Costs and benefits of EU enlargement

While the political benefits of the coming EU enlargement are relatively easy to identify, its economic and financial consequences are less unequivocal. The following article examines the likely costs and benefits of enlargement to both existing and future Members, and in particular how it will affect Germany, one of the few present EU Member States which has direct borders with acceding states. The article expresses the personal opinions of the author.     

The New Economy is dead,long live the information economy

The arrival of the 2001–2003 recession caused many to suppose that the so-called “New Economy” was now defunct. This article addresses a number of related issues, including the question of the durability and viability of business cycles in the face of the technological developments of the information age. It asks what went wrong with the New Economy and examines its characteristics as well as its remaining possibilities and prospects for the future. Finally, it considers the spread of the Information Economy to Europe, especially to Germany, the country that one might expect to be the leading European player, but which is not at present actually a strong competitor for that role.     

Approximating unanimity orderings: An application to Lorenz dominance

Stochastic dominance and Lorenz dominance are examples of orderings which require unanimous agreement among an infinite set of indices. This paper considers various subsets of inequality measures that respect Lorenz dominance, and assesses the extent to which a small number of indices can reproduce the Lorenz ordering. Using income data for 80 countries, our results suggest that Lorenz dominance can be predicted with 99% accuracy using just 3 or 4 inequality measures, as long as two of them focus on the extreme upper and lower tails of the distribution. In contrast, confining attention to the index families and parameter ranges normally considered may fail to detect the majority of occasions when Lorenz curves intersect. These results lead us to question the faith placed in procedures based on a finite set of inequality indices, and to suggest that similar lessons will apply to other types of unanimity orderings.     

公共部门效率理论及实践

目前比较流行用“经济人”概念分析政府行为,但吴俊培教授在《公共部门效率理论及实践》一文中认为,把政府假设为“经济人”是不真的,在市场经济中,“经济人”是“人”的一部分,但不是全部。政府和市场一样,应该是“经济人”和“非经济人”的统一。公共部门效率不应该是纯粹经济学意义上的效率,其职责的主要目标是维持社会的公正和正义。在实践中,政府为了完成国内生产总值(GDP)的增长,甚至有招商引资的任务。这种做法不是淡化而是强化了部门利益,与公共部门的职能定位是不相符的。     

罕见的怀孕犀牛化石

9月29日,山东山旺国家地质公园古生物化石陈列馆展出一件世界罕见的长2.7米、高1.7米,怀有身孕的无角犀牛化石。这件怀胎待产的犀牛化石是在保护地质遗迹、修建硅藻土页岩剖面时发掘出土的世界上第一件完整而又怀孕的犀牛化石,距今约1800万年。上世纪七八十年代山旺山东鸟、齐鲁泰山鸟等鸟类化石的发现,填补了中新世时期的空白,从而成为国际上中新世生物建阶的重要依据,被称为“世界古生物化石宝库”。2001年末,“山旺国家自然保护区”被批准为国家地质公园后,国家先后投入2000万元对1.2平方公里的山旺国家地质公园核心区域的地质遗迹进行了…     

Produktgarantien und Aktienkrise — Implikationen für die Kapitalanlagepolitik von Lebensversicherungsunternehmen

The present contribution analyzes the implications of two central factors influencing the asset allocation decision of (German) life insurance companies, the development of the equity market on one hand and the interest rate guarantees included in traditional life insurance products on the other. The adverse development of share prices in 2000–2002 implies the necessity to consider not only ?normal“ volatility but also worst case-developments for the purpose of risk control. Formally this is done by using the risk measures value-at-risk and conditional value-at-risk. The specific ?myopic“ nature of interest rate guarantees in German life insurance products, which are granted on a yearly basis implies — beyond the general control of the shortfall risk with respect to the guaranteed interest rates — the necessity to per-form the asset allocation on a yearly basis to be in conformity with the time horizon of the liabilities.On the basis of a quantitative approach corresponding model calculations are performed. Thereby not only a pure market valuation is considered but also institutional peculiarities (hidden reserves, accounting norms) of German life insurance companies. The possibility of a riskless one-year investment, either based on market values or on balance sheet values, is revealed to be crucial for giving interest rate guarantees on a yearly basis.