The Austrian current account deficit: Driven by twin deficits or by intertemporal expenditure allocation?

The evidence presented in the paper rejects the twin deficit hypothesis for the Austrian current account balance during the last two decades. The results are based on an estimate of a vector error correction model including quarterly data for the current account balance and potentially relevant variables driving its dynamics. We compute the variance decomposition of the current account's forecast error and its generalized impulse responses to shocks in the innovations of the system. The results in favor of intertemporal expenditure reallocation cannot be reproduced within a second analysis including the current account and a measure of net output, however. The estimated implicit current account balance, interpreted as the discounted expected change in future net output, does not follow the actual behaviour of the current account. First version received: June 1999/Final version received: March 2001     

Politically stable pay-as-you-go pension systems: When the social-insurance budget is too small in a democracy

The essay analyzes in an overlapping-generations model, to which extent a pay-as-you-go pension system will be the outcome of majority voting, given specific institutional set-ups. Clearly, the vote of an active person depends on his expectations about how the present decision (i.e., his contribution) is linked to the future (i.e., his benefits), when he will be retired. In the paper we employ the assumption of a basic social contract where each active voter's future benefits are positively related to his contributions. It is shown that in this framework a steady-state with a positive (though lower than optimal) level of the pension system exists, even if a new majority decision about the system takes place every period.     

Fiscal Autonomy and Total Government Expenditure: An Austrian Case-study

The ongoing debate on the efficiency of a federal system versus a centralized system has lead to a diverse and unclear empirical picture of the effects of fiscal decentralization on public sector growth. For analyzing these effects it is crucial to consider the sub-national decision power on taxing and spending. In the current paper, we test for the effects of fiscal autonomy on total government expenditure using time series from 1955 to 2007 for Austria. Determinants of government expenditure are economic growth, fiscal illusion of policy makers, and the unemployment rate. We additionally account for different degrees of sub-national fiscal autonomy. Our econometric results suggest that the often-hypothesized dampening effects of fiscal autonomy cannot be corroborated for the Austrian system.     

Ideenwettbewerbe als innovatives Markenbindungsinstrument

Onlinebasierte Ideenwettbewerbe mit Web 2.0-Funktionalit?ten bieten neue innovative M?glichkeiten im Online Marketing. Sie tragen dazu bei, die Bekanntheit und positive Wahrnehmung einer Marke in der ?ffentlichkeit zu st?rken. Konsumenten setzen sich intensiver mit einer Marke auseinander, was schlie?lich zu einer st?rkeren Identifikation mit der Marke und Bindung führt. Auch Swarovski, dem Kristall-Weltmarktführer, gelang durch diese Einbindung von Konsumenten der Erfolg.     

Die ökonomischen Defi zite der USA als weltwirtschaftliches Problem

Die USA haben seit Mitte der 90er Jahre ein hohes Leistungsbilanzdefi zit. Dies geht seit 2002 mit einem Budgetdefi zit aber auch mit einer sinkenden privaten Ersparnis einher. Der riesige Kapitalbedarf der USA lie? sich bisher zu geringen Zinss?tzen befriedigen. Wenn es allerdings zu einem Vertrauensverlust bei den Anlegern kommt, wird die gesamte Weltwirtschaft eine gravierende Anpassungskrise erleben.     

What's New in New Forms of Organizing? On the Construction of Gender in Project‐Based Work

abstract    In several industries, projects are now the normal form of work for individuals. The consequences of project work have not so far been subject to critical inquiry, however. This implies inquiry not only on how people handle project work at work, it also means inquiring into how they live their lives when working by projects. In this paper, we study this from a constructionist gender perspective, in which project work is seen as an ongoing construction of patterns of femininity and masculinity in society. The aim of the paper is to contribute to an understanding of how project work is related to the ongoing construction of femininity and masculinity in the work and lives of human beings.
From a narrative study of individuals in the same project team in an IT-consultancy company, we discuss masculinization and femininization in project-based work. It appears that current project work practices imply reproduction of masculinities such as rationality, efficiency, control, devotion to work etc, while femininization is instead found in the rhetoric of the organizational context and the expectations on newly recruited women. The organization was in the process of femininization through rhetoric on 'family friendliness', but everyday life for consultants was not spent at the organization but in project teams in the customers' offices. Projects are special in the sense that they are clearly delimited episodes of work in which it is possible to apply entirely different norms than 'outside' the project – which makes the tendency to reproduce traditional masculinities even stronger.     

South African consumers' opinions and consumption of soy and soy products

Interest in soy foods has increased with consumer awareness of its health benefits, especially with soy‐related ingredients being utilized as one of the major sources of high‐protein fortification. The aim of the present study was to assess South African (SA) consumers' opinion of soy and soy products through different statements on consumption, taste, protein value and healthiness. The respondents (n = 3001) for this randomized cross‐sectional study were randomly selected from metropolitan and rural areas in South Africa. Trained fieldworkers administered questionnaires by conducting face‐to‐face interviews. Fourteen statements from four sections of the questionnaire (consisting of 17 food‐related topics in total), probing information on consumers' opinion on soy and soy products, were used. Data on 81% of the respondents (n = 2437), who had heard of soy before, were used for statistical analyses. The data were weighted to be representative of the total SA population based on gender, age and race. No practically significant differences among metropolitan and rural respondents' opinion, gender or age variables regarding any statement were found. A practically significant higher percentage (>60%) of respondents in the total population and within all race groups were positive about soy and agreed that soy is a good source of protein, has many health benefits, associated soy with meat substitutes, were aware of a number of meat substitutes and agreed that soy can replace meat in their diet. Medium to large practically significant differences were found between racial groups regarding certain statements. More Blacks and Indians (76% and 68% respectively) than Whites (25%) use soy. Almost two‐thirds of Indians (65%) and Blacks (64%) eat or drink soy products, compared with only 22% for Whites, indicating that the potential target market for soy products should be chosen accordingly. Higher percentages of Blacks than Whites also indicated that they liked the taste of soy, would use more soy if it was readily available and if a bigger product range existed and would replace cow's milk with soy milk, confirming that Blacks are more positive about soy and would use even more soy if a bigger range of soy products were available. The findings from the current study indicated that more than 70% of SA consumers believe that soy has many health benefits and more than 60% already use soy. Insight gained from this first study of its kind in SA provided valuable information to developers and marketers, and signified that consumer segmentation should be taken into consideration to focus on developing more acceptable soy products that appeal to these consumer segments that are more positive towards the taste of soy and might consume soy regularly. Within the discipline of Consumer Science, efforts to inform consumers about the advantages of soy in terms of its health benefits, and to support it in terms of a greater availability of more acceptable soy products at reasonable prices, would support the ideal of informed, responsible buying decisions across all socio‐economic groups.     

Problems and consequences of a price stop

When prices at the consumer level undergo a cyclical rise, one frequently hears the question being asked by wlde circles of the population whether such a development should not be checked by means of a price stop.     

Bank lending and the stock market's response to monetary policy shocks

This paper explores whether a limited participation model modified to include features of the bank lending channel can account for the empirically observed reaction of stock market returns to monetary policy shocks. When calibrated to match characteristics of US data, the model generates responses that broadly match the empirical counterparts. The results also suggest, that the higher exposure of bank-dependent firms to liquidity shocks generates substantial heterogeneity of the responses across firms.