On Social Transfers and Income Taxation

In this paper we provide a different rationale for the use of social transfers. It is assumed that the government is unable to condition the (possibly nonlinear) income tax scheme on the productivity and the endowment of the citizens. However, people applying for social benefit have to demonstrate their financial assets, which is costly for the government to verify. We show that under weak conditions the government will prefer to provide social transfers that induce some voluntary unemployment to reduce the informational rent the highly productive and/or rich types obtain.     

Bedarfsgerechte Steuerung der Gesundheitsversorgung — Chancen und Hindernisse

On 2 July 2018, the German Council of Health Experts handed over its current report entitled, “Demand-oriented health care management” to the Federal Ministry of Health. The pronounced separation of outpatient and inpatient care, and distinction between private and public health insurance, is typical of the German system. Experts’ recommendations include improved coordination of outpatient and inpatient services, monistic hospital financing and family doctor-centred patient care. The main criticism of the report is that it lacks a regulatory concept with competitive management structures.     

Price-cap Regulation of Airports: Single-till Versus Dual-till

Abstact This paper takes up the debate whether price-cap regulation of airports should take the form of single-till or dual-till regulation. The contribution is to model single- and dual-till regulation, evaluate their welfare implications, and compare them to Ramsey charges. We show that single-till regulation dominates dual-till regulation at non-congested airports with regard to welfare maximization. However, none of them provides an airport with incentives to implement Ramsey charges. A Ramsey optimal price-cap regulation, which achieves this goal, is also presented. Thanks to Kay Mitusch, Pio Baake, and Sascha Lukac for very helpful comments.     

The Reliability of Certification: Quality Labels as a Consumer Policy Tool

Given the large number of certification systems in the food industry, it is surprising that there are only a few research approaches to the economics of certification. Certification schemes are used to ensure marketing claims for unobservable quality attributes. Under asymmetric information, process-oriented quality characteristics such as organic farming, animal welfare, or fair trade raise the question of mislabelling. In the long run, only a reliable control procedure can reduce the risk of food scandals. The article presents a model which includes several starting points to enhance the efficiency of certification systems and the corresponding labels. On the whole, tendencies towards price wars on the certification market and considerable differences in performance reveal the necessity of institutional changes. Strategies for reducing auditors dependence, intensifying liability, increasing reputation effects, and minimizing audit costs are suggested. Finally, policy implications for public and private monitoring are discussed.     

Championship Behaviors and Innovations Success: An Empirical Investigation of University Spin‐Offs*

Despite the flurry of scholarly research on champions, no prior article has explicitly addressed how different dimensions of championship behavior actually contribute to innovation success. In this article, based on an extensive literature review, the authors argue that champions display four behaviors, namely (1) pursuing innovative ideas, (2) network building, (3) persisting under adversity, and (4) taking responsibility for the idea. The authors use data from 123 university spin‐offs to test proposed linear and curvilinear relationships between the four behaviors and an objective measure of innovation success, namely a longitudinal measure of sales growth. The results indicate that network building has the desired positive relationship with sales performance. Surprisingly, pursuing the innovative idea is not related to sales growth. Furthermore, the present study also reveals some dysfunctional effects of champion behaviors. Persisting under adversity and taking responsibility have the hypothesized inverted‐U relationship with sales growth. The present study provides a more refined discussion of the benefits and dangers of championing behaviors. Our results show that linking technology to markets can be planned and controlled only to a very limited extent even if champions are working hard to sell the idea to potential customers. Moreover, any new idea is often competing with existing products and pursuing such ideas may result in opposition to the idea. In contrast, network building has the desired positive relationship with innovation success. Effective championing behavior keeps an innovative idea alive by mobilizing support and building coalitions around the idea with critical individuals or important third parties. Moreover, this study challenges the widespread “heroic” discussion of championing as fundamentally positive “across the board.” The results show that persisting under adversity and taking responsibility are desirable up to some levels. Beyond such critical levels, these two champion behaviors may actually become detrimental to the innovation process. Being too persistent in the face of adversity or taking too much responsibility for the innovative idea might undermine the power of the champion's justifications for an innovation and thereby increase resistance to change. An “over‐performing” champion may interpret opposing communications as an unwarranted and injurious response. By taking overmuch responsibility for the innovative undertaking, the champion is likely to discourage contributions from other team members who see no valuable opportunity to bring their expertise and knowledge to the idea.     

Configurational paths to organizational innovation: qualitative comparative analyses of antecedents and contingencies

To explore complex patterns of causal interrelationships between antecedents of organizational innovation, this study applies fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to a large sample of German firms drawn from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). The results show several equifinal configurations of contextual factors leading to organizational innovation. Evidence also suggests complex substitutive and complementary relationships between factors and reveals their causal asymmetric influence on firm's innovation behavior. These findings help explain some inconsistent results in prior studies on organizational innovation.     

Horizontal and Vertical Firm Networks,Corporate Performance and Product Market Competition

This paper sheds new light on the assessment of firm networks via multiple directorships in terms of corporate firm performance. Using a large sample of European listed firms in the period from 2003 to 2011 and system GMM we find a significant compensation effect on corporate firm performance for the initial negative effect of horizontal multiple directorships by product market competition. In markets with effective competition, horizontal multiple directorships turn out to be an efficient mechanism to increase firm performance and thus assure competitive advantages. By contrast, linkages between up- and downstream firms have no significant influence on financial performance, irrespective of the level of competition intensity.     

Third‐degree price discrimination in the presence of congestion externality

This paper analyzes third‐degree price discrimination of a monopoly airline in the presence of congestion externality when all markets are served. The model features the business‐passenger and leisure‐passenger markets where business passengers exhibit a higher time valuation, and a less price‐elastic demand, than leisure passengers. Our main result is the identification of the time‐valuation effect of price discrimination, which can work in the opposite direction as the well‐known output effect on welfare. This time‐valuation effect clearly explains why discriminating prices can improve welfare even when this is associated with a reduction in aggregate output.