Informations- und Beratungspflichten des Versicherers nach der VVG-Reform

The insurer’s duty to enable the customer to come to an appropriate decision, providing advice and information, is a central topic of the reform of the German insurance contract law. The obligations of intermediaries given by the Directive 2002/92/EC on insurance mediation are transferred to insurers and thereby enlarged in some aspects. The duty to give advice in §6 I 1 VVG depends on the objective circumstances of each individual case depending upon either the complexity of the insurance contract and problems in understanding its terms, or the characteristics and situation of the customer. Therewith, the regulation both refers to former jurisdiction and exceeds it by implementing a duty for the insurer to ask for the demands and the needs of the customer. Without reason in the special case the customer has to disclose his need for advice to obtain it. During the term of the contract the insurer is only obliged to give advice if he knows or — acting diligently — could know the needs of the policy-holder. On a European level further duties to inform and advise could help to achieve an effective internal insurance market.     

Owner liability and financial reporting information as predictors of firm default in bank loans

We examine the effects of owner liability and non-accounting and financial accounting information on the probability of default as defined in Basel II in bank loan contracted by non listed firms. We model default as a function of owner liability and accounting and non-accounting information of non-listed firms, drawing on 43,117 annual accounts of 16,029 firms over a 7-year period. Our estimations based on mixed logistic regressions with random parameters show that the predicted default probability of full-liability firms is 0.72 times that of limited liability firms. The likelihood ratio test for omitted variables confirms the additional predictive ability of liability status over and above other non-accounting and financial accounting information. A Heckman self-selection model does not indicate sampling bias. The particular definition of default used in the study enables the findings to be generalizable across other institutional contexts.     

The meta-crisis of secular capitalism

The current global economic crisis concerns the way in which contemporary capitalism has turned to financialisation as a double cure for both a falling rate of profit and a deficiency of demand. Although this turning is by no means unprecedented, policies of financialisation have depressed demand (in part as a result of the long-term stagnation of average wages) while at the same time not proving adequate to restore profits and growth. This paper argues that the current crisis is less the ‘normal’ one that has to do with a constitutive need to balance growth of abstract wealth with demand for concrete commodities. Rather, it marks a meta-crisis of capitalism that is to do with the difficulties of sustaining abstract growth as such. This meta-crisis is the tendency at once to abstract from the real economy of productive activities and to reduce everything to its bare materiality. By contrast with a market economy that binds material value to symbolic meaning, a capitalist economy tends to separate matter from symbol and reduce materiality to calculable numbers representing ‘wealth’. Such a conception of wealth rests on the aggregation of abstract numbers that cuts out all the relational goods and the ‘commons’ on which shared prosperity depends.     

Evaluating the economy embedded in the Brazilian ethanol–gasoline flex-fuel car: a Real Options approach

The introduction of the flex-fuel cars in the Brazilian market in 2003 changed considerably the consumer decision-making process. Prior to this date, it was necessary to choose the automobile type only by gasoline or by ethanol fuel; today it is possible to choose a car type with both fuel options. This flexibility generates economic advantages for his owner, but what are the financial benefits of a flex-fuel car in comparison with a car using only gasoline? Geographically, where is the owner of the benefits from this flexibility located? This article presents an empirical application of the Real Options Theory in the analysis of the flex-fuel car option for five geographic Brazilian regions: Northern, Northeastern, Central-Western, Southeastern and Southern. The regional price differences as well as the consumer preferences of these regions were met. For this purpose, historical fuel prices were considered stochastic and following a Mean Reverting Stochastic process. The prediction and option values were generated by a Monte Carlo simulation. The results indicated that the option embedded on the Brazilian flex-fuel car adds considerable value to the owner in all regions and car models considered, with the Southeastern Region receiving most benefits by the flex option.     

The carbon footprint of UK households 1990-2004: A socio-economically disaggregated, quasi-multi-regional input-output model

This paper presents a socio-economically disaggregated framework for attributing CO₂ emissions to people's high level functional needs. Based around a quasi-multi-regional input-output (QMRIO) model, the study, in theory, takes into account all CO₂ emissions that arise from energy used in production of goods and services to satisfy UK household demand, whether the emissions occur in the UK or abroad. Results show that CO₂ emissions attributable to households were 15% above 1990 levels in 2004, and that although absolute decoupling occurred between household expenditure and CO₂ during the UK's switch from coal to gas in the early 1990s, since then only slight relative decoupling is evident. The proportion of CO₂ that arises outside UK borders in support of UK consumption is rising, and reducing these emissions is particularly problematic in a global trading system. Investigation into the carbon footprint of different segments of the UK population shows wide variation: the segment with the highest carbon footprint emits 64% more CO₂ than the segment with the lowest. Results show that recreation and leisure are responsible for over one quarter of CO₂ emissions in a typical UK household in 2004. We conclude that expanding lifestyle aspirations are significant factors in driving household CO₂ emissions, but the study also emphasizes that attention must be paid to the infrastructures and institutions that result in considerable amounts of CO₂ being locked up in basic household activities through which people meet their everyday needs for subsistence, protection, and communication with family and friends. The findings highlight the sheer scale of the challenge facing UK policy-makers, and suggest that policies should be targeted towards segments of society responsible for the highest carbon footprints.     

Impacts of technology readiness on emotions and cognition in Brazil

This study proposes and tests an extended model for consumer adoption of high technology products in a Latin American country (Brazil) by integrating concepts present in the consumer behavior literature: the Consumer Acceptance of Technology model (Kulviwat et al., 2007) and the technology readiness construct (Parasuraman, 2000). The proposed model considers the relationships between cognitive and affective constructs with technology readiness. By means of structural equation modeling conducted on a sample of 435 young consumers, the results indicate significant relationships between the constructs assessed, showing that consumers' cognitive and affective evaluations of new technologies are significantly influenced by their technology readiness. The effects of technology readiness over affective assessments were greater than those relative to cognitive evaluations regarding high-tech innovations. Nonetheless, the results may reflect specific characteristics of Brazilian (and other Latin American) consumers, who are usually more emotive than those of more rational cultures.