Mediale Geschlechterstereotype

News represent gender in a manner that continues the process of the symbolic, social, and cultural construction of gender. In Western countries, masculinity and femininity have traditionally been conceptualized as being polar opposites. Although this dichotomous conception still influences all areas of life, nowadays masculinity and femininity are represented in mass media in a more multifaceted way—despite some stable patterns of construction. Moreover, national cultures differ with respect to single attributes of masculinity and femininity as well as to the degree of stereotyping. To identify national differences as well as transculturally shared patterns of gender stereotypes, we analysed gender representations in three countries: Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. In order to gain representative results, a quantitative content analysis was conducted. The study tries to approach gender representations in an innovative way—not only by considering different national cultures and different types of newspapers, but also by avoiding, due to theoretical considerations of deconstruction, to measure gender attributes in dichotomized form. All in all, the results are ambiguous. On the one hand, gender representation is still in line with traditional gender stereotypes—even in times when role models actually change. On the other hand, some aspects depicted new patterns in press coverage and more multifaceted gender representations. To explain these differences, studies should investigate journalistic patterns of selection regarding gender representations, in particular in a comparative longitudinal perspective.     

Varieties of Undeclared Work in European Societies

Until recently, undeclared work was understood as largely the result of tax evasion by employers and workers. However, this viewpoint fails to do justice to the complexity of the phenomenon. The category of undeclared work covers several distinct types of employment relation which arise from different motives and strategies of firms, workers and contractors, and their interplay. There is no uniform logic of development. This article introduces a new typology of undeclared work and shows how the development of the different types of undeclared work can be explained by the ways in which they are embedded in a variety of institutional, cultural and socio-structural contexts.     

Are incomplete markets able to achieve minimal efficiency?

Summary. We consider economies with incomplete markets, one good per state, two periods, t = 0,1, private ownership of initial endowments, a single firm, and no assets other than shares in this firm. In Dierker, Dierker, Grodal (2002), we give an example of such an economy in which all market equilibria are constrained inefficient. In this paper, we weaken the concept of constrained efficiency by taking away the planners right to determine consumers investments. An allocation is called minimally constrained efficient if a planner, who can only determine the production plan and the distribution of consumption at t = 0, cannot find a Pareto improvement. We present an example with arbitrarily small income effects in which no market equilibrium is minimally constrained efficient.Received: 26 November 2002, Revised: 28 May 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: D2, D52, D61, G1.We are grateful to an anonymous referee for very valuable comments. E. and H. Dierker would like to thank the Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen, for its hospitality and its financial support.     

Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, North-South Trade, and Biological Diversity

In the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of GATT (1 January 1995) it was agreed to harmonise intellectual property rights (IPR) on an international level and to include the option for patent protection for all life forms such as plants and animals (Article 27 (3) b). Patenting, however, leads to considerable conflicts between international trade and protection of biological diversity, which can be illustrated by the example of seed production. We make use of a three-stage game to show the strategic incentives for implementation of two different property rights regimes (patents and farmers' rights) on competition and biodiversity. We show that the Southern government has no incentive to acknowledge international patents, even if farmers' rights do exist. The Northern producer will always dominate in the output market if patents are applied, but without farmers' rights biodiversity will not be maintained by the Southern government. Thus total payoff of the northern firm is maximized, if both IPR regimes are implemented. However, if only farmers' rights are valid, biodiversity will be maximal.     

Elicitability and identifiability of set-valued measures of systemic risk

Finance and Stochastics - Identification and scoring functions are statistical tools to assess the calibration of risk measure estimates and to compare their performance with other estimates, e.g....     

Cartels and norms in the Swedish steel industry 1923–1953

This article discusses the reasons for cartel stability by using the Swedish Steel Casting Cartel as an example. Previous research points out organisational structure and the ability to deal with exit entry and cheating as crucial for stability. In this article, the development of social norms, morally legitimised within the cartel, is discussed as a possible explanation for cartel stability. The organisational structure developed was flexible enough to deal with problems of exit entry and cheating. The discussions on quotas and prices led to a common view on fair prices. The conclusion is that the organisational structure can partly explain why the Steel Casting Group was relatively stable but that there are indications that the development of common social norms related to the value of fairness was also an important explanatory factor.     

Why Do Consumers Stay When Things Are Bad and Leave When Things Are Good?

The study seeks to identify and classify motives for customers leaving when things are good and motives for staying when things are bad. Thus, this study identifies reasons for remaining in a business relationship when not satisfied. These motives are termed Capture Assistants. The study also identifies reasons for leaving a provider when satisfied. These motives are termed Escape Assistants. The critical incident technique was used to gain insights. A total of 219 incidents were classified. The results reveal that Capture Assistants hinder customers from leaving because they manifest themselves as fears of loss. Conversely, Escape Assistants motivate satisfied customers to leave because they promise gains. Managerial implications are outlined.     

Pitfalls and potential of institutional change: Rain-index insurance and the sustainability of rangeland management

Rain-index insurance is strongly advocated in many parts of the developing world to help farmers to cope with climatic risk that prevails in (semi-)arid rangelands due to low and highly uncertain rainfall. We present a modeling analysis of how the availability of rain-index insurance affects the sustainability of rangeland management. We show that a rain-index insurance with frequent payoffs, i.e. a high strike level, leads to the choice of less sustainable grazing management than without insurance available. However, rain-index insurance with a low to medium strike level enhances the farmer's well-being while not impairing the sustainability of rangeland management.     

Time consuming resource extraction in an overlapping generations economy with capital

For worldwide fisheries production, two major trends emerge for the next decades: a significantly larger role for aquaculture and reduced output due to climate change impacts. While the former leads to an increase in cost, the latter affects natural regeneration. To address both impacts, we investigate the relevance of resource extraction costs for a private property fishery in an intertemporal general equilibrium model with capital accumulation, commodity production and a labor market. We show how the extraction cost parameter—in addition to time preference, technology and natural regeneration—matters for the existence (and stability) of an economically feasible, nontrivial stationary state. Higher extraction costs increase the equilibrium resource stock, while a reduced regeneration rate (e.g. due to climate change) decreases the stock. Moreover, resource extraction overshoots its new equilibrium value after the cost shock while after a regeneration shock extraction levels adjust monotonically towards the new equilibrium.