Induktives Laden von Elektromobilen – Eine techno-ökonomische Bewertung

Conductive (wired) charging, where the user has to plug or unplug a cable, dominates the concepts discussed for electric vehicles up to now. Apart from the reduced range of the electric vehicle, frequent charging and especially short charging times make this plugging and unplugging appear impractical. In contrast, inductive (wireless) energy transfer makes it possible to charge without user intervention. This article attempts to answer questions on whether inductive energy transfer can already be used to charge electric vehicles and where this represents an economically attractive solution for users. To do so, first the charging technologies are presented and contrasted. It is also possible to compare the two charging technologies economically based on a cost analysis. It can be shown that no widespread use of the inductive technology is to be expected for the time being from an economic point of view due to its significant extra costs. Under certain conditions, however, there is a limited field of application as a niche technology in certain commercial areas, such as taxis, for example.     

Bundling and quality assurance

With imperfect private monitoring, a firm selling two experience goods can increase both producer and consumer surplus by bundling. Bundling constrains consumers to buy two products, making consumers better informed and ensuring that they use tougher punishment strategies. Both increased monitoring and increased punishment benefit other consumers, so bundling overcomes a free‐rider problem. The social value of bundling is even larger if consumers cannot attribute a negative signal to the specific product that generated it, or if one of the two goods is a durable and the other is a complementary nondurable. Our results are robust to mixed bundling.     

Buyout Transactions in the German‐speaking Region: Determinants of Abnormal Performance and Unlevered Returns

This is one of the first comprehensive studies of drivers of private equity performance in the German‐speaking region known as the DACH, made up of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It contributes three things to private equity research: First, it explains how operational value drivers affect operational performance (operational alpha) and unlevered rates of return. Second, it whether the same relationships hold across different kinds of private equity business models (those with either organic or inorganic growth strategies; or whether PE investments are small‐cap or mid‐to‐large‐cap). Third, it distinguished between the periods before and after the global financial crisis of 2008. The authors found that (1) annualised benchmark‐adjusted EBITDA margin growth (i.e. improvement in EBITDA margin) is the most significant determinant in abnormal operational performance and unlevered returns, regardless of the business model; (2) private equity firms executing a buy‐and‐build strategy generate lower unlevered returns than those executing an organic growth strategy when the benchmark company is clearly outperformed, most likely because of limited PE managerial resources; (3) mid‐to‐large‐cap private equity firms generate higher unlevered returns and operational alphas than small‐cap private equity firms when the benchmark company is clearly outperformed, because, we believe, larger companies have a higher fixed cost leverage than smaller ones; and we have found that (4) buyout transactions exited during or after the financial crisis yield higher operational alphas but lower unlevered returns compared to buyout transactions exited before the crisis, when the portfolio company underperforms its benchmark company.     

Metals: resources or financial assets? A multivariate cross-sectional analysis

Metals are very important resources for industrial production, but recently they have attracted more and more attention from investors. While certainly industrial producers, consumers, and financial investors do have some influence on metal price development, the role of relevant price factors is not yet quite clear. Therefore, in this paper, we examine the explanatory power of various fundamental factors and characteristics known from financial markets, specifically on the expected returns in a unique data sample of 30 metals. We apply—to our knowledge for the first time in this context—the widely accepted method of characteristic-sorted portfolios, extended by the very recent method of two-way portfolio sorts as an alternative to classical multivariate regressions. This mostly nonparametric approach, combined with portfolio aggregation, provides very robust results. Our major finding is that the financial characteristics value and momentum have a very high predictive power for monthly returns of metal portfolios. Metal-specific fundamental factors like stocks, secondary production, apparent consumption, country concentration, mine production, or reserves perform depending on the interpretation moderately well or rather poorly, regarding some economically interpretable transformations and when using multivariate two-way sorts. Hence, from the perspective of expected returns, metals are predominantly assets, while fundamental metal-specific factors still play a non-negligible role. Thus, to a much lesser extent, metals can still be regarded as resources. Overall, the combination of financial characteristics and metal-specific fundamental factors yields the best results. With these robust results, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of metal prices and their underlying factors.     

SETTLING LAWSUITS WITH PIRATES

A firm licenses a product to overlapping generations of heterogeneous consumers. Consumers may purchase the product, pirate/steal it, or forego it. Higher consumer types enjoy higher gross benefits and are caught stealing at a higher rate. The firm may commit to an out-of-court settlement policy that is “soft” on pirates, so high types purchase the product and low types steal it until caught. Settlement contracts, which include both cash payments and licenses for future product use, facilitate price discrimination. Settlement may either create social value by expanding the market or destroy value by limiting market access and possibly deterring more efficient entrants.     

Integrating neighbourhood effects in the calculation of optimal final tree diameters

Modern silvicultural treatments are based on single trees whereas classic forest economics look at the stand level. To accompany each other it is necessary to transfer the established economic models to the single tree level. This paper is an approach to use the Faustmann model and the corresponding marginal rate of return (Pressler percent) to derive value increment rates of single trees taking into account neighbourhood effects due to competition between individual trees. Furthermore, optimal rotation periods and optimal final diameters for future trees will be calculated.     

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES FOR STATE‐OWNED ENTERPRISES AS A MEANS TO MITIGATE POLITICAL INTERFERENCE: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF TWO SWISS STATE‐OWNED ENTERPRISES

When governments act as owners of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), they are both principal and agent at the same time. The literature on steering SOEs has mainly focused on the government as the principal that must control SOEs. However, the government is also an agent, vis‐à‐vis the parliament, because democratic constitutions stipulate some form of parliamentary oversight of the government. This oversight includes checks on how the government steers SOEs. However, this oversight function gives the parliament the power and opportunity to interfere into steering SOEs, which may lead to parliamentary interventions that are not coherent with governmental steering. We draw on principal–agent literature and public‐accountability literature to show that arbitrary and hands‐on parliamentary interference pose problems for steering SOEs. We analyze whether strategic objectives for SOEs, as recommended by public corporate governance guidelines, are appropriate to minimize parliamentary interference. We hypothesize that the Swiss government avoids or mitigates parliamentary interference by mid‐term strategic objectives for SOEs, which counteract short‐term parliamentary requests. We find that the Swiss government uses mid‐term strategic objectives, particularly financial ones, to reject parliamentary demands for more intervention into SOE activities.     

Does service intangibility affect entrepreneurial orientation?

Service firms face a unique set of challenges in their internationalization and foreign market growth. Their services' characteristics, particularly intangibility, constrain the options available to them for growth. When such firms are services International New Ventures (INVs), their challenges are combined with those related to rapid internationalization and growth. This research investigates how service intangibility and the typical challenges of INVs relate to the firms' Entrepreneurial Orientation and their foreign market growth. The findings show that indeed service intangibility has a relationship with firm proactiveness, risk-taking, and innovativeness; and that not all elements of Entrepreneurial Orientation have a positive impact on growth.     

Affective commitment and customer loyalty in crowdsourcing: antecedents,interdependencies, and practical implications

Crowdsourcing, the outsourcing of previously internal processes within the corporate value chain to an external crowd of people, has become increasingly popular in retail. In applying this practice, retailers aim not only at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their value creation process, but also at increasing the affective commitment and loyalty of their customers. Surprisingly, the effects of crowdsourcing on affective commitment and customer loyalty, and the factors influencing these objectives have hardly been researched. This paper closes this research gap. Through expert interviews and experimental studies, it comes to the conclusion that especially satisfaction with the crowdsourcing process and sense of virtual community are relevant factors impacting affective commitment and customer loyalty. The paper concludes with recommendations for optimizing these factors in retail practice.