The response of a small open economy to a disturbance

Zusammenfassung Die Reaktion einer kleinen offenen Volkswirtschaft auf eine St?rung. — Die moderne Au\enhandelstheorie besteht im wesentlichen aus zwei voneinander unabh?ngigen Teilen : die Tauschtheorie besch?ftigt sich mit den langfristigen Handels- und Investitionsstr?men, die monet?re Theorie mit den kurzfristigen Ver?nderungen in der Zahlungsbilanz. Es fehlt eine Theorie, in der reale und monet?re Faktoren wirklich miteinander verknüpft sind. In dieser Arbeit wird versucht, diesem Ziel ein wenig n?her zu kommen. Wir betrachten eine kleine offene Volkswirtschaft, ursprünglich in einem langfristigen Gleichgewicht, die einer einmaligen und unerwarteten St?rung unterworfen ist. Die daraus sich ergebenden ?nderungen der Faktorallokation und des Realeinkommens werden als gegeben angesehen, und es wird untersucht, welche induzierten Anpassungen in der Zahlungsbilanz oder dem Wechselkurs erfolgen. Unter anderem werden hinreichende Bedingungen für monotone Anpassungspfade und für ein “überschie\en” abgeleitet.

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Résumé La réponse d’une petite économie ouverte à une perturbation. — La théorie du commerce international moderne comprend deux parties essentiellement indépendantes: une partie de troc qui s’occupe avec les structures de commerce et d’investissement à long terme, et une partie monétaire qui s’occupe avec la conduitea à court terme de la balance des paiements. Ce qui manque est une théorie par laquelle les facteurs réels et monétaires sont véritablement entremêlés. Cet article prend un petit pas envers ce but. Nous analysons une petite économie ouverte, d’abord en équilibre à long terme, qui est touchée par une perturbation abrupte, unique et imprévue d’une sorte quelconque. Nous regardons la conséquente réallocation des facteurs et la variation du revenu réel comme donnée et analysons l’ajustement induit de la balance des paiements ou du taux de change. Inter alia, nous dérivons les conditions suffisantes pour les voies d’ajustement monotones et pour les phénomènes ?d ’overshooting?.

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Resumen Reacción a un ?shock? en una economía peque?a y abierta. — La teoría moderna del comercio internacional está compuesta de dos partes esencialmente diferentes: un componente de intercambio real que se ocupa de la estructura a largo plazo del comercio y de la inversión y un componente monetario que trata de la conducta a corto plazo de la balanza de pagos. Lo que falta, es una teoría en la que se encuentre una genuina fusión de factures reales y monetarios. Con este objetivo se estudia una pequefia economia abierta, inicialmente en equilibrio a largo plazo y que se ve de repente sometida a un ?shock? inesperado de cualquier tipo. Considerando como dados la consecuente realocación de recursos y los cambios en la renta real, se estudia el ajuste inducido de la balanza de pagos y del tipo de cambio. Entre otros aspectos, se derivan condiciones suficientes para la existencia de funciones monótonas de ajuste y de ?overshooting?.

     

VI. Writschaftslehre der Unternehmungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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VI. Writschaftslehre der Unternehmungen

     

III. Weltwirtschaft und Wirtschaft einzlner Länderund und Gebiete

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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III. Weltwirtschaft und Wirtschaft einzlner L?nderund und Gebiete

     

SOCIAL INDICATORS—SYSTEMS, METHODS AND PROBLEMS

Professor Moser regards the purpose of social indicators as being to aid the policy maker by summarizing the state and changing conditions of society, pinpointing the outstanding existing and emerging social problems and monitoring the effects of social policies and programmes. Thus social indicators will frequently, though not necessarily, be normative and they will often, though again not necessarily, be concerned with outputs rather than inputs. Although many writers regard social indicators as being combinations of series, the problems of construction are substantial. Central to the idea of a social indicator, however, is that it should represent or summarize a broader concept than itself and that it should belong to a structure or system of series. Although there are no social theories about society in general on which a structure of indicators can at present be based there are a number of middle range theories relating to specific fields or sectors, such as occupational mobility, education, migration, mental health, etc., around which quantitative relationships and models can gradually be be built to give insight into social changes and perhaps eventually into the manipulation of policy instruments for the improvement of social conditions.     

Entitling the Pollutee: Liability versus Standard under Private Information

This paper considers and compares two different legal means -- full liability and standard – to reduce and to regulate pollution at a local level accounting for private information about benefits and costs. The familiar polluter pays principle makes the polluter liable for any damage. Since the courts lack information about the true damage the pollutee can and presumably will overstate this damage. Nevertheless, voluntary arrangements bypassing the courts exist (e.g., for Coasean reasons). However, such out-of court arrangements fail to improve in many cases the inefficient allocation of pollution due to agency costs. Given these unsatisfactory consequences of the polluter pays principle even after allowing for contracts around the law, we propose a modification of standards: the pollutee is entitled that a certain standard is satisfied, yet can trade this right for financial compensations. Contracts induced by this legal rule are countervailing (the optimal mechanism switches between subsidies and payments and first best efficiency holds at both ends) and this characteristic allows such a privatized standard to track the first best quite well and (often) better than the polluter pays principle. This relative ranking under private information is the opposite of the one that holds under uncertainty (here liability dominates the standard).JEL classification: D62, D82     

Product innovation and population dynamics in the German insurance market

Empirical research in organizational ecology has mainly focused on analyzing founding and mortality rates using life history data of the organizations. We try to extend this approach in our study in a number of ways. In contrast to most empirical studies in organizational ecology, we chose a population of service organizations, in particular the German insurance companies, the development dynamics of which are rather obvious in the innovative activities of existing organizations than in founding activities. We further discuss the points of contact between the organizational ecology approach and the theory of industry life cycles and extend the analysis to the relationship between innovative activities and population dynamics. The study examines the effects of population density, former events, and organizational size and age structure in the population of property &; casualty insurance companies on the number of product innovations generated. We will further develop a concept for an insurance specific industry life cycle with a non-typical maturation and degeneration phase.     

Should the Power to Redistribute Income be (De-)Centralized? An Example

This paper deals with two questions which have recentlyreceived considerable attention in both the political debateand the academic literature: First, are fiscal programs largeror smaller when they are (de-)centralized? Second, should suchprograms be (de-)centralized? We answer these questions withina politico-economic model in which voters choose the parametersof a linear income tax taking into account how taxes affect laborsupply and migration decisions. It is shown that a decentralizedpolitical system may lead to a smaller government budget. Theconcept of a veil of ignorance is used to analyze the desirabilityof a decentralized system. It is argued that a decentralizedsystem is preferred under the veil of ignorance only if individualsare not too risk-averse and the income distribution is not toopolarized.