percentage points for widely held corporations. Using rich administrative panel data and tripledifference estimators, we find that this dividend tax cut does not affect aggregate investment but that it affects the allocation of corporate investment. Cash-constrained firms increase investment after the dividend tax cut relative to cash-rich firms. Reallocation is stronger among closely held firms that experience a larger tax cut. This result is explained by higher external equity in cashconstrained firms and by higher dividends in cash-rich firms after the tax cut. The heterogeneous investment responses imply that the dividend tax cut raises efficiency by improving allocation of investment.
We use the ECB's Survey of Professional Forecaster to show that euro area expectations are consistent with standard macroeconomic building blocks such as the Phillips curve, Okun's law, and the Taylor rule. Moreover, the paper finds that the financial and economic crisis of 2007-2009 did not change the expectation formation process as professional forecasters still adopt macroeconomic building blocks for their forecast. The scepticism that has recently been raised concerning macroeconomic building blocks has apparently not yet affected professional forecasts. On the contrary, we conclude that professional forecasters still have faith in macroeconomic building blocks.
Do FOMC members herd?
(2011)
Twice a year FOMC members submit forecasts for growth, unemployment and inflation to be published in the Humphrey-Hawkins Report to Congress. In this paper we use individual FOMC forecasts to assess whether these forecasts exhibit herding behavior, a pattern often found in private sector forecasts. While growth and unemployment forecast do not show herding behavior, the inflation forecasts show strong evidence of anti-herding, i.e. FOMC members intentionally scatter their forecasts around the consensus. Interestingly, anti-herding is more important for nonvoting members than for voters.
In this paper, we contrast more than 6,000 private sector forecasts to projections of the German council of economic experts (Sachverständigenrat). Although the forecasts are submitted simultaneously, we find that the council's real economy forecasts, i.e. their growth, unemployment and fiscal forecasts have a higher forecast accuracy compared to the private sector forecasts. We also document that private sector forecasters deliberately place their real economy forecasts away from the council's projection. This strategic forecasting behavior explains why the private sector performs worse than the council. This result is robust over time but splitting the private sector in different groups reveals that the forecasts of banks compared to research institutes deviate more from the council's forecast.
Does legality matter?
(2015)
Previous research argues that law expresses social values and could, therefore, influence individual behavior independently of enforcement and penalization. Using three laboratory experiments on tax avoidance and evasion, we study how legality affects individuals’ decisions. We find that, without any risk of negative financial consequences, the qualification of tax minimization as illegal versus legal reduces tax minimization considerably. Legislators can thus, in principle, affect subjects’ decisions by defining the borderline between legality and illegality. However, once we introduce potential negative financial consequences, legality does not affect tax minimization. Only if we use moral priming to increase subjects’ moral cost do we again find a legality effect on tax minimization. Overall, this demonstrates the limitations of the expressive function of law. Legality appears to be an important determinant of behavior only if we consider activities with no or low risk of negative financial consequences or if subjects are morally primed.
Within the e-leaming industry, demand and supply factors jointly determine a need for mass customization of e-leaming products. This paper asks whether e-leaming products can be mass-customized, and if so, how this can be done. Firstly, the paper characterizes e-leaming and e-leaming technologies. Secondly, a learning model is developed in order to enhance the understanding of how learning processes differ across individuals. Based on this, the paper argues that e-leaming products in general can be mass-customized. However, mass customization is only possible for some e-leaming technologies and some types of communication, namely instruction and supplementary interaction, while it cannot support collaboration. In this context, solutions for the most common problems of mass customization are discussed. The results are then applied to the market for higher management education. It is shown that mass customization has a limited relevance for degree programs that are demanded by individuals, while it is crucial for programs that are either demanded by organizations or offered in specialized modules.
This paper documents that ECB announcements on monetary policy increase stock market volatility in the euro area (EA) using several volatility measures from January 1999 to December 2019. Employing event study methods, a more pronounced impact exists following the global financial crisis starting in 2007. All assets react similarly so that no national peculiarities arise. The effects also spill over to 12 non-EA markets analyzed. Stock markets are more sensitive to negative monetary policy news than to positive ones. Further weighting the announcements by financial market reactions, stock markets behave in a more heterogeneous way.
