LEADERSHIP IN CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION: CONSEQUENCES AND INCENTIVES

Initiatives in favor of unilateral action on climate change are frequently challenged by concerns over free riding. Nevertheless, we observe an increasing number of unilateral efforts at different administrative levels and in different parts of the world. Previous academic literature described various individual mechanisms where emissions abroad may increase or decrease as a reaction to unilateral emission reductions. In this paper, we collect a comprehensive set of both positive and negative reactions and analyze them in stylized models. This allows us to identify the most important characteristics that determine the potential of a leader to boost mitigation efforts abroad. We find that this potential depends on (i) a strong ability to generate knowledge through leadership, (ii) a high degree of credibility in the international community, and (iii) a similar economic structure to the most important emitters. While most effects are difficult to quantify, this comprehensive assessment suggests that leakage effects resulting from unilateral mitigation may well be outweighed by positive reactions.     

The Importance of Tax Adjustments When Evaluating Wage Expectations*

Using elicited expectations of future gross salaries, we evaluate characteristics causing German students to make larger or smaller estimation errors. While students seem to underestimate actual salaries by 18 percent, we show that these errors are highly attributable to misconceptions of the progressive income tax. Developing a suitable adjustment procedure, we correct students’ estimates and find that errors decline by 12 percentage points. Conducting regression analyses, we reveal strong connections with students’ age, gender, work experience, secondary school track, and knowledge about student loans. These results change notably if not controlling for students’ misconceptions of the tax system.     

Marketing messbar machen — die wirkung von empfehlungsnetzwerken auf die marketing performance

Netzwerke und Kooperationen sind entscheidende Instrumente zur Steigerung des Unternehmenswertes. Bisher haben sich Ans?tze hier auf die Unternehmensseite (Wertsch?pfungs-, Entwicklungsund Vertriebsnetzwerke) konzentriert. In jüngster Zeit rücken auch Netzwerke auf Nachfragerseite etwa in Form von Kommunikations- und Empfehlungsnetzwerken zunehmend in den Blickpunkt. Solche sozialen Netzwerke k?nnen gerade durch Marketingma?nahmen initiiert und gestaltet werden. Sie sind zentrale Stellhebel zur Steigerung der Marketing Performance und somit zur Legitimierung der Marketingfunktion.     

Identifying fiscal policy (in)effectiveness from the differential counter‐cyclicality of government spending in the interwar period

Differences across decades in the counter‐cyclical stance of fiscal policy can identify whether the growth in government spending affects output growth and so speeds recovery from a recession. We study government‐spending reaction functions from the 1920s and 1930s for twenty countries. There are two main findings. First, surprisingly, government spending was less counter‐cyclical in the 1930s than in the 1920s. Second, the growth of government spending did not have a significant effect on output growth, so that there is little evidence that this feature of fiscal policy played a stabilizing role in the interwar period.     

Heterogeneity and peer effects in mutual fund proxy voting

This paper studies voting in corporate director elections. We construct a comprehensive data set of 2,058,788 mutual fund votes over a two-year period. We find systematic heterogeneity in voting: some funds are consistently more management-friendly than others. We also establish the presence of peer effects: a fund is more likely to oppose management when other funds are more likely to oppose it, all else being equal. We estimate a voting model whose supermodular structure allows us to compute social multipliers due to peer effects. Heterogeneity and peer effects are as important in shaping voting outcomes as firm and director characteristics.     

The development of the Indonesian labour movement

The paper examines the development of the labour movement in Indonesia in the context of trade unionism elsewhere in the area of the Asia-Pacific region. The Indonesian labour movement is shown to exhibit a dual nature; consisting of an official sponsored and legal form of unionism, and an independent, quasi-illegal form of unionism. The two have a conflicting yet symbiotic relationship, where the state plays a very significant role in determining the parameters for behaviour in industrial relations. Although the form of state intervention in Indonesia may be different from state intervention in other comparable countries, its aims are broadly similar. In this context the Indonesian independent labour movement is shown to have had some measure of success in resisting the restrictions placed upon it in its attempt to advance its members' terms and conditions of employment.     

Strommarktdesign: Zur Ausgestaltung der Auktionsregeln an der EEX

This paper studies the design of power exchanges in liberalized electricty markets. We analyze several pricing rules for day ahead trading and show that a uniform price mechanism has quite desirable properties as compared to its alternatives. We then discuss how the particular cost structure of electricity generation can be accounted for by appropriate bid formats. We moreover analyze the effects of bid caps and price floors in electricity auctions on market performance, as well as several other aspects of electricity market design. In particular, we discuss linkage of independently operating markets for electricity, reserve energy and transmission capacities, coupling of national power exchanges, and the effects of transparency on the outcome of electricity markets.     

Ein Vergleich ausgewählter europäischer Strombörsen

We study the rules of selected european energy exchanges and compare their institutional design. In most countries (except for the UK) a uniform price mechanism is used. The rules differ, however, in the possibilities to express complementary cost components in the bids. Also the degree of international coupling of markets is very different across countries. Our comparison of the markets allows to identify attractive trading rules and yields insights on an effective electricity market design.     

The Changing Relations of Production: Union Derecognition in the UK Magazine Industry

This article examines the motives and strategies of employers in implementing derecognition, the union response to this, and effect on wages and conditions, union-management relations and union membership and organisation. In particular the author analyses the circumstances in which a large number of employers have chosen such a ‘radical’ method to re-order the employment relationship.