Russia

Statistical Annex

Russia     

Die Messung von „Earnings“-Qualität

This paper presents the commonly used measures for earnings quality. It critically analyzes the measures within a theoretical framework and presents empirical results for Austrian listed corporations over a period of ten years. The analysis shows strengths and weaknesses of the measures, their conceptual relationship and empirical association. The knowledge of associations is also important to judge the robustness of empirical results based on a single aggregate earnings quality measure. The paper contributes to the understanding of opportunities and potential weaknesses of empirical research on earnings quality, and shows avenues for further research.     

Developing relationships in strategic alliances: Commitment to quality and cooperative interdependence

Organizations are using strategic alliances to develop competitive advantages in quality, innovation, and cost. To capture the potential synergies of these alliances requires that the partners develop long-term relationships. This study develops a model of strategic alliance relationship development based on the theory of cooperative and competitive goal interdependence. Thirty pairs of supplier and customer organizations in Xian, China participated in a survey where the supplier indicated the commitment and goal interdependence and the customer rated the relationship's long-term orientation. Results suggest that the commitment by both supplier and customer organizations to quality develop cooperative interdependence, which leads to effective strategic partnerships.     

Long-term impacts of import prices on domestic prices and wages

Zusammenfassung Anhand österreichischer Quartalsdaten wurde untersucht, ob zwischen Preisen, Reallöhnen, Importpreisen und anderen Variablen kointegrierende Beziehungen bestehen. Da für die untersuchten Zeitreihen mehrere Kointegrationsvektoren gefunden wurden, ergab sich ein Interpretationsproblem. In dieser Arbeit wurde der Kointegrationsraum auf eine Weise transformiert, die es ermöglichte, die Kointegrationsvektoren als Long-run-Multiplikatoren zu interpretieren und daher die langfristigen Auswirkungen einer Importpreiserhöhung auf das heimische Lohn- und Preisniveau zu untersuchen. (Der Anhang beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, unter welchen Voraussetzungen solch eine kausale Interpretation möglich ist.) Die geschätzten Effekte erwiesen sich als numerisch sehr bedeutend — sie liegen etwas höher als in anderen vergleichbaren empirischen Studien — und gegenüber einer Änderung der Auswahl der Variablen als sehr robust.

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I wish to thank H. Abele, E. Dockner, H. Klausinger, K. Neusser and three anonymous referees for many helpful comments and suggestions.     

Poverty in South Africa – a statistical analysis

Poverty is one of the major challenges facing democratic South Africa. This article focuses on poverty in South Africa, using the Income and Expenditure Survey conducted in 1995 by Statistics South Africa (formerly the Central Statistical Service). In the first part, different approaches that can be followed in the measurement of poverty are discussed. In the second part, Sen's approach to the measurement of poverty and the Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) technique have been used to analyse the above data. CHAID is used to explore the relationship between the poverty status of the household (ie poor or non-poor) and other household characteristics. These variables can then be used as predictors of poverty status.     

Endogenous growth through externalities of investment: A different approach

One strand of endogenous growth theory deals with models where investment in physical capital shows positive externalities leading to increasing returns in the aggregate production function. Most of these models, however, assume that investment in physical capital influences the stock of human capital and physical capital to the same extent so that those two variables can be merged into one single-state variable [Sheshinski, 1967; Romer, 1986]. This paper points to some implications if this assumption is abandoned and underlines the consequences if human and physical capital are treated as two separate variables.     

Tarifpartnerschaft — ein altes,aber gefährdetes Bündnis?

100 years ago, in November 1918, the Stinnes Legien Agreement was drawn up between various employers’ associations and trade unions. It included collective bargaining autonomy and collective agreements, the eight-hour work day and work councils. It soon failed, but served as a model for the legal regulation of collective bargaining relations after the Second World War. In the meantime, however, collective bargaining has declined significantly. Many employers are members of their associations without a collective agreement. At the same time, union memberships are declining. In view of increasingly precarious forms of employment, the government apparently needs to implement stronger regulations on collective bargaining relations again, such as the Minimum Wage Act. Finally, a look back: In 1918, editorial member Alfred Schmidt-Essen commented on the agreement from a current perspective. We document the article.     

Optimal transportation and the falsifiability of incompletely specified economic models

A general framework is given to analyze the falsifiability of economic models based on a sample of their observable components. It is shown that, when the restrictions implied by the economic theory are insufficient to identify the unknown quantities of the structure, the duality of optimal transportation with zero–one cost function delivers interpretable and operational formulations of the hypothesis of specification correctness from which tests can be constructed to falsify the model.     

Quotas May Beat Taxes in a Global Emission Game

Economists have persistently argued that market-based instruments are better suited than command and control instruments (CAC) to achieve pollution abatement targets cost-effectively. However, this advice has not yet fallen on fertile soil. CAC is the predominant instrument in practical environmental policy. The paper attempts to give an explanation for this observation by analyzing two countries negotiating emission reductions in a world with typical institutional restrictions. Negotiations are assumed to be either on a uniform emission reduction quota or a uniform emission tax. Counterintuitively, it turns out that in such a second-best world an agreement under a cost-inefficient quota regime may be superior to an efficient tax agreement with respect to ecological and welfare criteria. Moreover, in contrast to a quota agreement, a tax agreement may not be feasible and stable if countries exhibit asymmetric cost-benefit structures.