Unspoken ethical issues in the climate affair: Insights from a theoretical analysis of negotiation mandates

Taking climate change as an example, this paper provides new insights on the optimal provision of a long-term public good within and across generations. We write the Bowen–Lindhal–Samuelson (BLS) conditions for the optimal provision of the public good in a world divided into N countries, with two periods, present and future, and we simultaneously determine the optimal response in the first and second periods for a given rate of pure time preference. However, the Negishi weights at second period cannot be determined unambiguously, even under a “no redistribution constraint” within each generation, because they depend on non-observable future incomes; and thus on the answers to two often-overlooked ethical questions: (i) Do rich countries agree on deals which recognize that developing countries may catch up with developed countries in the long run, or do they use their negotiating powers to preserve the current balance of power? And (ii) does each country consider only the welfare of its own future citizens (dynastic solidarity) or does it extend its concern to all future human beings (universal solidarity)? Answers to (i) and (ii)—critical in the debate about how to correct the market failures causing global warming—define four sets of Negishi weights and intertemporal welfare functions, which we interpret as four mandates that countries could give to the Chair of an international negotiation on climate change to find an optimal solution. We find that in all mandates, public good provision expenditures are decreasing functions of income at first period. But each mandate leads to a different allocation of expenditures at second period and to different optimal levels of public good provision at both first and second periods. Finally, we show that only one of these four mandates defines a space for viable compromises.     

Momentum strategies of German mutual funds

The existence of the momentum effect in stock returns has been documented for the US (e.g., Jegadeesh and Titman in J. Finance 48(1), 65–91, 1993) and many other national equity markets worldwide (e.g., Griffin et al. in J. Finance 58(6), 2515–2547, 2003). However, little is known about the active employment of momentum strategies among institutional investors outside the US. This paper provides first evidence of momentum behavior among German mutual funds. We find the fund trades to follow stock returns on an aggregated institutional level. Moreover, we detect significant momentum behavior among funds with a European and global equity focus, as well as among funds predominantly investing in Asia. In contrast, German funds do not seem to engage in momentum strategies when trading domestic stocks. While only half the funds in our sample trade in accordance with past returns, 66 % of the funds within the largest size quintile follow momentum strategies. Finally, we do not find momentum trading funds to outperform the other funds.     

The effect of wage dispersion on team outcome and the way team outcome is produced

The impact of intra-team pay dispersion on team productivity is a highly discussed issue. On the one hand, wage differentials provide incentives for higher employee effort. On the other hand, pay inequality may reduce team cohesiveness and increase feelings of relative deprivation leading to lower performance. Analysing nonlinear effects of wage dispersion in professional soccer, we find empirical evidence that team performance is strongest when there is either very high or very low wage inequality. Medium levels produce the weakest team performance. In addition, we show that the pay structure affects the team's playing style even after controlling for team and coach heterogeneity. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications as well as the limits of generalization.     

重庆洲际酒店 遍享山城品味

重庆洲际酒店坐落于重庆市最繁华的商业和金融中心地段的渝中区,无论是购物还是娱乐入住洲际酒店都将会给客人带来绝对的方便。步行几分钟,就可以融入解放碑繁华的闹市之中,享受这个城市独有的美食和文化。作为全球著名酒店管理集团洲际酒店集团旗下的知名酒店品牌,洲际酒店已将享誉全球的优质贴心服务带到了重庆,并且得到了大众的肯定。重庆洲际酒店曾获得福布斯评选的“2008中国最佳商务酒店“、“重庆典范“奖之“新重庆形象酒店行业代言品牌“等诸多殊荣。     

Who Counts in Crises? The New Geopolitics of International Migration and Refugee Governance

Recent migration ‘crises’ raise important geopolitical questions. Who is ‘the migrant’ that contemporary politics are fixated on? How are answers to ‘who counts as a migrant’ changing? Who gets to do that counting, and under what circumstances? This forum responds to, as well as questions, the current saliency of migration by examining how categories of migration hold geopolitical significance—not only in how they are constructed and by whom, but also in how they are challenged and subverted. Furthermore, by examining how the very concepts of ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’ are used in different contexts, and for a variety of purposes, it opens up critical questions about mobility, citizenship and the nation state. Collectively, these contributions aim to demonstrate how problematising migration and its categorisation can be a tool of enquiry into other phenomena and processes.     

An advanced multimedia infrastructure for WWW-based information systems

We present an advanced multimedia infrastructure that integrates continuous real-time media streams within the WWW. This new service architecture focuses on advanced facilities for dealing with multimedia contents. A mediation server is at the heart of the infrastructure. It organizes and structures the multimedia information space. In addition to simple services for accessing and delivering multimedia data, it provides new functionalities for filtering and querying multimedia content. Content servers and on-line sources deliver media streams integrated within synchronized multimedia presentations. We think that the infrastructure will offer new opportunities for WWW-based information systems and electronic commerce. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Tariff and Quota Reform with International Capital Mobility

In a small, open economy with a convex production set, international capital mobility raises the cost of tariff protection on one subset of imports if there are irremovable quotas on another. Given irremovable quotas on one subset of imports, free trade is the optimal policy toward all other imports, with or without international capital mobility. Further, in the scalar case, international capital mobility reduces the optimal implicit excess tariff on the quota-constrained import if an irremovable tariff is in place on the other import.