Reserve risk estimation in a linear model

This paper presents the linear model, a framework for stochastic modeling of known methods as well as for the development of new methods of loss reserving. The linear model allows the determination of optimal predictors of non-observable cumulated and incremental losses and thus the derivation of optimal reserves by minimization of the expected squared prediction error.     

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Innovation without me: why employees do (not) participate in organizational innovation communities

A key issue in community research is the set of motivations stimulating individuals to participate and contribute voluntarily to communities. This article examines the motivations of employees, who are traditionally not involved in the innovation process, to (not) participate in organizational innovation communities. Building on an in‐depth single case study, we aim to answer the following research questions: (1) What motivates participants of organizational innovation communities to participate? and (2) What motivates nonparticipants of organizational innovation communities to not participate? We find and categorize multiple factors that motivate non‐research and development employees to participate and to not participate. Moreover, we find an overlap as well as differences in the set of motivations of participants and nonparticipants. With nonparticipants normally being a large but barely explicitly recognized group, we argue that the found deviations contribute to the understanding of motivations in the context of organizational innovation communities and allow for direct design implications for innovation managers.     

WHAT CENTRAL BANKERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FORECASTING OIL PRICES

Central banks routinely use short‐horizon forecasts of the quarterly price of oil in assessing the global and domestic economic outlook. We address a number of econometric issues specific to the construction of quarterly oil price forecasts in the United States and abroad. We show that quarterly forecasts of the real price of oil from suitably designed vector autoregressive models estimated on monthly data generate the most accurate real‐time forecasts overall among a wide range of methods, including quarterly averages of forecasts based on monthly oil futures prices, no‐change forecasts, and forecasts based on regression models estimated on quarterly data.     

Dissonante Öffentlichkeiten als Perspektive kommunikationswissenschaftlicher Theoriebildung

The article takes up an ongoing conversation among German communication scholarship about the question whether we need new theories and methods to understand the fundamental changes in public communication due to digitalization. We respond to an argument made by a group of academics around Christian Strippel and Annekatrin Bock, who maintain that communication scholarship has already begun to develop and to apply new and innovative methods to deal with new phenomena and problems that stem from digital technologies in communication. In our article we argue that the deficits in the current communication research lies in the discourse about theories. Thus, it is surprising that innovative methods are driving current studies, while the reflection about concepts and theories that help to understand the consequences of digitalization in public communication has been neglected. Provided that communication research is the academic discipline which does have particular competences in describing and explaining public spheres, we call for conceptual work and theory development that revisits public sphere theory to deal with the challenges of digital public communication in contemporary society. We propose to theorize public communication in the framework of dissonance. We suggest to introduce the notion of dissonance in public spheres in order to describe and explain the conditions of multilayered, synchronous and disparate processes of public communication and the contradictory consequences of changing public spheres. The latter are characterized by simultaneous entanglements of traditional mass communication and digital venues of communication which eventually create a hybrid media system. We also call for theory development that takes up critical, participatory and constructivist approaches of public sphere theory such as antagonistic pluralism. However, since these approaches account for the conflicts and antagonisms of contemporary pluralist society but largely neglect communication processes and infrastructures, we suggest to also look into new approaches of digital communication, such as network theories and combine them with the concepts of public sphere sociology. We think that it would be instructive and fruitful to use this newly developed framework of dissonance in public sphere to study communication processes and practices in journalism, civil society and political communication.Our article is organized in three sections. In the first part we discuss the terminology of dissonant communication and review approaches to dissonance as opposed to consonance. We revisit communication theory and music theory in order to develop a definition of dissonance. In the second section we take up concepts of public sphere which stress the coexistence of contradictions and antagonistic voices in the public realm which do not converge into consonance or consensus. We revisit studies on the nature of digital communication which focuses on network theories of communication and call for combining these two trajectories of social thought. In the third section of our article we propose a research agenda that focuses on the conditions of dissonance in public communication and the consequences of communication in dissonant public spheres for information flows and inclusion demands in contemporary society. Finally we argue that dissonant public spheres can be observed and should be studied in the fields of journalism, civil society and political communication. Thus, future research should focus on these areas.     

What is the Value of Luxury? A Cross‐Cultural Consumer Perspective

International luxury businesses are challenged by the identification and satisfaction of the common needs and desires of global market segments. Although luxury goods have become available to a wider range of consumers, the traditional conspicuous consumption model has been transformed into a new experiential luxury sensibility that is marked by a change in the way that consumers define luxury. Based on an empirical study in collaboration with American, European, and Asian researchers, the results provide evidence that consumers in various parts of the world purchase or wish to purchase luxury products for varied reasons but that such consumers generally possess similar values. Regardless of their countries of origin, the basic motivational drivers of luxury consumers are similar among the financial, functional, personal, and social dimensions of luxury value perceptions, although the relative importance of these dimensions varies.     

Improving Voluntary Public Good Provision Through a Non-governmental,Endogenous Matching Mechanism: Experimental Evidence

Social norms can help to foster cooperation and to overcome the free-rider problem in the private provision of public goods. This paper focuses on the endogenous establishment of an average-oriented norm which sanctions deviations from average public good contributions. In a laboratory experiment, we analyse whether subjects are willing to implement a punishment and reward scheme at their own expense by applying the theory of non-governmental norm enforcement put forward by Buchholz et al. (J Public Econ Theory 16(6):899–916, 2014). Based on their theory, which omits a central authority but introduces an endogenously determined enforcement mechanism, we implement a two-stage public good game. In the first stage, subjects determine the strength of the sanctioning mechanism on their own. In the second stage, they decide on their personal contributions to the public good based on the established mechanism. In line with comparable pool punishment experiments, we find that subjects are apparently willing to contribute funds in order to establish a norm enforcement mechanism. Groups over-invest in the mechanism, but this over-investment decreases over time. These investments seem to be driven by the subjects’ previous individual contributions and partly by a number of strategic considerations, i.e. the previous average contribution made to the public good lowers the investment in the sanctioning mechanism. In the second stage of our experiment, higher norm enforcement parameters tend to lead to higher public good contributions. The earnings with the mechanism are on average higher than without.     

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