Do the COVID-19 Crisis,Ageing and Climate Change Put Swiss Fiscal Sustainability at Risk?

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic crisis as well as demographic and climate change pose major challenges for public finances. This article deals with the implications of demographic trends in Switzerland, i.e. the progressive ageing of the population and its impact on the country’s public finances in the long run. As the analysis shows, the brunt of the demographic burden is borne by the old-age pension scheme, health and long-term care. This article also addresses the financial ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis and shows the need for economic policy action over the longer term to ensure the sustainability of public finances in Switzerland. Furthermore, a qualitative assessment of climate change is included, as it constitutes an additional major long-term challenge for public finances.

     

Navigating Rough Waters: Global Shipping and Challenges for the North Range Ports

Intereconomics - Ports and shipping have been in the spotlight in 2021 with surging demand, skyrocketing freight rates and week-long queues. This development stands against the background of the...     

Der antizyklische Kapitalpuffer: Reformoptionen

Wirtschaftsdienst - Der antizyklische Eigenkapitalpuffer, dessen Anforderung Kreditinstitute erfüllen müssen, soll die Widerstandskraft des Bankensystems stärken und dadurch die...     

Efficiency and Ethically Responsible Management

One common justification for the pursuit of profit by business firms within a market economy is that profit is not an end in itself but a means to more efficiently produce and allocate resources. Profit, in short, is a mechanism that serves the market’s purpose of producing Pareto superior outcomes for society. This discussion examines whether such a justification, if correct, requires business managers to remain attentive to how their firm’s operation impacts the market’s purpose. In particular, it is argued that the value of efficiency, despite views to the contrary, cannot be fully separated from the planning and intentions of business managers as long as those managers direct their firms in an ethically responsible fashion. This position is inspired by, and serves as a supportive clarification of Joseph Heath’s so-called “market failures approach” to business ethics.     

Expert and entrepreneur: the unique research domain of professional service entrepreneurs

Professionals are knowledge experts who create customized solutions for clients. Many professionals practice in the context of strong professional institutions that prescribe intense socialization and codes and norms. While some professionals work as employees, many start their own firms in order to practice. Firm start-up for professionals is more prevalent than for most other occupations. While professional institutions often constraint their activities, firm start-up for professional service entrepreneurs (PSEs) involves similar entrepreneurial activities as other entrepreneurs, creating an interesting paradox worth investigating. This paper explores the uniqueness of PSEs and the firms they start, and the distinctiveness and value of research in the context of PSEs and professional service firms.     

An experimental analysis of tax avoidance policies

Policies to reduce aggressive tax avoidance are increasingly being implemented or discussed in many countries around the world. Tax authorities hope that such policies will generate new tax revenue by increasing overall tax compliance. We present an experimental design to investigate the effect of a stylized anti-avoidance tax policy on tax compliance behavior. We highlight that anti-avoidance tax policies that reduce tax avoidance can also induce an increase in tax evasion (“substitution effect”), which limits the additional tax revenue these policies will generate. We show that the degree of substitution depends crucially on behavioral factors such as tax morale. Policymakers therefore also need to consider behavioral features while designing such policies and estimating their potential effects.     

Towards an Understanding of Social Responsibility Within the Church of England

This research explores the interplay of individual, organisational and institutional variables that produce the current pattern of social responsibility practices within a specific religious organisation, namely the Church of England. By combining elements primarily of neo-institutional theory with Bourdieu’s theory of practice, we construct a theoretical framework to examine the extent to which social responsibility activity is modified or informed by a distinctive faith perspective. Given that neo-institutional theory predicts a convergence of structures and practices between different organisations operating in the same institutional sector, this research draws on a single case study focusing on social responsibility activity in six different Church of England dioceses and shows that the opposite is actually the case: there is evidence of a significant degree of divergence in terms of organisational practice within the same institutional structure. Reasons for that were found to be the impact of human agency and loose institutional structures. This paper thus contributes to the understanding of social responsibility in religious organisations by exploring the dynamics between institutional pressures, organisational context and individual agents operating in the field of faith-based social responsibility. It thereby also contributes to neo-institutional theory.     

Liquidity and Pricing of Credit Default Swaps in Japan: Evidence from a Benchmark Index for Corporate Debt Claims

This article is a contribution towards the growing empirical literature on the relationship between liquidity and pricing of credit default swaps (CDSs). To the best of my knowledge, the article becomes the first to show that market liquidity does matter to CDS pricing in Japan, by looking into a sole benchmark index of CDS trading for investment-grade debt claims, or the Markit iTraxx Japan (MiJ). The impact of illiquidity on MiJ premia has declined since the International Swaps and Derivatives Association introduced new trade practices in April 2009. The liquidity of the MiJ has increased since the Japan Securities Clearing Corporation started operating as a central counterpart for the MiJ in July 2011. The price discovery ability of the MiJ has also increased since then.