Bürgerversicherung — Die Wirkung von Kopfprämien auf den Arbeitsmarkt

Capitation fees are considered to be an option for a change in funding principles for statutory health care insurance. This paper discusses several models of capitation fees either to be introduced for a part of the population or for all citizens. It analyses the impact of a change in financing health care on the labour market. Therefore microeconomic theory and a QUERU-model is applied. It also considers the issue of presently co-insured dependents.     

The Third Vote Experiment: Enhancing Policy Representation of a Student Parliament

Since voters are often swayed more by the personal image of politicians than by party manifestos, they may cast votes that are in opposition to their policy preferences. This results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters’ own views. An alternative voting procedure to avoid this type of election failure is prompted by the approach implemented in internet voting advice applications, like the German Wahl-O-Mat, which asks the user a number of questions on topical policy issues; the computer program, drawing on all the parties’ answers, finds for the user the best-matching party, the second-best-matching party, etc. Under the proposed alternative election method, the voters cast no direct votes. Rather, they are asked about their preferences on the policy issues as declared in the party manifestos (Introduce nationwide minimum wage? Yes/No; Introduce a speed limit on the motorways? Yes/No, etc.), which reveals the balance of public opinion on each issue. These embedded referenda measure the degree to which the parties’ policies match the preferences of the electorate. The parliament seats are then distributed among the parties in proportion to their indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented on all the issues) and universality (frequency in representing a majority). This paper reports on an experimental application of this method during the election of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Student Parliament on July 4–8, 2016. The experiment shows that the alternative election method can increase the representativeness of the Student Parliament. We also discuss some traits and bottlenecks of the method that should be taken into account when preparing elections.     

Timing and Commitment of Environmental Policy,Adoption of New Technology,and Repercussions on R&;D

We investigate the interplay between environmental policy, incentives to adoptnew technology, and repercussions on R&D. We study a model where a monopolistic upstream firm engages in R&D and sells advanced abatement technology to polluting downstream firms. We consider four different timing and commitment regimes of environmental tax and permit policies: ex post taxation (or issuing permits), interim commitment to a tax rate (a quota of permits) after observing R&D success but before adoption, and finally two types of ex antecommitment before R&D activity, one with a unique tax rate (quota of permits), the other one with a menu of tax rates (permit quotas). We study the second best tax and permit policies and rank these with respect to welfare. In particular, we find that commitment to a menu of tax rate dominates all other policy regimes.     

A dual‐sequence framework for B2C relationship formation: Moderating effects of employee communication style in online group chat

Past research on B2C relationships has typically focused on unidimensional constructs of satisfaction, trust, and commitment, ignoring underlying psychological dimensions. Although some studies have examined cognitive and affective dimensions of these relational constructs, dual sequential effects in relationship formation have not been investigated. This study proposes and finds (in the context of online group chat) that parallel cognitive and affective sequences of relationship formation take place, thus expanding scholarly understanding of underlying psychological processes and offering marketing practitioners two different ways to build relationships with consumers. The proposed dual‐sequence relational framework further advances theory by shedding light on counterintuitive findings in past research. The study also supports the proposed moderating effects of employee communication style, such that sequential effects of cognitive (affective) relational constructs are stronger with a task‐oriented (socially oriented) employee, thus offering insights to practitioners in hiring and training employees to match specific organizational goals for building relationships with consumers. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

中国加入 WTO后房地产市场与国际市场接轨的答案

中国加入WTO后房地产市场与国际接轨的答案即应构建并发展房地产的二级市场和租赁市场 ,精心培育房地产的中介服务行业 ,同时改变粗放型的经营运作方式为精耕细作 ,以形成与一级市场联动完整的房地产大市场。     

Predicting Corporate Failure Using a Neural Network Approach

This paper investigates the performance of Artificial Neural Networks for the classification and subsequent prediction of business entities into failed and non-failed classes. Two techniques, back-propagation and Optimal Estimation Theory (OET), are used to train the neural networks to predict bankruptcy filings. The data are drawn from Compustat data tapes representing a cross-section of industries. The results obtained with the neural networks are compared with other well-known bankruptcy prediction techniques such as discriminant analysis, probit and logit, as well as against benchmarks provided by directly applying the bankruptcy prediction models developed by Altman (1968) and Ohlson (1980) to our data set. We control the degree of ‘disproportionate sampling’ by creating ‘training’ and ‘testing’ populations with proportions of bankrupt firms ranging from 1% to 50%. For each population, we apply each technique 50 times to determine stable accuracy rates in terms of Type I, Type II and Total Error. We show that the performance of various classification techniques, in terms of their classification errors, depends on the proportions of bankrupt firms in the training and testing data sets, the variables used in the models, and assumptions about the relative costs of Type I and Type II errors. The neural network solutions do not achieve the ‘magical’ results that literature in this field often promises, although there are notable 'pockets' of superior performance by the neural networks, depending on particular combinations of proportions of bankrupt firms in training and testing data sets and assumptions about the relative costs of Type I and Type II errors. However, since we tested only one architecture for the neural network, it will be necessary to investigate potential improvements in neural network performance through systematic changes in neural network architecture.     

Qualitätserwartungen,Qualitätswahrnehmungen und die Nutzung von Fernsehserien

Ziel des Beitrags ist die Beantwortung der Frage, welche Faktoren die Nutzung von Fernsehserien erkl?ren k?nnen. Kann sie im Wesentlichen auf Habitualisierung und strukturelle Rahmenbedingungen zurückgeführt werden, oder l?sst sie sich dadurch erkl?ren, dass die Erwartungen an die Qualit?t von Fernsehserien und die Wahrnehmung von Qualit?tseigenschaften der verschiedenen Serien zwischen den Rezipienten variieren? Zun?chst werden die theoretisch relevanten Faktoren für ein Modell der subjektiven Qualit?tsauswahl identifiziert und operationalisiert. Anschlie?end wird in einer empirischen Studie geprüft, ob diese Faktoren einen Einfluss auf die Nutzung der Fernsehserien haben. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse zeigen, dass die drei Elemente des theoretischen Ansatzes — Qualit?tserwartungen, Qualit?tswahrnehmungen und Qualit?tsurteile — die Seriennutzung zu einem betr?chtlichen Teil erkl?ren k?nnen. Der Vorteil dieses Ansatzes gegenüber dem Uses and Gratifications Approach besteht darin, dass die Eigenschaften des Angebots im Mittelpunkt stehen. Damit wird es m?glich, Aussagen darüber zu machen, welche wahrgenommenen Merkmale des Angebots für die Nutzungsentscheidungen der Rezipienten relevant sind.