Privacy Is Precious: On the Attempt to Lift Anonymity on the Internet to Increase Revenue

We investigate the effect of a reduction of anonymity on consumers' purchase decisions (whether to buy, and if so how much to pay) at an online music store with Pay‐What‐You‐Want (PWYW)‐like pricing and in an Internet experiment mimicking the real world situation. Revealing the customer's name, e‐mail, and payment to the artist (seller) led to insignificantly higher payments, although it drastically reduced the number of customers purchasing. Overall, the regime led to a revenue loss of 25%. In the online experiment, revenue drops by 35%. These results suggest that the positive effect of reduced anonymity, previously established for donation or public goods contexts, does not extend to a consumption environment. Instead, the substantial opt‐out of customers is likely to be motivated by concerns about privacy.     

Einkommensentstehung als Verteilungsfaktor

From the end of the Second World War onwards, a middle class emerged in Germany that was, by international standards, broadly based. The economic basis for this middle class was good pay and relatively low income differentiation, which was the result of collective agreement on a high coverage rate. Since the mid-1990s, however, the economic basis of middle-class prosperity and security has been crumbling. In the primary distribution, the share of households in the middle-income groups fell by almost ten percentage points, from 56.4 per cent to 48 per cent, between 1992 and 2013. The welfare state was no longer able to compensate fully for this unequal primary distribution. An increase in coverage by collective agreements, the re-regulation of atypical employment forms and the elimination of all incentives to take marginal, part-time jobs are the keys to strengthening the middle-income groups in Germany.     

How are Scope and Adding up Relevant for Benefits Transfer?

In this paper, we explore ways in which the theoretical constructs of scope and adding up can inform and improve the practice of benefit transfer. Specifically, we examine how the stated preference literature on scope and adding up can inform three critical steps in benefits transfer: study site selection, including studies to select for use in a meta-regression; calibrating benefit functions; and assessing transfer validity.     

FISCAL POLICY AND OPTIMAL TAXATION: EVIDENCE FROM A TAX SMOOTHING EXERCISE

Testing the tax smoothing hypothesis for the EU‐15, we hypothesise that the introduction of the 3%‐deficit rule of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 may have inhibited tax smoothing as European Union (EU)‐member states are no longer capable of letting the deficit grow as much as implied by expected decreases in government expenditure. Our results show that for some countries this fiscal rule may have indeed changed the validity of the tax smoothing hypothesis, thus implying that EU accession has caused welfare losses.     

Nach der Krise: Wirksame Regelungen auf dem Finanzmarkt?

Schon w?hrend der Krise hat auf allen politischen Ebenen eine lebhafte Diskussion über eine bessere Finanzmarktregulierung eingesetzt. Einig war man sich nur in wenigen Bereichen. Und von der Umsetzung etwaiger Reformen ist die Politik noch weit entfernt. Allerdings ist auch fraglich, ob die Ansatzpunkte überhaupt richtig gew?hlt sind.     

Value of agricultural non-point source pollution measurement technology: assessment from a policy perspective

The development of accurate non-point source pollution assessment technologies allows the implementation of more efficient policies than can be undertaken in their absence. This study estimates the value of accurate measurement technology by estimating the gains from implementing a more efficient policy, one that targets agricultural non-point source emission reductions at the field scale but requires accurate field scale measurement technology, relative to a practice-based policy that can be implemented in the absence of such technology. For the environmental benefit of carbon sequestration, large cost savings are found due to improved targeting of conservation tillage subsidies for the state of Iowa. The ability of the government to cost discriminate is found to have little impact on the value of accurate measurement technology.     

Cross-channel integration – is it valued by customers?

It has been common for retail companies to use multiple channels simultaneously. However, simultaneous use is only the first step in creating a customer-centric multichannel system that demands channel synergies rather than parallel retail formats. Therefore, the perceived integration of customer-related functions and processes between the channels of multichannel systems is analyzed with respect to its significance for customer loyalty and usage of a multichannel system. Drawing on a sample (n) of 981 customers, the results indicate that linkages between retail channels positively affect customer loyalty and verify the importance of establishing a well-integrated – ‘seamless’ as perceived by the customer – multichannel system.     

Double income taxation as a response to tax competition in the EU

The following article discusses the undesired consequences of tax competition and presents a proposal for tax reform derived from a very general normative basis: the idea of exchange between governments and taxpayers and the principle of equality. The aim is to tie tax competition to jurisdictional competition in general and thereby maintain tax competition as a productive procedure instead of abolishing it by harmonising tax systems. Surprisingly, systematic double taxation of income, as factor income following the source principle and as citizens' income following the residence principle, is one element of the solution. The other is unitary taxation of business income.     

Restructuring Ukrainian enterprises after privatization: Does ownership matter?

This paper presents data from a survey of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in Ukraine after privatization. To analyze this data, regression equations are estimated and explain the response of restructuring and performance indicators to ownership structures, competitive pressures, and hardening budget constraints. While ownership matters less for restructuring activity than competition and budget constraints, concentrated outside ownership does have a significant positive impact on the firm's performance. This research was financially supported by a grant from the International Association for Promotion of Cooperation with Scientists in the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (952-0280) and by a Research Fellowship provided by Konferenz der Deutschen Akademien der Wissenschaften, sponsored by Volkswagen Stiftung.     

The treatment of seasonality in error correction models as unobserved component: a case study for an Austrian consumption function

This paper deals with an alternative approach to treating seasonality in error correction models for consumption with a parsimonious parameterization as proposed by Harvey and Scott. We introduce an unobserved seasonal component into an error correction model for Austrian consumer expenditures on nondurables and services and compare the results with different approaches. The use of stochastic seasonal results in a definite improvement of the estimated model. First version received: October 1997/Final version received: May 2000