Entrepreneurial Marketing: Geringer Mitteleinsatz mit hoher Wirkung

Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM) will dem schwindenden Einfluss klassischer Medien entgegentreten. Bei den Konsumenten soll ein glaubwürdiges, anschlussf?higes Produktimage ankommen. So baut EM auf unkonventionelle Ma?nahmen zur Erzeugung von Aufmerksamkeit (Buzz Marketing), die exponentielle Diffusion von Kommunikationsinhalten (Viral Marketing), die Nutzung von Communities (Community Marketing) oder die (Aus-)Nutzung der Marketingma?nahmen der Konkurrenz (Ambush Marketing), und versucht, mit geringem Mitteleinsatz hohe Wirkungen zu erzielen (Guerilla Marketing).     

Bankenkrise: Steuerzahler tragen die Folgen

Ohne Zusammenfassung Rainer Kambeck ist Leiter des Kompetenzbereichs „?ffentliche Finanzen“ im Rheinisch-Westf?lischen Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI)     

Die ermittlung der anschaffungs- und herstellungskosten und niedrigerer werte nach ias und U.S. GAAP

Die Ermittlung der Anschaffungskosten nach IAS/U.S. GAAP erfolgt analog der Ermittlung nach HGB. In den Herstellungskosten nach IAS k?nnen unter Umst?nden Entwicklungskosten enthalten sein. Die Aktivierung von allgemeinen Verwaltungs- und Vertriebsgemeinkosten ist nicht zul?ssig. Das Niederstwertprinzip nach IAS/U.S. GAAP orientiert sich st?rker am Absatzmarkt (net realizable value). G?ngige Verbrauchsfolgeverfahren (FIFO, LIFO etc.) sind auch nach IAS/U.S. GAAP zul?ssig.     

Liberalisation of the internal market: Efficiency advantages and requirements

The expected welfare effects of the completion of the internal European market by 1992 will differ markedly from one member country to another. What requirements must be met for liberalisation of the internal market? How could the disparities in the distribution of welfare effects be lessened?     

THE NORMALIZED CES PRODUCTION FUNCTION: THEORY AND EMPIRICS

Abstract The elasticity of substitution between capital and labor and, in turn, the direction of technical change are critical parameters in many fields of economics. Until recently, though, the application of production functions with specifically non‐unitary substitution elasticities (i.e., non‐Cobb–Douglas) was hampered by empirical and theoretical uncertainties. As recently revealed, ‘normalization’ of production‐technology systems holds out the promise of resolving many of those uncertainties. We survey and assess the intrinsic links between production (as conceptualized in a production function), factor substitution (as made most explicit in Constant Elasticity of Substitution functions) and normalization (defined by the fixing of baseline values for relevant variables). First, we recall how the normalized Constant Elasticity of Substitution function came into existence and what normalization implies for its formal properties. Then we deal with the key role of normalization in recent advances in the theory of business cycles and of economic growth. Next, we discuss the benefits normalization brings for empirical estimation and empirical growth research. Finally, we identify promising areas of future research.     

Trading strategies based on term structure model residuals

The term structure of interest rates is an important input for basically every pricing model and is mostly calibrated on coupon bond prices. Therefore, the estimated interest rates should accurately explain the market prices of these bonds. However, nearly all empirical papers on interest rate estimation, e.g. Svensson, L.E.O. 1994. Estimating and interpreting forward interest rates: Sweden 1992–1994, IMF Working Paper, International Monetary Fund, report significant pricing errors in their sample. So an important question is what drives these pricing errors of the bonds. One simple explanation would be different tax treatment or different liquidity, but most papers on this research topic, e.g. Elton, E., and T.C. Green. 1998. Tax and liquidity effects in pricing government bonds. Journal of Finance 53: 1533–62, cannot fully explain the observed pricing errors. Therefore, these errors must be at least partially caused by either model misspecification or by the deviation of particular bond prices from general market conditions, i.e. mispricing revealing insufficient market efficiency. We provide empirical evidence for the German government bond market that risk-adjusted trading strategies based on bond pricing errors can yield about 15 basis points p.a. abnormal return compared to benchmark portfolios. Furthermore, the abnormal returns are continuously achieved over the whole time period and not randomly on a few days and show a relation to changes in the level and the curvature of the term structure of interest rates. Therefore, pricing errors contain economic information about deviations of bond prices from general market conditions and are not exclusively caused by model misspecification and/or differences in liquidity and tax treatment of individual bonds.     

Assessing empirical research on value-based management: Guidelines for improved hypothesis testing

The claims that value-based management (VBM) increases corporate performance have attracted considerable interest among researchers and organizations over the last three decades. Even though many studies have been conducted, the evidence on whether users outperform non-users is inconsistent. This paper attempts to place these diverse findings into perspective, and provide venues for future research. For that purpose, we drafted a framework to analyze 120 empirical studies on VBM. We concluded that meaningful hypothesis tests have been impaired by the narrow scope of data sets as well as methodological misspecifications. Based on this analysis, we categorized studies into four streams of research, employing factor analysis and cluster analysis. We then suggested that the most sophisticated studies identified positive performance effects of VBM. Lastly, we derived guidelines to improve the hypothesis testing of future studies on VBM.     

Günstige Aufkommensperspektiven — Steuererhöhungen nicht erforderlich

In May 2013, the Working Party on Tax Revenue Forecasting presented its new estimate, which is based on the federal government’s spring projection of the medium-term development of the overall economy. Tax revenues are estimated to expand from yy600 bn in 2012 to yy704.5 bn in 2017. Because the tax revenues increase at a faster pace than the nominal GDP, the tax-to-GDP ratio increases from 22.7% to 23.1%. Contrary to the diagnosis of the opposition parties in the German Bundestag, we see no structural revenue gap. In fact, public budgets will realise structural surpluses in the coming years if governments are successful in constraining expenditure growth. There are no convincing reasons to increase public revenues by increasing tax rates or launching new fees; in both cases tax burdens would increase and that would dampen economic growth. Instead, there will be budgetary leeway to reduce the fiscal drag if governments are committed to a sound consolidation policy.