Premiummarken im Sortiment des Einzelhandels — Erscheinungsformen und Entwicklungsperspektiven

Das Führen von Premiummarken bietet dem Einzelhandel unter den aktuellen Marktbedingungen nicht nur M?glichkeiten einer individuellen Akzentuierung und Differenzierung von Sortimenten, sondern auch interessante Entwicklungsperspektiven.Wesentliche Herausforderungen bestehen dabei in einer zielgruppenbezogenen Entwicklung von Premiummarkenstrategien sowie in einer st?rkeren Professionalisierung der Markenführung.     

On the Use of Nonfinancial Performance Measures in Management Compensation

It is often claimed that (i) managers work too hard on operational issues and do not spend enough effort on strategic activities, and (ii) something can be done about this by introducing nonfinancial performance measures, as for instance with a balanced scorecard. We give an explanation for both claims in a formal model. The distortion toward operational effort arises because with financial performance measures strategic effort can only be rewarded in the future. But renegotiation-proof long-term compensation plans entail too weak variable components in the future. This problem can be reduced by introducing performance measures that help to disentangle strategic and operational effects.     

The dilemma of developing country research

Research in developing countries has so far suffered from a number of serious deficiencies regarding its applicability in practice. Professor Bronger analyses the various causes of this undesirable state of affairs and shows how developing country research can be more effectively attuned to its principal task of forming the scientific basis for development planning and development policy.     

A critique of the socio-cultural approach to development planning

Recent reflections on development policy have tried to eliminate the weak points in the economically oriented development theories which have dominated development planning up to now, and the traditional modernisation theories complementary to them. The propagation of strategies geared towards overcoming technological and cultural dependence is one result of such rethinking. The following article takes Black Africa as its case example for a critical appraisal of this “socio-cultural” approach.     

Pen and tinbergen on income distribution: A review article

Summary The book under review combines a brief survey of the state of the art in income distribution theory, based primarily on the earlier contributions of the authors, with a wealth of information on the reduction (by about 50 percent) of income inequality in the Netherlands over the last 40 years. Furthermore, progress is charted towards a further reduction of inequality between now and 1990. This review argues that labour income is not just determined by (the demand for) technology and (the supply of) education, but also by the bias towards the demand for skilled labour that seems to result from the expansion of public expenditure. It is recommended that this expenditure incidence on the primary distribution of income be further explored in future research programmes, as it is likely to slow down further progress towards equality.     

Versicherungsvertragliche Anzeigepflicht und Garantiehaftung für culpa in contrahendo

To sanction the insurant’s obligation to disclose the risk-relevant circumstances by the insurer’s exemption from performance does not comply with the ordinary pattern of pre-contractual liability. Instead of making the insurant responsible for the consequences of his breach of duty, the German Insurance Act subjects him to a guarantee which is comparable to the one imposed by the German Civil Code in the case of initial impossibility. The insurant has to guarantee that the facts which he did not, or at least not entirely, disclose do not cause any obligation of the insurer. The structure of this sanction is equivalent to the insurer’s so-called liability of performance. But contrary to the latter it can be justified by the specific importance of the insurant’s pre-contractual obligation of disclosure.     

Schuldenerleichterungen für Griechenland — ein Überblick

The article provides an overview of debt waivers by private and public debt holders during the Greek financial crisis and the three assistance programmes. Greece’s advantages add up to around 280 to 298 billion euros. The burden, in the form of reduced annual payments, is carried by the debt-holding countries and amounts to about 206 to 224 billion euros, the private sector’s share being roughly 70 %. Nevertheless, liability shifted from the private sector to rescue funds. Therefore, the aforementioned additional debt relief will primarily strain the countries that pay for the bail out and the ECB.     

Public Professional Accountability: A Conditional Approach

In the past decades, profession(al)s have increasingly been called to account. Several authors have reported that this increased public professional accountability, in the form of showing that professional conduct meets predefined standards or rules, has had severe negative consequences for professionals, their clients and society, and call for ‘intelligent’ forms of accountability; forms of accountability that may inform a wider public about professional conduct but do not harm it. In this paper, we propose a form of ‘intelligent’ public professional accountability. Taking Freidson’s (Professionalism. The third logic, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001) notion of institutional ethics as a point of departure, we develop a form of accountability that seeks to account for the conditions required for professional conduct. The paper first discusses the current ‘dilemma of professional accountability,’ describes ‘ideal-type professional conduct’ and goes into the conditions it requires. Next, it shows what accounting for these conditions entails and that this form of accountability fits the criteria for intelligent accountability, as set by O’Neill (in: Morris and Vines (eds.) Capital failure: rebuilding trust in financial services, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014).     

Transition probabilities in a problem of stochastic process switching

Extant solutions for state-contingent process switching use first-passage time densities or differential equations. We alternatively employ transition probabilities. These conditional likelihood functions also have obvious appeal for econometric analyses as well as derivative pricing and decision making under absorption and extinction.