Zur Grundkonzeption der Wirtschaftslehre der Unternehmung

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Double talk—The political economy of eastward enlargement of the EU

There is an inherent ambiguity in the attitude of the EU towards eastern enlargement. On the one hand, since the Gothenburg Council of June 2001 the EU appears to be at last on the brink of a first round of eastward enlargement. On the other hand, the major internal reforms in the EU which are essential if enlargement is to take place have so far made only unsatisfactory progress. What are the reasons for this situation? What are the perspectives?     

Explaining the reduction in the gender wage gap during the 1990–94 economic recession in Spain

Many studies reveal that male-female wage differentials increase with the level of unemployment, suggesting that women are hurt by a recession more than men. However, the 1990–94 economic recession in Spain contributed to reduce the gender wage gap by almost 5 percentage points (from 83.94 percent in 1990 to 90.44 percent in 1994). This was mainly due to the relative increase in services industry employment, the activity where the gender wage gap is the lowest.     

How wide is the gap? An investigation of gender wage differences using quantile regression

In this paper we re-examine the link between subjective perceptions and objective measures of wage discrimination by estimating the mean and several quantiles in the conditional wage distribution of men and women in order to decompose the gender wage gap into the part attributed to different characteristics and the part attributable to differential returns to these characteristics at points other than the conditional expectation. In the process we take into account the endogeneity of educational choice and the participation decision of women. The results suggest that the absolute wage gap and the component of the latter that can be attributed to different returns to characteristics increase over the wage scale.     

Testing nonlinearity: Decision rules for selecting between logistic and exponential STAR models

A new LM specification procedure to choose between Logistic and Exponential Smooth Transition Autoregressive (STAR) models is introduced. The new decision rule has better properties than those previously available in the literature when the model is ESTAR and similar properties when the model is LSTAR. A simple natural extension of the usual LM-test for linearity is introduced and evaluated in terms of power. Monte-Carlo simulations and empirical evidence are provided in support of our claims.     

The effects of public infrastructure on the cost structure of Spanish industries

This paper examines the impact of public infrastructures on the performance of Spanish private business at a disaggregated industry level. We use duality theory to recover the productivity effects of public capital by calculating the cost saving effects that are associated to public services. Using a translog cost function we present panel estimates for 14 Spanish industries during the period 1980–1991. Our results strongly suggest that public capital formation can be considered to be an instrument to improve competitiveness by reducing production costs. However, the results also indicate that there is a technologically induced labor saving effect through higher public investment. Furthermore, our estimates suggest that a distinction among industries is of importance because the effects of public infrastructures vary across industries considerably.     

Health Systems and Health Reform in Europe

The organisation of health care differs widely across Europe. Access to services, financing schemes, incentives for better care, and administrative efficiency are challenges that are being dealt with in a variety of ways. Are insurance-based systems the best solution for balancing resources and services or are national health funds preferable? Does the introduction of competition fulfil high hopes for better service at lower costs? What are the relative advantages and drawbacks of central and local management of health care?     

Complementary Resources and Capabilities for an Ethical and Environmental Management: A Qual/Quan Study

Managers’ commitment to contribute to sustainable development holds the key to their long-term business success and may be a source of competitive advantage. The managerial perception of business ethics is influenced by the level of moral development and personal characteristics of managers. These perceptions are also shaped by forces existing in the environment of the firm, including available resources, societal expectations, sector, and regulations. The resource-based perspective can thus contribute to the analysis of ethical issues offering important insights on how they can influence the environmental strategy of the firm. The findings of this study show that firm resources have a strong influence on business managers’ ethical attitudes. In addition, the application of resource-based rationales to ethical issues can be justified in the following several ways: it influences a managerial perception of natural environment as a competitive opportunity, it requires investments of financial and human resources, flexibility and speed in the adaptation to environmental changes, and it creates new resource-based opportunities through changes in prevention pollution technology, policy process, and market forces.     

Compliance with Mandatory Environmental Reporting in Financial Statements: The Case of Spain (2001–2003)

Corporate, Social, Ethical and Environmental Reporting (SEER) should ideally discharge the accountability of an organisation to its stakeholders. Voluntary reporting has been characterised by a dearth of neutral and objective information such that the advocates of SEER recommend that it be made compulsory. Their underlying rationale is that legally specified disclosure requirements and enforcement mechanisms will enhance the quality of such reporting. This paper sets out to explore how realistic this scenario actually is, in view of the conflicting interpretations in the literature on this subject. To that end, a survey of the reporting patterns of 78 of the largest Spanish companies between 2001 and 2003 examines the extent of their compliance with the ICAC-2002 standard, which obliged them to make environmental disclosures in their financial statements. The results suggest that progressive and improved regulation could increase the volume and quality of SEER disclosures. They also suggest, however, that persistent non-compliance means that the problems associated with voluntary disclosure still exist. Finally, through an impression management perspective, the study reveals, the diverse strategies, ranging from dismissal to concealment, that are employed by companies to avoid transparency. As regulation improves and enforcement expectations rise, it becomes more difficult to dismiss compulsory reporting norms. As a result, some firms engage in more complex concealment strategies to attain corporate legitimacy, depriving stakeholders of regulatory information. The latter point serves to reconcile apparently contradictory explanations in the literature as to whether legitimacy theory might explain partial compliance with SEER regulation. Irene Criado-Jiménez is a Doctoral Candidate at the Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas, Universidad de Burgos. Her research interests include accounting for sustainable development and corporate accountability. Manuel Fernández-Chulián is a Doctoral Candidate at the Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas, Universidad de Burgos. His research interests include sustainability reporting and full cost accounting. Francisco Javier Husillos-Carqués is Assistant at the Departamento de Gestión de Empresas, Universidad Pública de Navarra and a Doctoral Candidate at the Universidad de Burgos. His research interests include social and environmental reporting and environmental management. Carlos Larrinage-González is Associate Professor at the Departamento de Economía y Administración de Empresas, Universidad de Burgos. His research interests include social and environmental accounting. He writes for interdisciplinary journals in accounting. He has co-edited special issues in European Accounting Review and Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal and currently is an Associate Editor of the Revista de Contabilidad-Spanish Accounting Review.