Knowledge Disclosure and Transmission in Buyer–Supplier Relationships

A buyer’s technical knowledge may increase the efficiency of its supplier. Suppliers, however, frequently maintain relationships with additional buyers. Knowledge disclosure then bears the risk of benefiting one’s own rival due to opportunistic knowledge transmission through the common supplier. We show that in one-shot relationships no knowledge disclosure takes place because the supplier has an incentive to transmit and, anticipating that, buyers refuse to disclose any of their knowledge. In repeated relationships knowledge disclosure is stabilized by larger technological proximity between buyers and suppliers and destabilized by the absolute value of the knowledge.      

Abschaffung der Abgeltungsteuer — gerechter und steuersystematisch einheitlicher?

There is a rising political discussion in Germany around abolishing the final withholding tax on capital income. The German tax reforms that introduced this tax lowered tax rates, in particular on interest income. According to some authors, the growing inequality of income and property is a strong argument for the higher taxation of capital income. However, other authors argue that the neutrality aspects concerning private investment are inadequate. An abolishment of the final withholding tax would not solve these problems and, moreover, would turn back the achieved improvements. Therefore, the German Council of Economic Experts suggests complementing the previous reforms by introducing an allowance for corporate equity.     

Rentenpaket: die Bundesregierung auf Irrwegen

In the summer of 2014 Germany will witness the most substantial expansion of pension expenditures since the 1950s. Yet, while this reform package was motivated mainly by the dismal prospect of rising old age poverty rates, it does little to alleviate this problem. On the contrary, its two central elements, an expansion of the pension claims of mothers whose children were born before 1992, and access to early retirement at age 63 for workers with a long insurance history, tend to benefit rather privileged groups of the insured. These measures endanger the sustainability of the German pension system and will necessitate future generations to work even longer than would have been the case otherwise.     

Innovativer Energiespeicher Bundeswasserstraßen

The present analysis provides a contribution to the question of how a system integration of large-scale energy storages can be implemented. It is to be investigated if and how federal waterways can be used for this purpose. Initially, a baseline study was carried out in which the federal waterways are systematically assessed with regard to their suitability for/as energy storage systems. Apart from the technical and the hydro mechanical implementation of the storage process, the advantages and disadvantages of the federal waterways in comparison to conventional pump storage stations play a significant role. A presentation and classification of the potentially available canal sections provides an overview of the suitable storage systems of the federal waterways. A specifically designed storage simulation on the basis of a sample application is used, in order to determine the capacity of the canal system for energy storage. Consequently, the simulation showed the theoretical capability of the federal waterways as energy storage systems, through their ability to balance the load and temporal fluctuations of the energy input. The simulation program Matlab was used on the basis of the synthetic load and delivery profiles. Finally, based on the example of the ships lock in Uelzen and the Scharnebeck boats lift, a simulation of the possible re-equipping options will be described, technically abstracted, economically analysed and combined with renewable energy facilities within a virtual power plant. The detailed formulation of further approaches and the calculation of possible application scenarios play a central role within this analysis.     

User Toolkits for Innovation: Consumers Support Each Other

User toolkits for innovation were recently proposed as a means to eliminate (costly) exchange of need-related information between users and manufactures in the product development process. The method transfers certain development tasks to users and thereby empowers them to create their own desired product features. This article examines the implications of different levels of opportunities for consumer involvement (OCI) in product development to learn what happens when firms pass design tasks on to consumers. It explores this issue by studying the relation between the employment of user toolkits and the need for firms to support their consumers. An analysis of 78 computer games products and the amount of support given by firms to the consumers of these products suggests that a share of the costs firms save on information acquisition by letting consumers "do it themselves" may eventually reemerge as costs in consumer support. In other words, an increase in opportunities for consumer involvement seems to increase the need for supporting consumers. A promising solution to the problem of support costs is identified, namely, the establishment of consumer–consumer support interaction. A case study of an outlier in terms of firm support to consumers—Westwood Studios—shows that consumers who use toolkits may be willing to support each other. Such interactive problem solving in a firm-established user community is advantageous to the firm, because the process reduces the amount of resources that the firm itself needs to dedicate to the support of consumers using toolkits. Generally, consumer-to-consumer interaction can facilitate problem-solving in the consumer domain, can aid the diffusion of toolkit related knowledge, and potentially can enhance the outcomes produced by the toolkit approach.