Tobacco and alcohol: complements or substitutes?

The question of whether alcohol and tobacco are consumed as complements or substitutes is crucial for determining the side-effects of anti-smoking policies. Numerous papers have empirically addressed this issue by estimating demand systems for alcohol and tobacco, and subsequently calculating cross-price effects. However, this traditional approach is often seriously hampered by insufficient price variation observed in survey data. We, therefore, suggest an alternative instrumental variables approach that statistically mimics an experimental study and does not rely on prices as explanatory variables. This approach is applied by means of German survey data. Our estimation results suggest that a reduction in tobacco consumption results in a moderate reduction in alcohol consumption. It is demonstrated that this implies that alcohol and tobacco are complements. Hence, we conclude that successful anti-smoking policies will not result in the unintended side-effect of an increased (ab)use of alcohol.     

Insurance economics

Abstract

Background

Insurance accounting is generally speaking based upon the idea that a comparison shall be made between “premiums earned” and “claims incurred”. Even if there are exceptions in different countries and in different classes of business the method where premiums earned and claims incurred are compared is so widely used that we will take this method as our starting point for a discussion of the shortcomings, if any, of insurance accounting.     

Research issues for employee empowerment in hospitality organisations

Employee empowerment is said to have much to offer hospitality organisations. Empowered employees will respond to customer needs as they arise, they will react appropriately to customer complaints, and they will develop a sense of ownership taking personal pride in ensuring that service encounters are a success. A more considered approach suggests that claims for employee empowerment need to take account of different definitions and meanings used by managers. They fail to recognise the initiatives which are called empowering take different forms which result in different working arrangements and boundaries for what the empowered can do, and represent different benefits to employees and employers. Whatever the intentions of managers, the effects of empowerment will be mediated by the experiences of the empowered. There are likely to be tensions between managerial intentions and employee experiences of empowerment. This paper suggests that there is unlikely to be a simple trade-off between empowering employees and improved organisational performance. A framework of analysis is needed which both examines each step in the process and the effects created.     

Rezensionen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Learning by Doing and Spillovers: Further Evidence for the Semiconductor Industry

Learning spillovers in the production of EPROMs areinvestigated. It turns out that spillovers aresignificant, even though internal learning is thepredominant source of learning. Concerning externallearning, it does not appear to particularly matterwhether this comes from domestic rivals or foreigncompanies. There is some indication that Japanesecompanies have a steeper learning curve and with somegenerations are better able to appropriate externallearning from foreigners. Intergenerational learningis pervasive, which seems to provide competitiveadvantages to first movers. It could explain thepersistence of leadership of Intel in this industryacross a series of generations. Moreover, it coulddeliver scope for policy intervention.