Finanzielle Repression — ein Instrument zur Bewältigung der Krisenfolgen?

Financial repression committed by central banks has been put forward as a means to secretly reduce the real burden of high public debts. Financial repression has allegedly played an important role in the impressive reduction of the US debt ratio after World War II. A mix of conventional budget consolidation and rapid growth was the main driver in this relative debt reduction with a minor role for financial repression. But does financial repression really exist? The authors express different opinions on evidence for this concept. Those authors who find that there are indicators of financial repression fear redistributive tendencies between debtors and creditors and high opportunity costs in the form of savings and investment distortions. Therefore, financial repression is not a “cure” for the high public debts amassed in the euro area during the recent sovereign debt and banking crisis. Furthermore, the high sovereign debts in the euro area may threaten economic development and impose high costs on society. Therefore, reducing these debts is politically highly relevant, and fiscal policy should be characterised by a modest reduction in government spending and/or tax increases, combined with a policy promoting economic growth. Macroprudential regulations should supplement this financial policy.     

Political hazards and firms' geographic concentration

Research summary : We examine the relationship between the geographic concentration of a firm's sales and the firm's vulnerability to expropriation hazards. Although expanding outside the home location can initially increase a firm's exposure to government expropriation, we find that this effect reverses when a firm's sales outside its home location have reached a point at which it has sufficient resources to better influence government actions and to pose a credible threat to exit the market in which it is being targeted. We supplement this main result by identifying two moderating factors: the firm's level of political capital and the effectiveness of institutional constraints on government behavior. We find support for these hypotheses from survey data on privately owned enterprises in China. Managerial summary : This research advises firm managers that certain market activities might knock their firms' economic interests out of alignment with the government's political interests, and thus, influence the political hazards they face, particularly in emerging markets such as China, which has attracted strong interest of many firms with respect to entering the market. Here, all else being equal, the firms' geographic concentration exposes them to different levels of state expropriation—but not in a simple linear fashion as suggested by the conventional wisdom of local protectionism or that of the bargaining advantage generated by the threat of relocation: Those who are “stuck in the middle” ended up paying twice or even three times as much unauthorized levies as the purely local or the most expansive firms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Justice Climate and Workgroup Outcomes: The Role of Coworker Fair Behavior and Workgroup Structure

Journal of Business Ethics - Research on justice climate demonstrates a consistent effect on workgroup outcomes such as job satisfaction, commitment, and performance. However, little research...     

By the teeth: A critical examination of James Scott's The moral economy of the peasant

Peasant households in Southeast Asia and elsewhere live on the margin of subsistence. Their survival strategies make them technological conservatives and weavers of reciprocal webs of social obligation and dependence. James C. Scott has argued that the fabric of this “moral economy” both guarantees subsistence for the peasants and forms the touchstone on which their judgements of social justice are tested. When those who should offer succor withdraw it, peasants are outraged and from their anger springs peasant rebellion. Two South Asian peasant rebellions of the 1940s (Telengana and Tebhaga) fail to support Scott's account and raise major questions about his historical method. Two others case studies focused on the early years of colonial contact (the Padri Wars and the capitalist transformation of the Kaveri delta) lead the authors to question sharply the existence of a “moral economy of the peasant” and to suggest that Scott has inadvertently presented a landlord's view of peasant society.     

The sociology of enterprise, accounting and budget rules: Implications for organizational theory

The sociology of organizations has ignored the evolution of and variation in enterprise rules, budget systems and accounting rules. This paper takes a broad approach to accounting rules, arguing that they are related to large variations in enterprise forms and in industry problems. The rule making and enforcement apparatus of modern society is described. Both external and internal aspects of accounting rules and budget systems are explored.     

When businesses oppose businesses in support of consumerist goals

The study of consumer politics has focused primarily on those instances in which consumer and business interests have been in conflict. When this occurs, consumer groups are generally perceived as the weaker of the two contestants due to the difficulties of mobilizing groups in support of public goods (the classic free rider problem). One mechanism by which consumer groups appear to improve their political prospects is the formation of coalitions with one set of business groups to help oppose a second set of business groups. This paper classifies these consumer-business coalitions and analyses their political significance.

     

Ownership and Control of German Corporations

In a study of the ownership of German corporations, we finda strong relation between board turnover and corporate performance,little association of concentrations of ownership with managerialdisciplining, and only limited evidence that pyramid structurescan be used for control purposes. The static relationship ofownership to control in Germany is therefore similar to theUnited Kingdom and the United States. However, there are markeddifferences in dynamic relations involving transfers of ownership.There is an active market in share blocks giving rise to changesin control, but the gains are limited and accrue solely to theholders of large blocks, not to minority investors. We provideevidence of low overall benefits to control changes and theexploitation of private benefits of control.