Lost in translation – a revival of Wolfgang Stützel's Balances Mechanics

Wolfgang Stützel was a prominent German economist who coined a very special terminology in national accounting and in international economics. Therefore, it can be said that his contributions to economics got lost in translation. Especially, the Balances Mechanics approach and the paradox of competition are his biggest achievements in economic theory, but he never received international recognition. The objective of this paper is to pay tribute to his work by applying his analytical frameworks to the balance of payments crisis in the Eurozone and to the distributional impacts of austerity policy.     

Entwickelt sich ein neues Weltwährungssystem?

Die gro?en Leistungsbilanzdefizite der USA und die spiegelbildlich angeh?uften W?hrungsreserven in US-Dollar haben Kritik an der Schlüsselw?hrung und Vorschl?ge für eine ?nderung der derzeitigen Weltw?hrungsordnung hervorgerufen. Sowohl global als auch regional sind mehr oder weniger Erfolg versprechende Bemühungen um W?hrungsunionen zu verzeichnen. Der Aufsatz ist Werner Ehrlicher gewidmet, der sich in den 80er Jahren mit den „treibenden Kr?ften und Synthesen der W?hrungspolitik“ auseinandergesetzt hat.     

European integration and international co-operation in exchange rate policy

The debate about monetary integration within Europe often distracts attention from the Community's external relations.¹ In the field of monetary and exchange rate policy, however, thought is being given to ways in which countries could co-operate more efficiently at the world level.² How should these ideas be assessed, and what are their chances of success?     

A transshipment model for distribution and inventory relocation under uncertainty in humanitarian operations

The number of disasters and humanitarian crises which trigger humanitarian operations is ever-expanding. Unforeseen incidents frequently occur in the aftermath of a disaster, when humanitarian organizations are already in action. These incidents can lead to sudden changes in demand. As fast delivery of relief items to the affected regions is crucial, the obvious reaction would be to deliver them from neighbouring regions. Yet, this may incur future shortages in those regions as well. Hence, an integrated relocation and distribution planning approach is required, considering current demand and possible future developments.For this situation, a mixed-integer programming model is developed containing two objectives: minimization of unsatisfied demand and minimization of operational costs. The model is solved by a rolling horizon solution method. To model uncertainty, demand is split into certain demand which is known, and uncertain demand which occurs with a specific probability. Periodically increasing penalty costs are introduced for the unsatisfied certain and uncertain demand. A sensitivity analysis of the penalty costs for unsatisfied uncertain demand is accomplished to study the trade-off between demand satisfaction and logistical costs. The results for an example case show that unsatisfied demand can be significantly reduced, while operational costs increase only slightly.