Warum sich Kommunen versichern

Most communes insure themselves and thus behave differently than the Federal Government and the Laender. In many cases communes take out insurance although they can in fact bear the covered risks on their own. Based on the assumption that municipal decision-makers behave reasonably, there are further good reasons to effect an insurance contract. The settlement process carried out by the insurance company in the event of damage or loss is such a major factor. Moreover, insurance can also constitute a service for citizens and help to ease conflicts. Finally, it cuts the costs for political transactions.     

Seeking convergence between history and futures research

The objective of this paper is to analyse how much the traditions of history research (HR) and futures research (FR) have in common and how they could assist each other. First, the role of time is analysed. Second, the path dependence theory, strategic decision-making, knowledge management and visionary management are discussed. Examples of the application of the latter in water and sanitation services and their long-term development are shown. Finally, some argumented views are presented on how the convergence between FR and HR could be improved.The key point of this research is the seeming discontinuity between presents, recent pasts and near futures. The traditions of HR probably make it more difficult to assess the effects of strategic decisions on the recent. If more convergence is wanted, the gap should be filled somehow. On the other hand, the core of FR research seems to concentrate more on strategic and visionary horizons while perhaps neglecting the operational horizon of the near future.     

中国投资者进军美国市场将获新途径

中国股市从不久前的辉煌之巅急转直下，而与此同时，这个全球第一人口大国的投资者们又将获得新的渠道进军包括美国在内的海外股市。     

Some Cracks in the Empire of Chance (Flaws in the Foundations of Reliability)

Making quantified statements about the uncertainty associated with the lifelength of an item is one of the most fundamental tasks of reliability assessment. Most practitioners routinely do this using one of the several available statistical techniques. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. The first is to give the user an overview of the key tenets of two of the most commonly used parametric approaches. The second is to point out that these commonly used approaches involve strategies that are either ad hoc, or are in violation of some of the underlying tenets. A method that is devoid of logical flaws can be proposed, but this method is difficult to implement. The user must therefore resign to using that technique against which the fewest objections can be hurled.     

Dynamic scoring: Alternative financing schemes

Neoclassical growth models predict that reductions in capital or labor income tax rates are expansionary when lump-sum transfers are used to balance the government budget. This paper explores the consequences of bond-financed tax reductions that bring forth a range of possible offsetting policies, including future government consumption, capital tax rates, or labor tax rates. Through the resulting intertemporal distortions, current tax cuts can be expansionary or contractionary. The paper also finds that more aggressive responses of offsetting policies to debt engender less debt accumulation and less costly tax cuts.     

A theory of innovation for process-based innovations such as nanotechnology

Many see Nanotechnology as the technology that will underlie the next Schumpeterian wave creating new opportunities for wealth and job creation. Further it is a process based or materials technology. Yet all currently used models of innovation are based on assembled products or service products and these simply do not recognize the differences in materials products nor the “enabling” nature of Nanotechnologies. If nanotechnology is poised to become the economic engine of this millennium and if current models of innovation, which are utilized, by policy makers and firm based strategist alike are based on technology product paradigms that are dissimilar to the realities of nanotechnology and other process-based technologies then there is cause for concern.Here the authors provide a model and supporting cases demonstrating a new process or materials based innovation model that is based on the tight coupling between product and process innovation of not only Nanotechnology-based products but other process-based products. This is an important finding, because it identifies and remedies a gap in the literature associated with earlier process and product innovation models. For process-based products like materials, food, chemicals and nanotechnologies any change to the manufacturing processes results in significant changes in end product features. The implications of this model to practice are considered.     

Competitive effects of Basel II on US bank credit card lending

We analyze the potential competitive effects of the proposed Basel II capital regulations on US bank credit card lending. We find that bank issuers operating under Basel II will face higher regulatory capital minimums than Basel I banks, with differences due to the way the two regulations treat reserves and gain-on-sale of securitized assets. During periods of normal economic conditions, this is not likely to have a competitive effect; however, during periods of substantial stress in credit card portfolios, Basel II banks could face a significant competitive disadvantage relative to Basel I banks and nonbank issuers.     

Predicting the budgetary funding need of education in the three-year budget for 2008–2010

The paper presents a technique developed by the authors, which makes it possible to determine the necessary amount of financing for education at all the budget system levels for 2008-2010, based on the Russian average value of financing, taking into account the budget expenditures index for two variants of student population, i.e. the actual number of on-budget students and the number of students required to meet the economy’s need for trained workers. The technique was developed and the calculations were made on the basis of Russian long-term forecasts and the Russian three-year federal budget for 2008–2010.