This paper tests the effect of dividend taxation on employment. Since dividend taxation affects real investments, tax-induced changes in real investments should map into employment effects. Using a difference-in-difference approach around the Swedish 2006 dividend tax cut and unique corporate-level data with income tax information on every employee, we find robust evidence of dividend tax-induced employment effects. In response to the dividend cut, both employment and wage levels increase in cash-constrained firms relative to cash-rich closely held corporations.
In diesem Artikel wird das neue Logistikkonzept der Flussorientierung konzeptualisiert und operationalisiert. Flussorientierung bezeichnet dabei eine umfassende Unterne hmensgestaltung, die darauf gerichtet ist, einen schnellen, durchgängigen und turbulenzarmen Fluss von Materialien Waren und Informationen über die gesamte Wertschöpfungskette zu ermöglichen. Es wird eine 14-faktorielle Skala zur Erfassung der Ausprägung der Flussorientierung entwickelt und validiert. Diese wird in zwei LISRELModellen eingesetzt, um die Auswirkungen der Flussorientierung auf den Logistikerfolg zu messen. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen, dass ein hoher Grad der Flussorientierung zu einer überlegenen Logistikleistung und niedrigeren Logistikkosten führt.
This paper develops techniques of estimation and inference in a prototypical macroeconomic adaptive learning model with slowly decreasing gains. A sequential three-step procedure based on a `super-consistent' estimator of the rational expectations equilibrium parameter is proposed. It is shown that this procedure is asymptotically equivalent to first estimating the structural parameters jointly via ordinary least-squares (OLS) and then using the so-obtained estimates to form a plug-in estimator of the rational expectations equilibrium parameter. In spite of failing Grenander's conditions for well-behaved data, a limiting normal distribution of the estimators centered at the true parameters is derived. Although this distribution is singular, it can nevertheless be used to draw inferences about joint restrictions by applying results from Andrews (1987) to show that Wald-type statistics remain valid when equipped with a pseudo-inverse. Monte-Carlo evidence confirms the accuracy of the asymptotic theory for the finite sample behaviour of estimators and test statistics discussed here.
This paper proposes a method for deriving the joint asymptotic distribution of sample proportions when the population and sample size increase jointly to infinity. The joint distribution of the sample proportions is derived by reducing the multi- variate to a univariate problem and applying the Cramer-Wold device. Knowing the asymptotic distribution we are in a position to conduct inference on linear or non-linear functions of the population proportions such as a ratio or the log-odds. We motivate and develop our method by means of a topical epidemiological application, namely the infection fatality rate of a virus such as SARS-CoV-2. We demonstrate that our method can be extended to more general settings of interest.
This study examines the relation between executives’ inside debt holdings and corporate tax risk. As executives’ inside debt holdings are unsecured and unfunded, they should align executives’ interests with those of outside debtholders and incentivize executives to act more conservatively toward risk. Hence, inside debt should also reduce the risk of tax avoidance activities. Consistent with this prediction, we find that executive inside debt holdings are negatively related to tax risk. Further, this relation becomes stronger at higher levels of tax risk. We also find that the relation between insider debt and tax risk is stronger for firms that are not facing liquidity constraints and among well-governed firms. The latter result implies that institutional ownership and inside debt compensation are substitutes in reducing tax risk. Overall, our results suggest that part of the observed cross-sectional difference in tax avoidance can be explained by a reduction in tax risk that is related to executive inside debt holdings.
This paper analyzes the expectation formation process in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. We use the Consensus Economic Forecast poll and show that the forecasts are consistent with Taylor-type rules for three countries but not for Norway. This can be attributed to Norway's long period of an exchange rate targetor. Additionally, we provide evidence that the expected long-term inflation rate is consistent with both the actual average in ation rate and the inflation target for all countries. This implies that the professional forecasters understand the different monetary policy strategies among the four countries indicating that all central banks can be regarded as highly credible.
