Deutlicher Anstieg der Nettozuwanderung nach Deutschland

Since 2010 net immigration to Germany has risen significantly. Net immigration to Germany in 2012 is estimated to total nearly 400 000 people. Influxes of such a magnitude have significant macroeconomic implications. While in the long run they increase the domestic labour force and hence potential output, they moderate wages and prices in the short run. This article investigates the determinants of immigration to Germany and its outlook for the coming years. It shows that differences in employment opportunities in Germany and in the rest of Europe largely explain migration flows. Owing to Germany’s attractive labour market and the expected slow recovery in neighbouring Europe, cumulative immigration to Germany is likely to exceed two million by 2017.     

The Effectiveness of Bank Governance Reforms in the Wake of the Financial Crisis: A Stakeholder Approach

This study examines the impact of bank corporate governance reforms in the wake of the financial crisis. These reforms correspond to criticism of shareholder-focused agency-based corporate governance practices and a renewed focus on the stakeholder impact of corporate governance lapses in the financial sector. This study differs from previous studies of corporate governance in the financial sector in using performance indicators that proxy the interests of customers and the community. Drawing on data from 134 countries over an eight-year period from 2004 to 2011, we find that the post-crisis corporate governance reforms in the banking sector appear to be effective in promoting greater bank attention to non-shareholder stakeholders’ interests. This study provides a means to conceptualize measures of bank performance from a stakeholder perspective in order to test emerging ideas about governance effectiveness in the financial sector.     

Zielgruppenorientierung und Hybridität als Marketingtreiber im Direktvertrieb

Durch die rasche Verbreitung neuer Vertriebskan?le stellt sich die Frage, wie die Marketinginstrumente zur Steigerung des Vertriebserfolges optimal aufeinander abgestimmt werden k?nnen. Bei der Suche nach einer effektiven Marketinglogik setzt die Oswald Nahrungsmittel GmbH in erster Linie auf eine Kombination von Zielgruppenorientierung und hybriden Vertriebsstrukturen — und hat beispielsweise so die Effektivit?t einer Direct-Mailing-Kampagne gesteigert.     

A censored random coefficients model for the detection of zero willingness to pay

In this paper we address the problem of negative estimates of willingness to pay. We find that there exist a number of goods and services, especially in the fields of marketing and environmental valuation, for which only zero or positive WTP is meaningful. For the valuation of these goods an econometric model for the analysis of repeated dichotomous choice data is proposed. Our model restricts the domain of the estimates of WTP to strictly positive values, while also allowing for the detection of zero WTP. The model is tested on a simulated and a real data set.     

A threshold model for respondent heterogeneity

Continuous models of respondent heterogeneity assume the existence of a response function where variables of interest are continuously related to explanatory variables. In many situations this assumption may not be true. In this paper we propose an approach of modeling respondent heterogeneity that identifies abrupt changes in the distribution of response coefficients around a threshold specification. Our model differs from traditional threshold models by introducing the threshold effect to describe across-unit behavior as opposed to within-unit behavior. We illustrate our proposed Bayesian threshold model for survey data from a large national retail bank that examines the effects of service wait times on customer satisfaction. We find evidence of a threshold effect where long in-process wait times are associated with bank branches characterized by weak associations between service quality drivers and overall perceptions of service quality. Branches with wait times below the threshold are found to have much stronger associations.     

Investment and financing decisions of private and public firms

We examine differences in the allocation of cash flow between Western European private and public firms. Public firms have a higher investment‐cash flow sensitivity than comparable private firms. This difference is not attributable to more severe financing constraints of public firms. Instead, because differences in investment‐cash flow sensitivities are only observed for the unexpected portion of firms’ cash flow, the empirical evidence supports an agency‐based explanation. Similar patterns are observable for the expected and unexpected portion of firms’ shareholder distributions. Our results are driven by firms from countries with low ownership concentration and more liquid stock markets, where shareholders have lower incentives to monitor. The results are also more pronounced for public firms with low industry Tobin's q and high free cash flow, which are more prone to suffer from agency problems.