Quakers,coercion, and pre‐modern growth: why Friends’ formal institutions for contract enforcement did not matter for early modern trade expansion

During the late seventeenth century, Atlantic trade grew dramatically. The New Institutional Economists attribute this to institutional developments. During this period, Quakers emerged as the region's most prominent trading community. Some historians explain this achievement as the result of the competitive advantage that Quakers gained from their formal institutions for contract enforcement. This article studies the London Quaker community to show that, in fact, they only began to police the conduct of business regularly after 1750, as part of a wider effort to promote the Society's reputation. Formal institutional advantages cannot explain the Quakers’ early trading success.     

Comparison of Sampling Schemes for Dynamic Linear Models

Hyperparameter estimation in dynamic linear models leads to inference that is not available analytically. Recently, the most common approach is through MCMC approximations. A number of sampling schemes that have been proposed in the literature are compared. They basically differ in their blocking structure. In this paper, comparison between the most common schemes is performed in terms of different efficiency criteria, including efficiency ratio and processing time. A sample of time series was simulated to reflect different relevant features such as series length and system volatility.     

Walking a slippery line: Investments in social values and product longevity

Corporate sponsorship of events that support social values (e.g., human rights) help firms infuse their products with symbolic meaning, prolonging their life cycle. Yet, higher product prices might spark perceptions that the firm invests in social values for calculative or opportunistic motives, in which case event sponsorship is unlikely to deliver the expected benefits in the form of product longevity. This study explores this potential tension empirically, using data related to sponsored social events, entry prices, and product longevity for a U.S. cosmetics producer. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Eigenerzeugung und Selbstverbrauch von Strom – Stand,Potentiale und Trends

Due to falling costs of self-production, increasing end-user electricity prices as well as indirect state incentives, self-production and consumption of electricity have become more and more attractive for end-users across all economic sectors. Thus, opportunities to evade taxes, surcharges and grid charges have arisen under the current legal framework. The situation is complicated by unclear requirements for the utilisation of state incentives as well as the vague statistical coverage of self-consumption. Historically, the total amount of self-consumption rose by 26?% between 2008 and 2012 to 56.7 TWh. The estimation of economic potentials and trends shows that development could accelerate substantially to a point where a considerable amount of the consumption in all sectors could be covered by self-production. This development will be significantly determined by the future legal framework regarding taxation and surcharges for self-consumption. Besides the level of taxes and surcharges, the minimum limit for charging small generation units will be a key control variable. From an economical point of view, derogations lead to distorted competition between various technologies that causes inefficient production structures and distributional effects. Moreover, they create a self-reinforcing effect: The higher the self-consumption is, the lower the assessment base for apportionments and charges becomes, and the higher the cost burden for the remaining end-users will be. As a result, the incentives for self-consumption are enhanced and, once again, the increased self-consumption causes further economic inefficiencies.     

Performance evaluation,public management improvement and democratic accountability

The results-oriented management reforms fostered by the New Public Management movement are often argued to emphasize the search for efficiency, quality and other typical market values at the expense of democratic accountability. On the other hand, challenging this view, some authors claim that results-based management reforms have the potential to enhance political accountability and representative democracy. There is however, limited empirical evidence of this relationship. This article uses some of the findings from a comparative study of public management evaluation systems in four Latin American countries to illuminate this relationship in practice. We discuss the fact that, in two of the four countries surveyed, the design features of the new systems were based on the explicit search for increased political accountability and the deepening of democracy. We also discuss the possible causes for the finding that the outcome and performance information generated is not being applied for decision-making purposes yet, as expected.     

First-Order Mortality Basis for Life Annuities

Mortality improvements pose a challenge for the life annuity business. For the management of such portfolios, it is important to forecast future mortality rates. Standard models for mortality forecasting assume that the force of mortality at age x in calendar year t is of the form exp, where the dynamics of the time index is described by a random walk with drift. Starting from such a best estimate of future mortality (called second-order mortality basis in actuarial science), the paper explains how to determine a conservative life table serving as first-order mortality basis. The idea is to replace the stochastic projected life table with a deterministic conservative one, and to assume mutual independence for the remaining life times. The paper then studies the distribution of the present value of the payments made to a closed group of annuitants. It turns out that De Pril–Panjer algorithm can be used for that purpose under first-order mortality basis. The connection with ruin probabilities is briefly discussed. An inequality between the distribution of the present value of future annuity payments under first-order and second-order mortality basis is provided, which allows to link value-at-risk computed under these two sets of assumptions. A numerical example performed on Belgian mortality statistics illustrates how the approach proposed in this paper can be implemented in practice.     

Trade Unions as Agents for Skill Formation: The Case of Singapore

Trade unions can influence the quality and quantity of training provided to workers. This article delineates the role played by unions in Singapore’s skill formation system, during the 1980s and 1990s. This role is framed by the context of the developmental state and of a collaborationist union movement. Singapore unions act to support the state’s drive to upgrade the skills of the workforce. They put pressure on employers to sign up to collective agreements including statements about training, and they act as both agents and providers of training and education for basic and core skills. They also devote considerable resources to persuading their members to take up training opportunities. What evidence there is suggests that these various strategies have had some success. The unions’ role in Singapore is contrasted with their role in some other countries.