Companies increasingly make use of the external knowledge exploitation, i.e. the commercialization of disembodied knowledge, although they often perceive considerable difficulties in managing the external commercialization tasks. These difficulties are partly due to the imperfections of the markets for knowledge, which, however, may be mastered by an adequate management as the examples of various well-known companies show. In combination, these facts point to the need of research into the external exploitation of knowledge. A thorough analysis of past research confirms this need and shows that the existing literature is highly fragmented. By integrating the main findings of the different research streams, we establish a detailed overview on the literature on external knowledge exploitation. The key characteristics and the main forms of externally commercializing knowledge are presented. Then, major imperfections in the markets for knowledge are examined, and the increasing importance of the topic in practice as well as primary reasons for this trend are described. Afterwards, major strategic and monetary objectives and the risks of commercializing disembodied knowledge are identified before turning to the management of the external knowledge exploitation, particularly regarding strategies, processes and structures. Apart from reviewing the literature, a research agenda, which describes promising paths for future research, is set up based on past research results and findings from other fields, particularly the internal knowledge exploitation and the external knowledge acquisition.
Fair value and audit fees
(2012)
This paper investigates the effect of fair value reporting and its attributes on audit fees. We use as our primary sample the European real estate industry around mandatory IFRS adoption (under which reporting of property fair values becomes compulsory), due to its unique operating and reporting characteristics. We document lower audit fees for firms reporting property assets at fair value relative to those employing depreciated cost―a difference that appears driven (in part) by impairment tests that occur only under depreciated cost. We further find that audit fees are decreasing in firm’s exposure to fair value, and increasing both in the complexity of the fair value estimation and for recognition (versus only disclosure) of fair values. We corroborate our findings in two alternative settings: contrasting UK and US real estate firms; and using UK investment trusts. Overall, the results suggest that fair values can lead to lower monitoring costs; however, any reductions in audit fees will vary with salient characteristics of the fair value reporting, including the difficulty to measure and the treatment within the financial statements.
Family Business Governance
(2005)
Corporate risk management may employ financial or operative means to reduce the exposure to unexpected currency fluctuations. This paper utilizes a real options framework to establish that operative hedging through the creation of operational flexibility represents a strategic complement to any variance-minimizing financial hedge. In addition, operational flexibility creates an asymmetric exposure profile and, as a result, alters the composition of the financial hedge portfolio. It alters the number of symmetric hedge contracts employed as well as their contractual rate and provides an economic argument for the use of (exotic) currency options. Operational flexibility acts as a value driver through the option value and may therefore be utilized, independent of its usefulness for risk management. The analysis further shows that operative hedging entails an implicit opportunity cost in the form of foregone option value.
The paper studies the effect of uncertainty in firm-speciffic tax avoidance on firm value. We first show in a clean surplus valuation model that expectations about future profitability interact with corporate tax avoidance. Two dimensions of corporate tax avoidance strategies matter for valuation: uncertainty and level of expected future tax rates. We confirm the importance of level and uncertainty of tax avoidance for forecasts of future tax rates using a small sample of analyst tax rate forecasts. Consistent with the model and the implications from analyst forecasts, we derive a tax signal-to-noise ratio based on historical tax information. In our sample of 2,820 firms, we show empirically that this tax signal-to-noise ratio amplifies the effect of pre-tax earnings on firm value. Pre-tax earnings have a stronger effect on firm value for firms with effective and persistent tax avoidance. Firms with volatile effective tax rates receive a discount on their earnings.
This paper uses the Consensus Economic Forecast poll to investigate how forecasters in the foreign exchange market form expectations. In order to explain the expectation formation of forecasters, around 50,000 forecasts for 22 OECD-member currencies are analyzed. The results indicate that forecasters do not form expectations rationally when tested for unbiasedness and orthogonality. The results also suggest that forecasts for industrialized economies show a mix of trend-following and fundamentally-oriented behavior. By contrast, forecasts for emerging markets show significantly more destabilizing expectations. We find forecasting tendencies to strengthen in the short-run and medium-run when controlling for the Balassa-Samuelson effect. For long-run forecasts however this can not be confirmed.
Gone with the windfall
(2018)
Due to the debate about the generosity of LTC insurance benefits the German government decided to increase benefits and widen the circle of LTC beneficiaries with the Second LTC Strengthening Act. In this paper, we evaluate the long-term implications of this recent reform for the German LTC insurance scheme. Using the framework of generational accounting we show that the reform has led to a widening of the short-term gap between revenues and expenditure and that the LTC insurance is not sustainably financed, neither pre- nor post-reform. By the early 2020s there will be fiscal pressure for further reforms. From an intergenerational perspective, the reform can be seen as a windfall to current beneficiaries increasing the intergenerational redistribution through the pay-as-you-go system.