Wie weit tr?gt der Bachelor? Zum aktuellen Stand der Bologna-Reform in Deutschland

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) states that the Bologna Accords have been successfully implemented in Germany. However, empirical studies show that this can be very questionable. The aim to reduce the average study duration has not been accomplished mainly due to a higher than expected conversion rate from Bachelor to Master level. Although the Bachelor’s degree is broadly accepted among future employers, the majority of students do not trust the career opportunities with a Bachelor’s degree only and prefer to undertake a Master’s degree. In fact, the starting salaries for Bachelor’s degree graduates, especially from universities, are significantly lower than for the graduates holding a Diploma or a Master’s degree.     

Die ökologisch-ethische Berichtspflicht für Altersvorsorgeprodukte — eine Herausforderung für Finanzdienstleister

The German pension reform (Riester-Rente) of 2001 introduces a SRI (Socially Responsible Investing) disclosure regulation to provider of pension schemes. Providers are obliged to declare yearly how they take ethical, ecological or social criteria into account for capital investments of the collected premiums. The legislator intends an expansion of the market for sustainable investments. In the area of chances and risks a postal survey elicits the potential effects of these reporting duties on investment decisions.The majority of German financial service provider conducts product development and design on its own. Nevertheless ethical, ecological or social criteria play a rather middle to subordinate role. Reasons are: missing of approved standards for sustainable appraisal, a small demand, a difficult marketing and the assumption of an underdevelopment of value and return of sustainable investments. Most providers will only follow the prescribed reporting duties. Therefore financial service providers do not expect an explicit impulse, but certain stimulation in favour of sustainable development at the capital market.     

Challenges and perspectives for a single market for financial services in Europe

The introduction of the euro has highlighted the fact that Europe’s financial markets are still characterised by a high degree of fragmentation. This threatens to impede the process of structural reform which is hoped to increase the competitiveness of the European economy. The modernisation of the European economy should therefore start with the modernisation of its financial services markets.     

Access to credit and its determinants: A comparison of survey‐based measures

Measuring access to finance represents an important challenge in empirical studies. Due to data limitations, perception‐based indicators or the usage of finance are often used as approximations of access to finance. However, these approximations disregard firm‐specific differences in the demand for finance. We derive a direct measure of access to credit from firm‐level survey data and explicitly model credit demand. We study the determinants of access to credit and disentangle, in contrast to other measures, their effects on demand for and access to credit. We find that the usage of credit is not a sufficient approximation, while perception‐based indicators are surprisingly precise.     

Markovian lifts of positive semidefinite affine Volterra-type processes

We consider stochastic partial differential equations appearing as Markovian lifts of matrix-valued (affine) Volterra-type processes from the point of view of the generalized Feller property (see, e.g., Dörsek and Teichmann in A semigroup point of view on splitting schemes for stochastic (partial) differential equations, 2010. arXiv:1011.2651). We introduce in particular Volterra Wishart processes with fractional kernels and values in the cone of positive semidefinite matrices. They are constructed from matrix products of infinite dimensional Ornstein–Uhlenbeck processes whose state space is the set of matrix-valued measures. Parallel to that we also consider positive definite Volterra pure jump processes, giving rise to multivariate Hawkes-type processes. We apply these affine covariance processes for multivariate (rough) volatility modeling and introduce a (rough) multivariate Volterra Heston-type model.

     

Affine multiple yield curve models

We provide a general and tractable framework under which all multiple yield curve modeling approaches based on affine processes, be it short rate, Libor market, or Heath–Jarrow–Morton modeling, can be consolidated. We model a numéraire process and multiplicative spreads between Libor rates and simply compounded overnight indexed swap rates as functions of an underlying affine process. Besides allowing for ordered spreads and an exact fit to the initially observed term structures, this general framework leads to tractable valuation formulas for caplets and swaptions and embeds all existing multicurve affine models. The proposed approach also gives rise to new developments, such as a short rate type model driven by a Wishart process, for which we derive a closed‐form pricing formula for caplets. The empirical performance of two specifications of our framework is illustrated by calibration to market data.     

A new chance for trade and investment

International investment flows have increased rapidly with the growing globalization of markets and production. These flows will be of greatest benefit to the world economy as a whole if they can be based on a transparent and predictable system of generally recognized rules. What strategy should the EU adopt to help create those rules? *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A02GP103 00002     

A new exchange rate mechanism for the Euro age

Only a limited number of countries will participate in the single currency area at its formation on January 1st, 1999. A new link between the currencies participating in the Euro zone and those unable or unwilling to do so must therefore be created. A new EMS, with the Euro as its anchor currency, must be installed to ease the path into EMU for those countries that wish to join at a later date.