Prozesskostenrechnung in der Nahrungsmittelindustrie — Erkenntnisse aus einer Machbarkeitsstudie — ieter Pfaff obias chneider

In der Praxis bestehen nach wie vor Bedenken gegenüber einer Einführung und Anwendung prozessorientierter Kostenrechnungen.     

The Impact of Deregulation during 1990–1997 on Banking in Austria

The operating environment for banking in Austriachanged substantially during 1990–1997. The changes during the periodcan be seen as a gradualadjustment towards adherence to European banking standards, which becamea legal requirement on Austria's entry, in 1995, into the European Union. Inthis paper, we investigate the relative performance of Austrian banksduring this period and thereby test the hypothesis of increasedcompetition. The study reveals that Aktiengesellschaften hadconsistent productivity improvement over the period, Sparkassen,and Volksbanken exhibited a turnaround in productivity in 1997,and Raiffeisenbanken experienced consistent productivity decline.Overall, Austrian banks experienced a decline in average efficiencyand productivity until 1996 with slight improvements in 1997. Thestudy reveals evidence of product diversification rather thanincreased price competition; a decrease in the spread of prices paidfor inputs indicates increased competitiveness over the period, whichcan be attributed to deregulation brought about by EU-membership.     

Schumpeter’s Idea of a Universal Social Science

This paper deals with methodological principles of Schumpeter’s academic writings. Those principles led Schumpeter to create diverse works and were reflected systematically in some of his writings, where Schumpeter emerged as a theorist of science. Besides working on specific topics, Schumpeter dealt systematically with methodological issues in different works. Schumpeter’s History of Economic Analysis, in particular, must be regarded as the one study among his diverse works which is considered not only his latest but also his most relevant analysis concerning social sciences and the role of economics in relation to sociology, history, and other academic branches. The substantial preface of the History of Economic Analysis can be regarded as a manual on how to refer to different academic branches and integrate them into a coherent universal social science, which is far removed from being an autistic, narrow economic science of some modern representation. Although Schumpeter’s History of Economic Analysis has been extensively printed in several editions, the idea is that the preface especially reveals somewhat neglected thoughts in Schumpeterian discourse. While Schumpeter is mostly regarded as a pioneer of evolutionary economics, this paper argues that Schumpeter could also, perhaps primarily, be interpreted as a well-reasoning institutionalist aiming at a universal social science. From today’s point of view, Schumpeter is a truly interdisciplinary theorist.     

Entrepreneurship and Independent Professionals: Social and Economic Logics

This study discusses stereotypes of entrepreneurship by looking at the overlapping areas of entrepreneurship, self-employment and professions. Professions are part of the category of self-employment and the study presents empirical findings drawn from a unique empirical dataset from Finland: a survey (N?=?733) including freelance journalists, translators, interpreters and artists at the blurred boundaries between waged work and entrepreneurship. Findings reveal that the professions are clearly different and the manifestations of entrepreneurship vary, reflecting the work and the labor market situation within the profession. Life and work situations of liberal professions cannot be interpreted in simple black-and-white schemes of winners and losers. Instead, many different socioeconomic situations can be found ‘in between,’ which are driven by different social logics. For entrepreneurship research, the study opens up new avenues by taking us beyond the push-pull dichotomy, which over-simplifies the decision to enter self-employment. The term entrepreneurship is often used in an undifferentiated way, and it easily generates myths and stereotypes which are challenged by the study. A narrower and more realistic view shows that there are diverse agents under the flag of entrepreneurship, who are usually not regarded as core entrepreneurs although they exist in everyday life.     

An alternative method for identifying booms and busts in the Euro area housing market

This article develops a model-based method to detect booms and busts in the Euro area housing market. A model is constructed and tested, whereby the user cost rate, a demographic variable, unemployment rate, disposable income, debt-to-income ratio and housing stock are fundamental variables significantly explaining house price (HP) developments. Booms/busts are identified as episodes when the HP index exceeds the levels implied by those economic fundamentals. Furthermore, a cross-check with boom/bust episodes based on other methods is carried out to substantiate the results, while the ability of the model in predicting booms/busts in real time is also tested.     

Erfolgsfaktoren der Versicherungsmakler vor dem Hintergrund der Entwicklungen auf den nationalen und internationalen Versicherungsmärkten

Zeitschrift für die gesamte Versicherungswissenschaft -     

Versicherungsmedizinische Risikobeurteilung von pathologischen Leberwerten und aktuellen Entwicklungen bei der chronischen Hepatitis

Alcoholic liver disease, non alcoholic fatty liver and chronic viral hepatitis have a high prevalence in the German population. They are associated with significantly increased occupational disability and mortality. Elevated levels of GGT or ALT can be found in about 10 % of the general population. Attempts to identify an underlying diagnosis often remain unsuccessful. In selected cases CDT can be helpful to confirm or rule out suspected alcohol-abuse. Recent studies showed that non alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a potentially severe complication of diabetes and its metabolic precursors. Treatment options for chronic viral hepatitis get more and more sophisticated, but the rates of sustained cure are still unsatisfactory, especially in hepatitis B with negative HBe-antigen and the hepatitis C genotypes 1, 4 and 5. Life long suppression of HBV replication by nucleoside analogues seems to prevent liver cirrhosis, but may become a great burden on health costs. The risk assessment of HBV carriers and of patients with successfully treated viral hepatitis should rely on the expertise of experienced physicians.     

Automation and the worldwide restructuring of the electronics industry: Strategic implications for developing countries

Governments in developing countries are placing a high priority on the development and expansion of an export-oriented electronics industry. Thus, the structural change and technological transformation currently being experienced throughout the world will have major implications for their success.Due to the oligopolistic nature of the internationalization process in this industry, the use of computerized and automation technologies in electronics manufacture is likely to penetrate into a very select group of Third World industrial growth poles in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The extent and location of this penetration will be largely controlled by the OECD-based multinationals. Consequently, the expected positive developmental effects may be diminished and limited to those few growth poles. These new constraints must be understood by LDC governments in order for them to implement countervailing strategies.