US trade policy in an unbalanced world economy

Both the national as well as the international debate on US trade policy are overshadowed, and strongly influenced, by the large external inbalances of major trading nations. What do these disequilibria mean for US trade policy? Moreover, is the USA losing comparative advantage in agriculture and high-technology manufacturing? Do industrial policies in other countries distort American trade?     

National and international developments in technology

Declining R&;D intensities at the national level coincide with growing international technological links. In this context a number of questions arise: Do companies research in the same field of technology abroad as they do at home? Are the fields of technology in which R&;D is concentrated within a country those in which it has a comparative advantage? What drives the process of the internationalisation of technology? What are the implications for host countries and home countries? What are the implications for policy on a national and an international level?     

The WTO Compatibility of the Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and the ACP Countries

The economic partnership agreements (EPAs) to be negotiated between the European Union and six different ACP regions under the Cotonou Agreement are intended to be in conformity with WTO rules, i.e. satisfy GATT Article XXIV and GATS Article V. To what extent is this realistic? What would be the effects on the ACP countries?

---

---

This article summarises the following study: A. Borrmann, H. Gro?mann, and G. Koopmann: The WTO Compatibility of the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and the ACP States, Study on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, Eschborn 2005, http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/enwto-epa-acp-2005.pdf.     

Trends in the international competitiveness of industrial countries

It has become fashionable in recent times to describe the state of the Western European economies with the word “eurosclerosis”. Is the international competitiveness of these economies really as ailing as this world implies? The following article attempts to answer this question using various methods of measuring international competitiveness.     

Wettbewerb und Regulierung des Bahnmarktes

Die Wettbewerbssituation auf dem deutschen Bahnmarkt ist vielschichtig: Sowohl die verschiedenen Teilsegmente des Bahnmarktes als auch der intermodale Wettbewerb müssen berücksichtigt werden. Dabei besteht die Gefahr, die Wettbewerbsposition des gesamten Eisenbahnverkehrs gegenüber anderen Verkehrstr?gern aus den Augen zu verlieren.     

The Relevance of Financial versus Non-Financial Information for the Valuation of Venture Capital-Backed Firms

This study examines the relevance of financial and non-financial information for the valuation of venture capital (VC) investments. Based on a hand-collected data set on venture-backed start-ups in Germany, we investigate the internal due diligence documents of over 200 investment rounds. We document that balance sheet and income statement items capture as much economic content as verifiable non-financial information (e.g. team experience or the number of patents) while controlling for several deal characteristics (e.g. industry, investment round, or yearly VC fund inflows). In addition, we show that valuations based on accounting and non-accounting information yield a level of valuation accuracy that is comparable to that of publicly traded firms. Further analyses show that the industry-specific total asset multiples outperform the popular revenue multiples but lead to significantly less accurate results than those obtained from the more comprehensive valuation models. Overall, our findings might inform researchers and standard-setters of the usefulness of accounting information for investment companies and provide additional evidence to gauge the overall valuation accuracy in VC settings.     

A note on forecasting the prices of gold and silver: Asymmetric loss and forecast rationality

Given that the prices of gold and silver have witnessed large and substantial swings in recent years, policymakers and investors need readily available and reliable forecasts of the prices of these two precious metals. Survey data of forecasts of the prices of gold and silver provide a particularly rich data environment for policymakers and investors to study developments in the markets for gold and silver. Our research helps to develop a deeper understanding of the properties of survey data of the prices of gold and silver. We study the shape of forecasters’ loss function and the rationality of their forecasts. Assuming an asymmetric loss function weakens evidence against forecast rationality, but results depend on the empirical model being studied.     

Leadership in Organizational Knowledge Creation: A Review and Framework

Organizational knowledge creation integrates context, knowledge assets, and knowledge creation processes throughout the organization. Using organizational knowledge creation theory as an organizing framework, we conduct a literature review that shows prior work has focused on the role of central, upper‐echelon, leadership in knowledge creation processes, without devoting much attention to context and knowledge assets. To remedy these weaknesses, we develop a new framework for situational leadership in organizational knowledge creation. The framework is based on a continuum that ranges from centralized to distributed leadership at three layers of activity: a core layer of local knowledge creation; a conditional layer that provides the resources and context for knowledge creation; and a structural layer that forms the overall frame and direction for knowledge creation in the organization. We discuss the implications of this framework for theory and practice.