Proportional Odds Models with High‐Dimensional Data Structure

The proportional odds model is the most widely used model when the response has ordered categories. In the case of high‐dimensional predictor structure, the common maximum likelihood approach typically fails when all predictors are included. A boosting technique pomBoost is proposed to fit the model by implicitly selecting the influential predictors. The approach distinguishes between metric and categorical predictors. In the case of categorical predictors, where each predictor relates to a set of parameters, the objective is to select simultaneously all the associated parameters. In addition, the approach distinguishes between nominal and ordinal predictors. In the case of ordinal predictors, the proposed technique uses the ordering of the ordinal predictors by penalizing the difference between the parameters of adjacent categories. The technique has also a provision to consider some mandatory predictors (if any) that must be part of the final sparse model. The performance of the proposed boosting algorithm is evaluated in a simulation study and applications with respect to mean squared error and prediction error. Hit rates and false alarm rates are used to judge the performance of pomBoost for selection of the relevant predictors.     

Administrative tradition and management reforms: a comparison of agency chief executive accountability in four Continental Rechtsstaat countries

This article investigates perceived accountability patterns of national agencies’ chief executives in four countries with a Rechtsstaat tradition and tests theoretical expectations about potential tensions between managerial reforms and administrative values using survey data (N = 453). All countries combine old and new forms of accountability requirements, while legal and financial accountability have not been replaced with results accountability. Switzerland and the Netherlands score highest on results accountability, though in combination with legal and financial accountability, which are dominant in Germany and Austria. Nation-specific characteristics seem more important for core values of public administration than generic characteristics of the Rechtsstaat model.     

A Diagnostic Tool for Identifying Disharmonies Within Corporate Innovation Networks

In an article in the previous issue of JPIM , Vasudevan Ramanujam and Gerhard Mensch introduced the concept of mismatches in the perceptions and priorities of various functional specialists, staff and line managers, and senior managers. These mismatches highlight lack of agreement among key participants in the innovation management process within a given company and indicate problems that could hinder performance of the whole management interaction system. Here Mensch and Ramanujam explore the use of a new managerial instrument that can help technology driven companies that are caught in a stalemate in technology. The technique is designed to improve new product development and commercialization of new technology by diagnosing discrepancies in awareness, sense of urgency, and opinions on technological choices which may exist within the organization.     

Interbank market frictions, international banks and growth

In developing countries and countries in transition, a lack of finance is regarded as a major reason for the underperformance of the SME sector. The financial sector does not channel funds efficiently from savers to the most efficient investment. In a general equilibrium endogenous growth model, we explain the underperformance of the SME sector by interbank market frictions. High information costs in the interbank market lead to a high loan/deposit spread and hence to a low growth equilibrium. The solution to this problem is twofold. First, central bank policy could reduce interbank information problems by providing effective bank supervision. Second, if the central bank is expected not to have sufficient monitoring capabilities, reputation and reserves, opening up the interbank market to international banks can substitute for insufficient central bank activities.The sources of this advantage in efficiency are stronger incentives for workers and managers (direct connection between effort and return), easier monitoring and greater flexibility (McIntyre 2001).     

Ein empirischer Test der Annahme der permanenten Einkommenshypothese von Milton Friedman

Summary We apply the Variate-Difference-Method to yearly Austrian data from 1956 to 1975 to test the permanent-income-hypothesis byM. Fiedman.First we determe the degree of the polynomial, which is sufficient to eliminate the trend (i.e. the permanent part) from time series of disposable income. Then the permanent income variable is constructed in two alternative ways: first, as a polynomial in time and second bySheppard's smoothing formulae. Transitory consumption is identified with the residuals of the consumption function. A correlation analysis shows that, transitory income and consumption are correlated, if permanent income is determined by a trend polynomial, while this is not the case ifSheppard's smoothing formulae is used to estimate permanent income.Consumption functions are specified for total consumption, durables and non-durables and eleven sub-groups of total private consumption. The results indicate that autocorrelation can considerably be reduced by usingSheppard's smoothing formulae.     

Die Nachfrage im Monopolgebiet

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Kommentar zu Beiers Beitrag

Ohne ZusammenfassungGerhard Scherhorn ist Professor für Konsumtheorie und Verbraucherpolitik an der Universität Hohenheim, Postfach 106, D-7000 Stuttgart 70.     

The goal of consumer advice: Transparency or autonomy?

To improve the transparency of consumer markets by means of information is an important task but it cannot be served efficiently by consumer advice. The genuine aim of consumer advice is described here as promoting consumer autonomy by, first, decision counselling and related means and, second, coordinating consumer interests. The paper is centred on two main issues: the responsibility of suppliers of consumer goods to meet the consumers' information needs, and the potential and chance for consumers to progress towards a higher degree of autonomy.