Rezensionen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

How does the Community wish to revitalise its railways?

In recent years the European Community (EC) has increased its rail transport activities. Current European policy is aimed at revitalising the railway sector, the intermodal market shares of which have strongly declined within the last decades, especially in the area of freight services. What measures has the Community taken to achieve its goal? How can its policy be characterised? Are EC actions really suited to improving the performance of European railways? Finally, by engaging in rail transport, do supranational actors take general regulatory reform principles into consideration?     

Hauptprobleme der 7. Kartellnovelle: Die Wende in der Kartellpolitik

Am 1. Juli 2005 ist die 7. Kartellnovelle in Kraft getreten. Im Mittelpunkt steht eine Anpassung des deutschen an das europäische Kartellrecht. Was wurde bei der Harmonisierung des deutschen Kartellrechts im einzelnen beschlossen?     

Individual choice or collective action? Exploring consumer motives for participating in alternative food networks

Alternative food networks (AFNs) are growing in number and relevance in Germany. Those networks include new models of production and distribution, such as food cooperatives (FoodCoops), self‐harvest gardens or community‐supported agriculture (CSA) schemes. AFNs, as an alternative to conventional food supply systems, are characterized by a close producer‐consumer interaction. They are typically located within urban or peri‐urban areas. The study aims to identify the rationale and motivation of urban residents in participating in AFNs and developing a consumer typology. We also assess whether AFNs potentially lead to collective action with societal impact. Therefore, we conducted a qualitative content analysis based on 18 interviews with members of existing AFN projects in three German metropolitan regions. Our results revealed that the willingness of urban consumers to participate in AFNs is driven by a broad range of motives. They include personal desire for high‐quality food (in terms of taste or freshness) and health reasons, but also political or environmental motives (opposition to conventional agriculture or short transport distances). Furthermore, consumers often want to support a certain farmer and his/her philosophy or they appreciate the community‐building aspect. Three different consumer types were derived from the motive combinations. Many consumers communicated a sense of belonging to a societal movement, however, our study revealed a lack of organization and collective action. Although AFNs can influence the consumption patterns of individuals, their potential to induce social change and to challenge traditional models of consumption in the near future does not appear to be high.     

Do financial conglomerates create or destroy economic value?

This paper investigates whether functional diversification is value-enhancing or value-destroying in the financial services sector, broadly defined. Based on a U.S. dataset comprising approximately 4060 observations covering the period 1985–2004, we report a substantial and persistent conglomerate discount among financial intermediaries. Our results suggest that it is diversification that causes the discount, and not that troubled firms diversify into other more promising areas. In addition, the discount applies to all financial services activity-areas with the exception of investment banking and is stable over different combinations of financial activity-areas with the exception of commercial banking units combined with insurance companies and/or investment banking activities.     

Development of a Network-location-model for the Economic Optimization of Local Heating Systems in Urban Chile

Cogeneration of heat and electricity is an important pillar of energy and climate policy. To plan the production and distribution system of combined heat and power (CHP) systems for residential heating, suitable methods for decision support are needed. For a comprehensive feasibility analysis, the integration of the location and capacity planning of the power plants, the choice of customers, and the network planning of the heating network into one optimization model are necessary. Thus, we develop an optimization model for electricity generation and heat supply. This mixed integer linear program (MILP) is based on graph theory for network flow problems. We apply the network location model for the optimization of district heating systems in the City of Osorno in Chile, which exhibits the “checkerboard layout” typically found in many South American cities. The network location model can support the strategic planning of investments in renewable energy projects because it permits the analysis of changing energy prices, calculation of break-even prices for heat and electricity, and estimation of greenhouse gas emission savings.