Tobacco and alcohol: complements or substitutes?

The question of whether alcohol and tobacco are consumed as complements or substitutes is crucial for determining the side-effects of anti-smoking policies. Numerous papers have empirically addressed this issue by estimating demand systems for alcohol and tobacco, and subsequently calculating cross-price effects. However, this traditional approach is often seriously hampered by insufficient price variation observed in survey data. We, therefore, suggest an alternative instrumental variables approach that statistically mimics an experimental study and does not rely on prices as explanatory variables. This approach is applied by means of German survey data. Our estimation results suggest that a reduction in tobacco consumption results in a moderate reduction in alcohol consumption. It is demonstrated that this implies that alcohol and tobacco are complements. Hence, we conclude that successful anti-smoking policies will not result in the unintended side-effect of an increased (ab)use of alcohol.     

The educational and occupational background of central bankers and its effect on inflation: An empirical analysis

We test the hypothesis that the inflation preferences of central bankers depend on their educational and/or occupational background. In a panel data analysis for the euro area and eleven countries since 1973, we explain inflation either by the weights with which the educational and occupational characteristics of the 391 council members were represented in the various central bank councils or by the education or occupation of the median council members. Control variables are added. Our most robust result is that former members of the central bank staff prefer significantly lower inflation rates than former politicians do.     

Micro-foundations of market orientation: Influencing non-marketing managers' customer information processing

This study examines how organisational context influences search, integration, and use of customer information at the level of an individual manager. Drawing upon research on market orientation, market-information utilisation, organisational learning, and marketing organisation, a theoretical framework is set up and tested by using structural equation modelling and a dataset consisting of 228 manufacturing and R&D managers in large industrial firms. Results demonstrate that integration of customer information enhances use of information in decision making. Organisational context influences the use of customer information indirectly by affecting information search and integration. Resource inadequacy and physical distance from sales and marketing contact persons decrease information integration, whereas supervisor customer emphasis increases the search scope of information. Wide search scope of customer information increases information integration but has no direct impact on use.     

Wirtschaftswissenschaften: zu wenig Pluralität der Methoden und Forschungsrichtungen?

The authors discuss the merits of including pluralist methods, theories and paradigms into the traditionally mainstream. They also evaluate the progress made by German faculties in this regard. The pluralism debate is in itself plural. There are numerous international and Germany specific dimensions and associated critiques of mainstream economics. Different approaches to economic policy must be organised in a manner which guarantees theoretical and paradigmatic pluralism — on which economic policy proposals ought to be based. Another view focuses on the educational effect and states that the mental frames of economics students are subject to manipulation; the foundation of their thinking is narrowed and recontextualised in an emotionally and politically highly charged semantic environment.     

Pre-averaging estimators of the ex-post covariance matrix in noisy diffusion models with non-synchronous data

We show how pre-averaging can be applied to the problem of measuring the ex-post covariance of financial asset returns under microstructure noise and non-synchronous trading. A pre-averaged realised covariance is proposed, and we present an asymptotic theory for this new estimator, which can be configured to possess an optimal convergence rate or to ensure positive semi-definite covariance matrix estimates. We also derive a noise-robust Hayashi–Yoshida estimator that can be implemented on the original data without prior alignment of prices. We uncover the finite sample properties of our estimators with simulations and illustrate their practical use on high-frequency equity data.     

Growth Intentions and Board Composition in High‐Growth Firms

This paper examines the influence of board composition on growth intentions of high‐growth firms. We hypothesize that gender diversity and a high proportion of independent directors on the board will reduce a firm's growth intentions, whereas founder duality will increase a firm's growth intentions. Using survey data from 773 high‐growth Norwegian firms, we find that gender diversity has a negative effect on growth intentions. A high proportion of independent directors do not facilitate further growth in high‐growth firms. Furthermore, our results indicate that the founder's presence in the decision‐making group increases a firm's growth intentions.