Costos del despido y ventajas de la medición con métodos directos

Es frecuente achacar los malos resultados del mercado laboral a los costos del despido y a las normas que rigen las relaciones de trabajo. Ahora bien, las investigaciones acerca de las consecuencias económicas de los despidos prestan muy poca atención a la calidad y la precisión de las mediciones, y no arrojan indicaciones concluyentes. Después de pasar revista a los métodos actuales de medición, el autor sostiene que es muy conveniente usar métodos cuantitativos directos a fin de complementar las mediciones indirectas habituales. Para ilustrar esta afirmación se vale de una encuesta efectuada recientemente en Australia.     

Misallocation and financial market frictions: Some direct evidence from the dispersion in borrowing costs

Financial frictions distort the allocation of resources among productive units—all else equal, firms whose financing choices are affected by such frictions face higher borrowing costs than firms with ready access to capital markets. As a result, input choices may differ systematically across firms in ways that are unrelated to their productive efficiency. We propose an accounting framework that allows us to assess empirically the magnitude of the loss in aggregate resources due to such misallocation. To a second-order approximation, the framework requires only information on the dispersion in borrowing costs across firms, which we measure—for a subset of U.S. manufacturing firms—directly from the interest rate spreads on their outstanding publicly-traded debt. Given the observed dispersion in borrowing costs, our approximation method implies a relatively modest loss in efficiency due to resource misallocation—on the order of 1 to 2 percent of measured total factor productivity (TFP). In our framework, the correlation between firm size and borrowing costs has no bearing on TFP losses under the assumption that financial distortions and firm-level efficiency are jointly log-normally distributed. To take into account the effect of covariation between firm size and borrowing costs, we consider a more general framework, which dispenses with the assumption of log-normality and which implies somewhat higher estimates of the resource losses—about 3.5 percent of measured TFP. Counterfactual experiments indicate that dispersion in borrowing costs must be an order of magnitude higher than that observed in the U.S. financial data, in order for misallocation—arising from financial distortions—to account for a significant fraction of measured TFP differentials across countries.     

The Role of Information Feedback in the Management Group Decision-Making Process Applying System Dynamics Models

The research project addresses the influence of feedback information on the decision process supported by the application of system dynamics models. A user-friendly application was developed and used in the experiment with decision groups. The participants were 174 undergraduate management science students. They had the task of determining the optimum business strategy by maximizing the multiple criteria function under three experimental conditions: a ₁) an indivIDual decision process without the support of a system dynamics model, a ₂) an indivIDual decision process supported by a system dynamics model, and a ₃) a decision process supported by a system dynamics model and subject interaction via computer mediation. The hypotheses that the indivIDual decision process supported by a system dynamics model yields higher Criteria Function values than one without a system dynamics model, as well as the decision process supported by both a system dynamics model and subject interaction yields higher Criteria Function values than one supported by a system dynamics model alone were confirmed.     

Fonction De Base Et Nouveau Rôle Des Pouvoirs Publics: Vers Un Nouveau Paradigme De L'état

RÉSUMÉ Cet article avance l’hypothèse d’un nouveau paradigme en émergence qui permettrait de repenser les rapports entre l’État, le marché et la société civile et qui pourrait être aussi novateur que le fut celui de l’après seconde guerre mondiale fondé sur le couple État‐marché. Selon cette nouvelle vision, le rôle des pouvoirs publics se redéfinirait de plus en plus en référence à l’avenir plutôt que par rapport au passé : dans le domaine du social, nous serions invités à passer d’un État‐providence négatif à un État‐providence positif; dans le domaine économique, à passer de politiques économiques orientées vers le soutien de la demande à des politiques visant à soutenir une offre intégrée dont les éléments dépassent le domaine économique pour atteindre le social. Dans cette visée, le nouvel arrimage vertueux entre le développement économique et le développement social ne peut plus être à sens unique dans le sens de la redistribution (et donc comme seules dépenses sociales) puisque le social représente à la fois un capital et un lieu d’investissement. Cela suppose que les pouvoirs publics travaillent à la mise en place d’une nouvelle économie mixte qui articule d’une manière inédite les entreprises capitalistes, les entreprises publiques et les entreprises d’économie sociale, une nouvelle économie mixte qui serait en même temps économie plurielle, respectant la spécificité de chacune de ses composantes dans la visée de l’intérêt général.     

Die Stadtstaatenwertung—ein Hindernis für Länderfusionen?

Die Bestrebungen für eine Fusion von Berlin und Brandenburg haben gezeigt, dass L?nderfusionen politisch nur umsetzbar sind, wenn Klarheit über die Finanzperspektiven der beteiligten L?nder besteht. Dabei kommt den rechtlichen Folgen eines Zusammenschlusses für die so genannte Stadtstaatenwertung im L?nderfinanzausgleich zentrale Bedeutung zu. Bislang wurde stets davon ausgegangen, dass L?nderfusionen den Wegfall der Stadtstaatenwertung und damit Kompensationsregelungen erfordern. Verlangt das geltende Recht auf der Grundlage der Finanzverfassung tats?chlich den Wegfall der Stadtstaatenwertung? Der Aufsatz gibt die pers?nliche Meinung der Verfasser wieder.     

Publikationen deutschsprachiger Forscher in Top-Journals (2. Quartal 2005)

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Wichtige betriebswirtschaftliche Fachkonferenzen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Contribution of financial market segments at different stages of development: Transition,cohesion and mature economies compared

What is the impact of financial sector segments at different stages of development? We apply a production function approach to investigate the impact of the credit, bond and stock segments in nine EU-accession countries over early years of transition (1996–2000) and compare these to mature market economies and to countries at intermediate stage. We find that the transfer mechanisms differ over the development cycle (from bond markets to educational attainment to labor participation) and that financial market segments with links to the public sector (but not stock markets) contributed to stability and growth in transition economies.     

Destination Attractiveness Drivers among Urban Hostel Tourists: An Analysis of Frustrators and Delighters

This study is based on data from 679 tourists staying at hostel accommodation facilities in Zagreb, a propulsive city‐break destination in Central Europe. Besides providing insight into the socio‐demographic and behavioural characteristics of hostel tourists, this study uncovers determinant destination attributes influencing their perceptions of destination attractiveness. In particular, impact asymmetry analysis identified potential sources of delight and frustration among hostel tourists. Since the hostel tourist segment, as such, is almost completely unconsidered in contemporary tourism research, partly covered only by a few studies on youth travellers and backpackers, the results of this case study are valuable to both practitioners and researchers related to the hostelling industry and city destination marketing organizations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Allocative vs. technical spectrum efficiency

Achieving allocative and technically efficient spectrum management is a key aspect of deregulatory reforms in several OECD countries. However, reform legislation offers few clues as to how these objectives should rank when they conflict with one another. An ‘innocent’ prior acquisition of service-neutral spectrum at an efficiently run auction may prove allocative efficient but fail to be technically efficient if the spectrum is left fallow in the short term. Accountability for the productive usage of a public resource and pressures from short-term political cycles may induce regulators to mandate some minimal level of activity. Two plausible regulatory responses are considered: use it or lose it clauses and spectrum trading incentives. The former favours technical efficiency whilst the latter promotes allocative efficiency. The argument is formalised in a simple economic model buttressing the roles of uncertainty and transaction costs to assert the primacy of allocative efficiency over technical efficiency.