A politicoeconomic model of wage inflation

Summary The paper employs a public choice perspective to develop a model of centralized union wage bargaining. The actors considered are political parties, employers' federations, voters, union officials and members of the rank and file, with the emphasis being put on the latter three. Control theory is used to analyze bargaining outcomes in a dynamic context. The theoretical consequences of the model, which stress the importance of political variables such as government ideology, preferences of the rank and file members, election dates and the degree of union centralization on wage inflation, are supported by West German data.Helpful comments from Chris Goodrich and an anonymous referee of this Journal are gratefully acknowledged.     

Mindestreserveeffekte und die Grundgeldmenge des SachverstÄndigenrats

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Regional taxonomy : A comparison of some hierarchic and non-hierarchic strategies

The effects of subjective decisions, particularly in the case of regional taxonomic methodology are often underestimated. Therefore the aptitude of alternative methods needs more careful evaluation. Comparisons of competing methods would provide important guidelines. A general evaluative approach based upon the discrepancy between the original resemblance and the derived cophenetic matrix is outlined for the hierarchic regional taxonomic case. Five main aggregative linkage strategies are appraised by means of quantitative measures. Furthermore two iterative non-hierarchic methods are compared for handling non-hierarchic regional taxonomic problems, where particular attention is paid to the influence of different initial partitions upon the (sub) optimal result.     

Rezensionen

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The optimal timing of the transfer of hidden reserves in the German and Austrian tax systems

The lower-of-cost-or-market principle implies that assets may be sold above book value, by which hidden reserves are disclosed. To avoid taxation of these hidden reserves, in German-speaking countries companies are allowed to transfer them to a newly purchased asset within a fixed time period. In this paper, the optimal timing of hidden reserves transfers is developed with special attention to the term structure of interest rates and interest rate risk, and using the replicating principle known from the field of finance. The paper presents one model under certainty and, as a generalization of this model, another model under interest rate risk. In both models, the criterion used for decision-making is the value of the right to transfer, which can be interpreted as the initial cost of a replicating/hedging strategy for tax payments saved/incurred. In the model under certainty, the net present value concept is used to derive the value of the right to transfer. The procedure used in the model under interest rate risk is a combination of flexible planning and the no-arbitrage approach common in derivatives pricing. It is shown that the right to transfer hidden reserves with flexible timing is equivalent to an American-style exchange option. In addition, the impact of term-structure volatility on the value of the right to transfer is analyzed. The technique presented in this paper can also be used to solve other timing problems resulting from trade-offs between early and late tax payments/tax benefits. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intervention in the mark/dollar market: the authorities' reaction function

This paper investigates the intervention behavior of the Deutsche Bundesbank in the dollar/DM market over the period 1974 to 1981. An intervention reaction model is developed which stresses the conditioning role of perceived exchange-rate uncertainty. The most important findings from non-linear estimates are: (i) an increase in perceived exchange rate risk shifts the Bundesbank's trade-off between money and exchange-rate control in favor of the former aim, probably due to risk aversion of the managers of the foreign department; (ii) the Bank tries to counter exchange speculation by compressing the expected risk premium; and (iii) the Bank does not completely sterilize.