Wege und Irrwege der neuen Grundsteuerpläne in Deutschland

Wirtschaftsdienst - Das bisherige Verfahren zur Grundsteuererhebung ist 2018 vom Bundesverfassungsgericht als verfassungswidrig erklärt worden. Seither haben fünf Bundesländer...     

A theory of operational cash holding,endogenous financial constraints,and credit rationing

This paper develops a theory of operational cash holding. Liquidity shocks due to delayed payments must be financed using cash or short-term debt. Debt holders provide an irrevocable credit line given a firm's expected insolvency risk, and equity holders select optimum cash holding. The model demonstrates the trade-off between cash holding and investing in fixed assets. Introducing uncertain cash flows leads to precautionary cash holding if debt holders impose financial constraints. Precautionary cash holding, in turn, reduces insolvency risk enhancing access to short-term finance. The theory shows that credit rationing can occur in the absence of market frictions. Using U.S. data from 1998 to 2012, empirical findings suggest that the decline in credit lines has contributed to the increase in cash holding in line with theoretical predictions.     

Mehr Schutz vor ausländischen Direktinvestitionen?

Currently, there is no comprehensive legal framework at EU level to screen foreign direct investments (FDI) into the EU. In September 2017, the European Commission proposed a framework for screening foreign direct investments into the European Union. The reform will likely come into force at the end of 2018. This paper describes the political background and key concepts of the FDI screening framework and analyses potential economic effects of the new regulation.     

Abschaffung der Abgeltungsteuer — gerechter und steuersystematisch einheitlicher?

There is a rising political discussion in Germany around abolishing the final withholding tax on capital income. The German tax reforms that introduced this tax lowered tax rates, in particular on interest income. According to some authors, the growing inequality of income and property is a strong argument for the higher taxation of capital income. However, other authors argue that the neutrality aspects concerning private investment are inadequate. An abolishment of the final withholding tax would not solve these problems and, moreover, would turn back the achieved improvements. Therefore, the German Council of Economic Experts suggests complementing the previous reforms by introducing an allowance for corporate equity.     

Obsoleszenz — ein Synonym für die Konsumgüterproduktion in entfalteten Marktwirtschaften

Zusammenfassung Wie im Titel angedeutet, gehen die Verfasser davon aus, daß sich hinter dem Obsoleszenz-Phänomen keine besondere Absatzstrategie der Unternehmen und daher kein eigenständiges Erkenntnisobjekt verbirgt. Die von bürgerlichen und marxistischen Kritikern vielfach geäßerte Ansicht, mit zunehmender Vermachtung/Monopolisierung der Märkte seien die Waren schlechter geworden, wird nicht geteilt. Nach wie vor werden bei uns sehr viele «gute» sowie «schlechte» Konsumgüter hergestellt, je nach dem wie die Produktivkräfte sowie die Konkurrenz um die zahlungskräftige Nachfrage es erlauben. Was die bekannten gesamtgesellschaftlichen Probleme (Umweltbelastung, Rohstoffknappheit etc.) verursacht und die Wissenschaften auf dem Plan gerufen hat, ist nicht die abnehmende Qualität der Waren, sondern die erweiterte Reproduktion kapitalistischen Wirtschaftens schlechthin. Die «ungeheure Warenansammlung» kann wissenschaftlich nicht zerlegt werden in eine unanfechtbare Normalität (=technischer Fortschritt) und moralisch abzulehnende Auswüchse (=Obsoleszenz); ebensowenig signalisieren Obsoleszenzstrategien die allgemeine Dekadenz des Monopolkapitals. Der Reichtum an Konsumgütern ist vielmehr zu begreifen als dialektisches Resultat einer Erwerbsgesellschaft, die-beispielhaft konkretisiert-überdimensionierte Fernsehgeräte zum Kauf anbietet, nachdem sie zuvor technisch ausgereifte Geräte entwickelt hat.

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As indicated by the title the authors are convinced that obsolescence is no special marketing strategy. Therefore the phenomenon should not be regarded as a subject worthy of study by itself. The authors reject the hypothesis that product quality is eroded by increasing monopolization, a position taken by bourgeois as well as marxian critics. In market economies there will always be production of good and bad consumer goods depending on productive capacity and sellers' competition for effective demand. The well-known social problems (pollution, shortage of raw materials, etc.) are not caused by decreasing product quality but are due to the need for reproduction of capital on a larger scale.The enormous production of goods cannot be separated by scientific methods into (a) an economic normality (technical progress) and (b) a perverse exaggeration not acceptable on moral grounds (obsolescence). Neither do the strategies of obsolescence indicate the decadence of monopolistic capitalism. Instead the abundance of consumer goods should be interpreted as a dialectic result of a society's profit maximization. To give an example: After well-equipped television sets with a high technical standard had been developed, the system starts supplying units of a hypertrophic size and capacity.

     

The addictive trait in buying behaviour

Subsequent to two reports in JCP on empirical studies of “compulsive consumption’ (Faber & O'Guinn. 1988a; Valence, d'Astous. & Fortier, 1988) the author presents the conceptual foundations of an ongoing West German study of addictive buying. He argues that it is consistent with psychological knowledge, and will lead to additional insights, to speak of addictive instead of compulsive buying and consumption. Addictive buying, like other addictions, is viewed as an attempt to compensate for a distortion of autonomy incurred in childhood, and reinforced in adolescence and adulthood, as a reaction to key experiences which seem to occur increasingly in contemporary industrial societies.