An Empirical Study of Firm Size and Competitiveness in German Life Insurance

Based on a purely rank-oriented approach, this empirical study analyzes to what extent superior firm size in German life industry generally translates into corporate advantages for the companies concerned. It turns out that while modest advantages with some criteria are measurable, any such benefits are usually outweighed by unquantifiable factors unrelated to firm size. Confining the study to a highly homogeneous subgroup of life insurers, however, reveals substantial corporate advantages in a number of areas, thereby confirming well-established theoretical reasoning.     

Machine learning in individual claims reserving

Machine learning techniques make it feasible to calculate claims reserves on individual claims data. This paper illustrates how these techniques can be used by providing an explicit example in individual claims reserving.     

Foreign Direct Investments and Domestic Employment of German SMEs: The Moderating Effect of Owner Management

Despite considerable research, the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and domestic employment is still inconclusive. The present paper contributes to extant research by providing differentiated findings on the FDI and domestic employment relationship. We examine how horizontal and vertical FDI impact domestic employment and how the effects are contingent on the ownership structure of the firm. Testing hypotheses on a dataset of 1,079 German small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) shows that horizontal FDI has a positive influence, whereas vertical FDI has a negative influence on domestic employment. Furthermore, domestic downsizing due to the establishment of foreign production subsidiaries is less severe in owner‐managed SMEs.     

Soziale Lage — Was sind die drängendsten Probleme?

Democracy seems to be at risk. People elect populists and autocrats, who offer simple solutions to social problems. Often, these problems are not even real ones but are only perceived as such. Economists have measures to determine which problems are fact-based, but they cannot draw a clear distinction between academic analysis and normative demand. If politics pursues a correction of a market outcome, any normative criteria other than efficiency have to be outlined explicitly. Nevertheless, some authors consider inequality one of the central contemporary social and economic challenges. Marcel Fratzscher emphasises that the solution is not found in more redistribution via taxes and transfers, but rather through greater equality of opportunity and social and educational mobility. Bert Rürup thinks that to stabilise the acceptance of the compulsory pension scheme, the dominance of the equivalence principle should be reduced. Further, the existence of different federal subsidy schemes should be replaced by a fixed federal contribution rate in alignment with the pension expenditures. In an international comparison, the fiscal burden for households with small and mid-level earned incomes is exceptionally high in Germany. In order to reduce this burden, Rürup suggests a contribution-free allowance for the social insurance contributions.     

False Discoveries und Fehlinterpretationen wissenschaftlicher Ergebnisse

High-quality science communication to the public depends to a large extent on the way research findings are translated into comprehensible language and common speech. In this communicative process, a reasonable evaluation of the trustworthiness of empirical findings, based on an adequate interpretation of statistical analyses, is absolutely crucial. This paper’s authors argue that the credibility of science is jeopardised by two compromising developments within science itself: on the one hand, an inflation of ostensible empirical evidence related to misuses and misinterpretations of the concept of statistical significance, and, on the other, a sensationalist overvaluation of the results of single studies instead of an adequate representation of the available body of evidence in a given scientific field.     

Analysis of congress destinations' competitiveness using importance performance competitor analysis

To be competitive and successful in congress tourism, destinations must learn which congress tourism-related attributes are important and how they perform against their main competitors. This study identifies the importance and performance of destination attributes in Antalya, Turkey, and compares the position of these attributes to those of its main rival in congress tourism, ?stanbul. Importance performance competitor analysis results show that, according to domestic participants, Antalya has to focus on “sight-seeing and cultural attractions” and “outside entertainment.” For international participants, “climate,” “choice of meeting and housing properties,” and “suitability of conference facilities” exhibit higher performance in Antalya than ?stanbul.