Stabilising Citizen and Consumer Expectations by Legal Means when Introducing the Euro in the Participating Member States

The author discusses the introduction of the euro from a consumer law point of view. The paper refers to the report of the Euro Working Group of the EC Consumer Committee. Dual indication of prices, continuity of contracts, costs, and transparency are discussed and solutions suggested. The recommendations recently adopted by the EC Commission have taken up some of these points but the proposals are far from satisfactory.     

Surges and stops in greenfield and M&A FDI flows to developing countries: analysis by mode of entry

This paper investigates the factors associated with foreign direct investment “surges” and “stops”, defined as sharp increases and decreases, respectively, of foreign direct investment inflows to the developing world and differentiated based on whether these events are led by waves in greenfield investments or mergers and acquisitions. Greenfield-led surges and stops occur more frequently than mergers-and-acquisitions-led ones and different factors are associated with the onset of the two types of events. Global liquidity is the factor significantly and positively associated with a surge, regardless of its kind, while a global economic growth slowdown and a surge in the preceding year are the main factors associated with a stop. Greenfield-led surges and stops are more likely in low-income countries and mergers-and-acquisitions-led surges are less likely in resource-rich countries than elsewhere in the developing world. Global growth accelerations and increases in financial openness, domestic economic and financial instability are associated with mergers-and-acquisitions-led surges but not with greenfield-led ones. These results are particularly relevant for developing countries where FDI flows are the major type of capital flows and suggest that developing countries’ macroeconomic vulnerability increases following periods of increased global liquidity. As countries develop they typically become more exposed to merger-and-acquisition-led surges, which are more likely than greenfield-led surges and stops to be short-lived and associated with domestic macroeconomic policies.     

Assessing housing management in terms of development objectives

This article reports on a research project aimed at assessing whether a particular management process of housing delivery correlates with an improvement or reduction in the state of development of housing recipients. The construct ‘state of development’ refers to the extent to which recipients have the capacity and power to deal with the challenges of a dynamic environment and utilise its opportunities in a responsible and sustainable manner. ‘Housing management’ refers to the execution of management functions to process housing inputs into outputs. The authors explored the correlation between these two variables in a case study involving the Delft housing project in Cape Town. They measured indicators using questionnaires, an analysis of project data, and by observing and evaluating the environments of experimental group members. The results indicated that the extent of the appropriateness of housing management caused a corresponding change in the state of development of housing recipients.     

The investment effects of price caps under imperfect competition: A note

We examine the impact of price cap regulation on the capacity investments of oligopolistic suppliers facing time-varying demand. We find that binding price caps set above long-run marginal cost increase (rather than decrease) aggregate capacity investment.     

Neue tendenzen des kartellrechtlichen verbraucherschutzes in der BRD

In German consumer protection, antitrust law is playing an increasingly prominent role. This article informs about the problems of protecting consumers against monopolizing pricing practices. It also discusses the law of recommended prices. The author suggests that substantive reforms of the antitrust law are necessary in order to improve the position of the consumer.

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Neue tendenzen des kartellrechtlichen verbraucherschutzes in der BRD

Zusammenfassung Für den Schutz des Verbrauchers in der Bundesrepublik gewinnt das Kartellrecht zunehmende Bedeutung. Der Beitrag stellt dies an den Problemen der Preiskontrolle gegenüber marktbeherrschenden Unternehmen und des Preisempfehlungsrechtes dar. Der Autor verficht hier die These, daß im Zuge der Novellierung des Kartellrechtes auch Vorschriften zur Verbesserung des Verbraucherschutzes erforderlich und möglich sind.

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Norbert Reich ist Professor für Rechtswissenschaft an der Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Politik, 2000 Hamburg 13, Von-Melle-Park 9.     

Fortgesetzter Aufschwung bei weltwirtschaftlichen Risiken

Der konjunkturelle Aufschwung setzt sich weltweit und auch in Deutschland fort. Wie hat sich die Immobilienkrise in den USA ausgewirkt? Welche Zins- und welche Rohstoffpreisentwicklung wird erwartet? Mit welchen Wachstumsraten wird in Deutschland gerechnet und welche Effekte hatte die Mehrwertsteuererh?hung? Wie wird sich die Situation auf dem Arbeitsmarkt entwickeln?     

Consumer response to child tax credit

This article uses micro-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) to study consumers?? spending responses to the child tax credit. The article provides one test of the permanent-income hypothesis (PIH) that infers that temporary changes in income have little effect on consumer spending, at the initiation of the child tax credit in 1997, and a second PIH test when the credit was increased in 2003. The evidence supports the PIH in both 1997 and 2003, even using three different proxies for liquidity-constrained households. Separate from any PIH implications, our findings suggest the child tax credit did not provide a short-term consumption stimulus in either of the time periods studied. Our results therefore cast some doubt on whether this type of tax credit should be considered sound fiscal policy.