Using the endowment effect to explain managerial resistance towards codetermination: Implications for employment relations from the German case

This article provides an innovative defence of codetermination by way of exploring two of the most significant theorised objections to it from neo‐liberal and libertarian perspectives, namely the defence of the right to manage as freely chosen by employees and employers alike, and the right to manage being the most efficient, lowest transaction cost mode of employee governance. Instead, we focus upon management preference emanating from the endowment effect, and manifested in management style and ideology, as a more credible explanation for management's support for its prerogative to manage. The endowment effect prompts both strong employer and manager objections to codetermination and weak employee willingness to seek it because humans place more value upon items currently in their possession than upon those they do not possess. We explore this argument by examining the experience of codetermination in Germany. The significance of our argument lies in identifying managerial preference as the key variable to be challenged and changed in order to pacify management opposition to codetermination through political, ideological, and institutional means.     

Information provision and preferences for education spending: Evidence from representative survey experiments in three countries

Do citizens' preferences about education policies differ across industrialized countries? To gain comparative evidence on public preferences for education spending, we conduct representative experiments with information treatments in Switzerland using identical survey techniques previously used in Germany and the United States. In Switzerland, providing information about actual spending and salary levels reduces support for increased education spending from 54 to 40 percent and for increased teacher salaries from 27 to 19 percent, respectively. The broad patterns of education policy preferences are similar across the three countries when the role of status-quo and information are taken into account.     

Estimating the effect of early-childhood citizenship on education using policy changes as instruments

This article investigates the effect of early-childhood citizenship status on secondary school education of immigrant offspring. Given the potential endogeneity of naturalization decision, I instrument for citizenship by using a German reform that introduced exogenous variation in the age of naturalization. The reform provides powerful instruments, significantly raising the likelihood of possessing a German passport in childhood. I find that citizenship status increases the probability of attending the highest school track, which gives access to academic education. The effects are of a similar magnitude for boys and girls.     

German Finance Capitalism: The Paradigm Shift Underlying Financial Diversification

This article is concerned with the genesis of German financial liberalisation. A refined inventory of financial system change – including new meso-level data on finance pattern and the marketisation of banking – reveals a varied pattern of change across German finance. It is argued that this financial diversification can only be understood with careful reference to the underlying ideational factors. An analytical narrative traces how technocratic ideas of financial modernisation during the 1980s began to open up space for the political program of finance capitalism to absorb liberal and leftist discontents with insider control and bank dominance. Upon reaching a tipping point of discursive dominance, the program was distinctly adopted across the political economy as the result of compartmentally different political, ideational and structural factors; creating a non-hegemonic financial paradigm that became identifiable in the face of recent crises. By developing analytical steps that link incremental and dynamic theories of institutional change in a conceptual framework of belief shifts, the paper contributes to efforts of adapting existing models of change to complex domains and accounting for the dynamic nature of the paradigm-generating process. The findings inform the larger debate about internal capitalist diversity and the coherence of national economic models.     

Back to the Forest’s future: Guiding principles of German forest stakeholders and their impact on the forestry sector

Long-term planning is an important aspect of forestry. The future-oriented guiding principles of forestry stakeholders impact their decisions and therefore the future of the sector. Forestry faces major challenges due to global changes. At the same time, the ability of traditional forestry stakeholders to manage uncertainty and ensure sustainable management is increasingly being questioned from both within and outside the sector. To study the shared and conflicting guiding principles followed by forestry stakeholders and how these might shape stakeholders’ actions, we conducted 49 semi-structured qualitative interviews with different German forestry stakeholders, mostly from Bavaria. We used a qualitative approach and linked the “Leitbild analysis” (Leitbild = German for guiding principles) and the sensemaking concept to derive a typology of six guiding principles followed by forestry stakeholders. Results show that the guiding principles of forestry stakeholders are mostly formed around policy conflicts between traditional forest users and nature conservationists. Differences were mainly based on the question of which side would dominate future forest management. In all the groups, the views reflected were mainly negative, and traditional forestry stakeholders saw themselves losing power and authority in the future. We argue that these negative future expectations might narrow stakeholders’ perspectives on potential chances and opportunities due to the low self-efficacy that we observed. In line with the assumption that by guiding today's actions, future images have a real-world impact, we find that current problems might be perpetuated through the expectation that they will remain unchanged in the future. Based on our findings, we emphasize the need for a stronger focus on potential future chances and shaping options within the German forestry sector and the need to embrace new ways of cooperation between stakeholders.     

