Marginal tax burden

Zusammenfassung Bei der Beurteilung etwaiger leistungshemmender Wirkungen der Steuer- und Abgabensysteme muß insbesondere die Grenzabgabenbelastung analysiert werden; sie ist sowohl in Österreich als auch in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in der jüngeren Vergangenheit stark angestiegen. Mit diesem Beitrag wird versucht, die gesamte Grenzabgabenbelastung (aus direkten und indirekten Steuern sowie Sozialabgaben) für beide Länder approximativ zu bestimmen. Dabei scheint der Vergleich zwischen Österreich und Deutschland besonders interessant zu sein, da es im Steuer- und Sozialrecht einerseits weitgehende Gemeinsamkeiten in der historischen Entwicklung gibt, andererseits aber auch grundlegende Divergenzen bestehen, so beispielsweise im unterschiedlichen Gewicht von direkter und indirekter Besteuerung. Über etwaige Wirkungszusammenhänge werden abschließend einige spekulative Überlegungen angestellt.     

How to combat NEET? Evidence from Austria

The number young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) has been rising since the beginning of the economic and fi nancial crisis in 2008. This article contributes to the discussion about the reduction of the NEET rate by addressing the questions: Which structural factors can explain differences in the NEET rates among Austrian federal states? What causes an increased or reduced NEET risk at the individual level? What are the key factors for an exit from a NEET situation?     

Avatar-based innovation: Using virtual worlds for real-world innovation

The purpose of this article is to explore the opportunities virtual worlds offer for real-world innovations. By integrating users of virtual worlds into an interactive new product development process, companies can tap customers’ innovative potential using the latest technology. Connecting the emerging technology of virtual worlds with a customer-centric perspective of open innovation allows unique and inventive opportunities to capitalize on users’ innovative potential and knowledge. The concept of avatar-based innovation serves as a point of origin to reveal these possibilities and represents the first attempt to systematically take advantage of virtual worlds for innovation management. In doing so, this paper argues that latest advances of information and communication technologies enrich the interaction process and can improve new product development process. Further, characteristics are presented that suggest that the digital environment is especially conducive to innovation and creative tasks. Based on theoretical insights, the analysis of eight cases (Coca-Cola, Steelcase, Osram, Alcatel-Lucent, Toyota Scion, Endemol, Aloft, and Mazda), participant observation directly within the virtual world and 23 interviews with both managers and customers, this paper demonstrates how virtual worlds allow producers and consumers to swarm together with like-minded individuals to create new products and permits companies to find an audience to test, use, and provide feedback on the content and products they create. We highlight the active roles avatars can play throughout the whole innovation process, and demonstrate the opportunities of how manufacturers and customers could collaborate to innovate from idea to launch. A few pathfinding companies experiment with avatars as a source of innovation. Specifically, the initiatives of Osram, Steelcase, Mazda, and Toyota truly link the concepts of open innovation and virtual worlds to employ the interactive technology for new product development. These efforts are critically analyzed to examine the hypothesized potential of avatar-based innovation. The cases pinpoint practical implications and reveal both preconditions and challenges of this new approach to interactive new product development. The results suggest that in order to fully realize the potential of avatar-based innovation, companies need to create a compelling open innovation experience and consider the peculiarities of virtual worlds.     

Project Leadership in Becoming: A Process Study of an Organizational Change Project

Drawing on the current research in general leadership, we propose that a process ontology is relevant and rewarding for project leadership studies. We argue that project leadership can be studied as the ongoing social production of direction through the construction of actors’ space of action, involving continuous construction and reconstruction of (1) past project activities and events; (2) positions and areas of responsibility; (3) discarded, ongoing, and future issues; and (4) intensity, rhythm, and pace. Through an ethnographic case study of an organizational change project, we show how space of action and hence the project direction are in constant flux and becoming.     

Sequencing the COVID-19 Recession in the USA: What Were the Macroeconomic Drivers?

We apply a structural vectorautoregressive analysis to decompose fluctuations in the growth rate of industrial production and inflation precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA into aggregate demand, aggregate supply, and uncertainty shocks. While all three types of shocks contributed to output and inflation dynamics, the surge in economic uncertainty contributed to the decline in output more strongly than aggregate demand or aggregate supply disruptions. In 2021, the decline in uncertainty and adverse aggregate supply shocks emerged to be similarly important in spurring inflation.     

Adverse selection in the annuity market with sequential and simultaneous insurance demand

This paper investigates the effect of adverse selection on the private annuity market in a model with two periods of retirement and two types of individuals, who differ in their life expectancy. In order to introduce the existence of time-limited pension insurance, we consider a model where for each period of retirement separate contracts can be purchased. Demand for the two periods can be decided sequentially or simultaneously. We show that only a situation where all risk types choose sequential contracts is an equilibrium and that this outcome is favourable for the long-living, but is unfavourable for the short-living individuals. JEL Classification D82 · D91 · G22