Ideenwettbewerbe als innovatives Markenbindungsinstrument

Onlinebasierte Ideenwettbewerbe mit Web 2.0-Funktionalit?ten bieten neue innovative M?glichkeiten im Online Marketing. Sie tragen dazu bei, die Bekanntheit und positive Wahrnehmung einer Marke in der ?ffentlichkeit zu st?rken. Konsumenten setzen sich intensiver mit einer Marke auseinander, was schlie?lich zu einer st?rkeren Identifikation mit der Marke und Bindung führt. Auch Swarovski, dem Kristall-Weltmarktführer, gelang durch diese Einbindung von Konsumenten der Erfolg.     

Solidarische Privatversicherung oder Bürgerprivatversicherung? Eine Replik

In der Juniausgabe ver?ffentlichte der Wirtschaftsdienst einen Aufsatz mit dem Titel „Die Solidarische Privatversicherung — Ein Vorschlag zur Gesundheitsstrukturreform“. Dieses Konzept diskutieren Johann Eekhoff und Christine Wolfgramm und stellen dem einen eigenen Vorschlag entgegen. Ulrich van Suntum erl?utert seine Sichtweise in einer Erwiderung.     

INNOVATION AND GROWTH WITH RICH AND POOR CONSUMERS

This work studies the impact of income inequality on the level of innovative activities in a model where innovations result in quality improvements. In contrast to the standard model of innovations and growth, the equilibrium outcome may be characterized by a situation where not only the quality leader but also producers of worse qualities are on the market. In that case the quality leader sells to the rich, whereas the producer of the second‐best quality sells to the poor. In general, we find that a more equal distribution of income is favourable for innovation incentives. This is consistent with empirical evidence suggesting that countries with a more equal distribution of income have grown faster.     

Modelling the impact of the ‘fast track’ land reform policy on Zimbabwe's maize sector

Zimbabwe has recently gone through a widely criticised land reform process that is argued to be the cause of subdued agricultural production. This paper attempts to present a counterfactual picture of the maize market in Zimbabwe had land reform been managed appropriately. The counterfactual is developed through a partial equilibrium framework in order to quantify the impact of the land reform programme. This, to our knowledge, is the first attempt at applying a partial equilibrium framework to an analysis of the impact of land reform. The results of the post-2000 land reform policy simulation showed that actual total maize output was lower than what could have been produced if it was under a pre-2000 land reform system. The study validates the assertion that land reforms contributed to the contraction of output. These results suggest the need for a well planned and executed land reform process, which can still play an important role in output growth and food security.     

Rhetoric or action: Are South African municipalities planning for climate change?

In 2008 the South African National Disaster Management Centre commissioned a study into measures taken by local municipalities to plan for climate change. Two areas were selected for their dissimilar climatic challenges: the //Khara Hais Municipality,1 ¹The // spelling represents the click consonant in the Kxoe language that the name comes from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki///Khara_Hais_Local_Municipality * Brendon Solik is now a Consultant at Environmental Resources Management (ERM), Johannesburg, South AfricaView all notes a semi-desert area in the Northern Cape Province plagued by droughts and severe weather events, and the George Municipality, an area in the Western Cape Province plagued by droughts, the rising sea level and flash floods. It was found that despite South African laws and regulations requiring local government to take action to reduce the risk of disasters, planning for climate change is still no more than sophisticated rhetoric in the two municipalities. This lack of urgency can be ascribed to local municipalities having other more pressing developmental priorities. It would, however, be short-sighted of municipalities not to plan for climate change, as major setbacks in hard-won economic and social development follow a disaster.     

Politically stable pay-as-you-go pension systems: When the social-insurance budget is too small in a democracy

The essay analyzes in an overlapping-generations model, to which extent a pay-as-you-go pension system will be the outcome of majority voting, given specific institutional set-ups. Clearly, the vote of an active person depends on his expectations about how the present decision (i.e., his contribution) is linked to the future (i.e., his benefits), when he will be retired. In the paper we employ the assumption of a basic social contract where each active voter's future benefits are positively related to his contributions. It is shown that in this framework a steady-state with a positive (though lower than optimal) level of the pension system exists, even if a new majority decision about the system takes place every period.