Mobility management outside metropolitan areas: case study evidence from North Rhine-Westphalia

In recent years ‘mobility management’—a means of promoting modal shift and alternatives to the journey—has gained importance in continental Europe. Especially in metropolitan areas this approach is seen as a way of improving the effectiveness of traffic system management measures. This paper outlines some key options and constraints of transferring mobility management to rural regions, drawing on evidence gathered from a research and demonstration project currently underway in rural regions of North Rhine-Westphalia. Basic conditions for implementing mobility management in rural regions as well as preliminary findings are presented.     

Municipal corporatization in Germany and Italy

Abstract

During the last few years, the local government sector in European countries has undergone a number of important changes. Among the various reform initiatives has been the externalization of public services, such as corporatization, contracting-out, public–private partnerships and privatization. The key goal of this article is to describe and explain the evolution of local public services provision in the two selected countries, with a particular focus on ‘corporatization’. The article seeks to draw a picture of the actual municipal landscape with the administrative core and its various corporations. Furthermore, it will discuss the reasons for corporatization trends and their impact on the corporate governance structures of municipalities in Germany and Italy.     

New Economic Geography and Reunified Germany at Twenty: A Fruitful Match?

Abstract

We qualitatively match new economic geography (NEG) to stylized facts on German economic integration after 1989. We find that NEG may explain German integration reasonably well. Germany may currently be close to the peak of the bell curve, which describes the long-run relationship between integration and agglomeration in Germany. As a consequence, further economic integration between the two parts of Germany may eventually foster redispersion of economic activity toward East Germany. We also identify limitations of NEG for explaining German integration, most notably the analytical complexity of multi-region models and its neglect of knowledge spillovers and labour pooling.

RÉSUMÉ Nous établissons une correspondance qualitative entre la nouvelle géographie économique (NEG) et des faits stylisés sur l'intégration économique allemande après 1989. Nous découvrons que la NEG permet d'expliquer raisonnablement bien l'intégration allemande. En fait, l'Allemagne est sans doute proche du sommet de la courbe en cloche, décrivant les rapports de longue durée entre l'intégration et l'agglomération en Allemagne. Donc, la poursuite de l'intégration économique entre les deux parties de l'Allemagne pourra favoriser une re-dispersion de l'activité économique envers l'Allemagne de l'Est. Néantmoins, nous identifions des limitations de la MEG pour expliquer l'intégration allemande, notamment la complexité analytique des modèles multirégionaux et la négligeance des retombées des connaissances (knowledge spillovers) et le groupement de la main-d'?uvre.

Extracto Emparejamos cualitativamente la Nueva Geografía Económica (NEG) con hechos estilizados de la integración económica alemana después de 1989. Descubrimos que la NEG puede explicar la integración alemana razonablemente bien. Actualmente, Alemania podría estar cerca de la cumbre de la curva de campana que describe la asociación a largo plazo entre integración y aglomeración en Alemania. En consecuencia, una mayor integración económica entre las dos partes de Alemania podría fomentar últimamente la re-dispersión de actividad económica hacia la Alemania del Este. Además identificamos limitaciones de la NEG para explicar la integración alemana, consistiendo principalmente en la complejidad analítica de los modelos multirregionales y en su preterición de los desbordamientos de conocimiento (knowledge spillovers) y de la concentración de mano de obra cualificada (labour pooling).

摘要:我们将新经济地理(NEG)和1989年德国经济统一后的典型事实进行定性比较。我们发现NEG可以很好地解释德国统一。德国现在非常接近钟形曲线的峰值, 意味着德国经济会长期呈现融合和聚集并存。因此, 东西德之间进一步的经济融合将最终促进经济活动流向东德。我们还找出了用NEG解释德国统一的局限性,尤其是多区域模型分析的复杂性以及对人才流失和劳动力储备的忽略。     

德国大都市区结构的特征与发展趋势

首先简要界定了多中心都市区的概念.从国家层面分析了德国大都市区的空间结构特征及其发展变化,阐述了联邦政府引导大都市区发展的具体政策和建议,并以莱茵鲁尔和柏林为例,从城市区域层面具体说明了德国大都市区的特点、问题和发展战略.     

德国会展业发展的新趋势及启示

德国是会展产业的强国,在时德国会展业考察的基础上,阐述了德国会展经济发展呈现的全球化、服务高质化、跨业态经营等特点,结合中国会展产业发展的现状,提出了加快市场化、法制化、规范化步伐,构建大型会展公司和组建全国展协等建议.