Horizontale Entflechtung als Instrument einer aktiven Wettbewerbspolitik

Angesichts einer nach wie vor nur schwach wettbewerblich ausgepr?gten Marktstruktur auf dem deutschen wie auch auf anderen europ?ischen Elektrizit?tserzeugungsm?rkten, hat sich in jüngerer Zeit eine intensive Diskussion über ad?quate Instrumente zur Steigerung der Wettbewerbsintensit?t entwickelt. Wie lie?e sich eine aktive Wettbewerbspolitik begründen? Welche Ma?nahmen sind zur Erhaltung des Wettbewerbs geeignet? Was lehren die internationalen Erfahrungen mit der Entflechtung von hoch konzentrierten M?rkten? Prof. Dr. Christian von Hirschhausen, 43, leitet den Lehrstuhl für Energiewirtschaft und Public Sector Management (EE2) an der Technischen Universit?t Dresden; Dr. Anne Neumann, 31, und Hannes Weigt, 26, Dipl.-Wi.-Ing., sind Mitarbeiter am Lehrstuhl für Energiewirtschaft und Public Sector Management. Dieser Artikel basiert auf einer Studie, die im Auftrag des Hessischen Ministeriums für Wirtschaft, Verkehr und Landesentwicklung durchgeführt wurde. Die vollst?ndige Studie kann von der Webseite des Lehrstuhls heruntergeladen werden: www.ee2.biz. Das Manuskript wurde im Dezember 2007 abgeschlossen.     

Political culture: a theory in search for methodology. An editorial

Quality & Quantity -     

Energy Informatics

Due to the increasing importance of producing and consuming energy more sustainably, Energy Informatics (EI) has evolved into a thriving research area within the CS/IS community. The article attempts to characterize this young and dynamic field of research by describing current EI research topics and methods and provides an outlook of how the field might evolve in the future. It is shown that two general research questions have received the most attention so far and are likely to dominate the EI research agenda in the coming years: How to leverage information and communication technology (ICT) to (1) improve energy efficiency, and (2) to integrate decentralized renewable energy sources into the power grid. Selected EI streams are reviewed, highlighting how the respective research questions are broken down into specific research projects and how EI researchers have made contributions based on their individual academic background.     

Domestic concentration,foreign trade and economic performance

In a competitive fringe model the impact of concentration on price-cost margins can be shown to be ambiguous. Therefore, looking at the relationship between rates of return and concentration ratios is not sufficient for perceiving collusive elements. In this paper a model is set up that permits discerning collusion more clearly. Additional evidence concerning collusion can be gained by analyzing the influence of exports and imports on price-cost margins. Applying this approach to West Germany yields the result that the collusiveness prevailing in domestic markets has not visibly decreased in spite of a substantial increase in foreign trade.     

Stopping deforestation in the Amazon: Trade-off between ecological and economic targets?

Stopping Deforestation in the Amazon: Trade-off between Ecological and Economic Targets? —Using a computable general equilibrium model the paper analyzes the regional, sectoral and macroeconomic dimension of Brazil’s “deforestation problem”. It is shown that macroeconomic reform is not in conflict with conservation policies. Therefore, there is no need for compensation payments but rather for improving the effectiveness of conservation policies by macroeconomic reform. The analysis also shows that regional conservation policies are generally superior to sectoral conservation policies.     

The Method of Purging Applied to Repeated Cross-Sectional Data

In cross-sectional survey research, it is quite common to estimate the(standardized) effect of independent variable(s) on a dependent variable. However, if repeated cross-sectional data are available, much is to be gained if the consequences of these effects on longitudinal social change are considered.To assess these consequences, we describe a type of simulation in whichlongitudinal shifts in the independent variable's distribution, and longitudinal variation in effect on the dependent variable are `purged' from the data. Although the method of purging is known for many years, we add new practical features by relating the method to logistic and linear regression analysis. Because both logistic and linear regression analysis can be found in all majorstatistical packages, the method of purging is made available to a wider group of social scientists. With the use of repeated cross-sectional data, gathered in the Netherlands between 1970 and 1998, the new practical features of the purging method are shown, using the SPSS package.