Does a central clearing counterparty reduce liquidity needs?

This study investigates whether and how central clearing influences the overall liquidity needs in a network of financial obligations. Utilizing the approach of flow network theory, we show that the effect of adding a central clearing counterparty (CCP) is decomposed into two effects: central routing, and central netting effects. Each effect can produce different liquidity needs according to different liquidity scenarios. The analysis indicates that adding a CCP in times of financial distress successfully reduces the overall liquidity needs if and only if the netting efficiency of the CCP is sufficiently high. Furthermore, once the economy is no longer in financial distress, higher netting efficiency of the CCP could conversely increase the overall liquidity needs. The results have implications for the effectiveness of CCPs in mitigating systemic risk in times of financial distress, and their operating costs once the distress has passed.     

Informing a pedagogy for design and problem-solving in hard materials by theorising technologists’ learning experiences

Design and problem solving are central to technology and have distinguished learning in technology from other curriculum areas. This research investigated how expert technologists learn design and problem solving through experience. Data was collected from four expert technologists and this information was analysed using learning theories that focus on learning through experience—that is experiential learning theory, situated cognition, distributed cognition and activity theory. This framework of analysis provided evidence that learning through experience is central to these experts’ development and justify a broader construct of experience than normally associated with hard materials. This information supports curriculum development in hard materials technology that employs a wide range of experiences and provides justification for curriculum developers and teachers to justify, inform and develop effective design and problem solving learning programmes focussed on a broadened construct of experience.     

The Relevance of Nationality and Industry for Stakeholder Salience: An Investigation Through Integrated Reports

The aim of this research is to investigate the web of business-stakeholder relationships emerging from first integrated reports. Drawn from the stakeholder salience theory, the analysis focuses on some factors that may cause specific stakeholders to be crucial for some organizations and their ability to create value over time. More precisely, findings highlight the importance of industry membership, while entities’ nationality seems not to be a differentiating element. This study contributes to the corporate disclosure literature by analyzing an emerging reporting tool, the integrated report, and demonstrating that the link between some business characteristics and stakeholder salience seems fundamental for the representation of the impact of corporate social and environmental responsibilities on the economic performance. From a practical point of view, the impact of industry membership on corporate disclosures encourages the drafting of differentiated reporting standards across sectors, in order to improve comparability, materiality, and reliability of information.     

Alle Sozialabgaben steuerlich berücksichtigen statt Solidaritätszuschlag abschaffen

The abolition of the German solidarity surcharge would favour higher incomes much more than lower incomes. Tax deductibility of all social contributions, however, would concentrate relief on average incomes, which are heavily loaded by social contributions. In addition, a monthly social security allowance of €150 could be introduced gradually in a budget-neutral manner.     

Der deutsche Konjunkturzyklus: Vermessung und Zusammenhang mit Investitionen

On average, the German business cycle is four to five years long. The cycle is quite pronounced and explains about 27 % of the variation in year on year GDP growth. For fluctuations with a duration of more than two years, there is a significant unidirectional Granger causality running from GDP growth to investment. A closer look reveals two things: first of all, that the Granger causality runs from GDP to investment in equipment and machinery, not investment in construction, and second, that it is lagged foreign demand (exports) rather than domestic demand that has predictive power for investment.     

How does local partners network embeddedness affect international joint venture survival in different subnational contexts?

Do local partners' network attributes affect the survival of high-tech international joint ventures (IJV)? How does the effect of network attributes vary in different subnational institutional environments? While the classic economic explanation for IJV formation and subsequent performance draws from the resource-based view (RBV), we add the relational dimension to explain that IJV survival may be affected by local partners’ relation-specific assets within the local network. We test the effect of the local partners’ network attributes as calculated by UCINET (centrality, network status, and structural hole position) on IJV survival. We additionally assert that this relationship is moderated by subnational institutional heterogeneity. Using our sample of 125 IJV dyadic pairs of US multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in high-tech industries and their local partners in China, we find partial support for our claims.     

Preventives Versus Treatments Redux: Tighter Bounds on Distortions in Innovation Incentives with an Application to the Global Demand for HIV Pharmaceuticals

Kremer and Snyder (Q J Econ 130:1167–1239, 2015) show that demand curves for a preventive and treatment may have different shapes though they target the same disease, biasing the pharmaceutical manufacturer toward developing the lucrative rather than the socially desirable product. This paper tightens the theoretical bounds on the potential deadweight loss from such biases. Using a calibration of the global demand for HIV pharmaceuticals, we demonstrate the dramatically sharper analysis achievable with the new bounds, allowing us to pinpoint potential deadweight loss at 62% of the global gain from curing HIV. We use the calibration to perform policy counterfactuals, assessing welfare effects of government policies such as a subsidy, reference pricing, and price-discrimination ban. The fit of our calibration is good: we find that a hypothetical drug monopolist would price an HIV drug so high that only 4% of the infected population worldwide would purchase, matching actual drug prices and quantities in the early 2000s before subsidies in low-income countries ramped up.     

Trends in undergraduate economics degrees, 1991–2017

Undergraduate degrees awarded in economics by U.S. colleges and universities were stagnant from 2009–10 through 2012–13, increased rapidly (almost 15 percent) over the two years from 2012–13 through 2014–15, but have again leveled off in 2015–16 and 2016–17.     

Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy WASPAS Method: Application in Reservoir Flood Control Management Policy

Interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IVIFSs) are very flexible tool to cope with the uncertainty arises in multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problems. In recent times, MCDM problems with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy information have achieved more attention from researchers in different areas and consequently, several MCDM methods have been extended for IVIFSs. In this paper, a novel approach based on WASPAS method is developed under IVIFSs. The developed method is based on the operators of IVIFSs, some amendments in the classical WASPAS method and a new process for calculation of criteria and decision experts’ weights. In process for calculating weights, new procedures is propoesd to compute the decision experts’ weights and criteria weights based on interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy information measures (entropy, divergence and similarity measures) to achieve more realistic weights. Innovative information measures are developed based on the exponential function for IVIFSs to determine the weights of the criteria and decision experts. Since the uncertainty is an unavoidable feature of MCDM problems, the developed method can be a constructive tool for decision-making in an uncertain environment. Further, an uncertain decision making problem of reservoir flood control management policy is implemented with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy information, which reveals the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed IVIF-WASPAS method. To validate the result, comparative analysis with existing methods and sensitivity analysis are presented under interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy environment.