Sensibler Umgang verhindert Retraumatisierung

Traumatische Erfahrungen begleiten Betroffene ein Leben lang - Wird bei einer Krankenhauseinweisung oder beim Umzug in ein Pflegeheim die Posttraumatische Belastungsst?rung nicht erkannt, kann es leicht zu Traumareaktivierungen kommen, die auch juristisch bedeutsame Entscheidungen nach sich ziehen k?nnen.     

The influence of pension funds on corporate governance

Although pension funds have gained importance in the last two decades, their role has not been described in detail by economic models. This article focuses on the scope of these institutional investors when they are not satisfied with a management team of a company in which the pension fund holds a block of shares. Stock holdings by pension funds are largely dispersed. Therefore, any intervention by pension funds in corporate governance requires the formation of a coalition of pension funds. The realization of a coordinated intervention, in turn, is subject to the problems related to the provision of public goods, such as free riding. We find that the stock dispersion and the combined share of pension funds, coordination costs and the attractiveness of the exit option are relevant factors for determining the probability of the success of interventions.     

Do time limits in the sickness insurance system increase return to work?

This article analyzes the effect of stricter enforcement of the eligibility criteria in the Swedish sickness insurance (SI) system. In 2008, time-restricted assessments of the individual’s working capacity on the 91st and 181st sick day was introduced. Taking advantage of the quasi-experimental feature of the intervention, I find a large and significant increased exit rate around the 181-day assessment. The impact is the result of longer spells outside SI-benefits, indicating that the stricter rules create disincentives to report sick.     

Should the Good and the Selfish be Taxed Differently?*

In this paper, we consider an environment where individual actions have externalities and two types of agents exist: agents with social preferences (the good) and selfish agents. Selfish agents have pay‐off functions that do not take into account social welfare. The pay‐off of an agent is a linear combination of social welfare and the pay‐off of a selfish agent. We demonstrate that the corrective tax rates that maximize social welfare do not depend on the degree of social preferences. Hence, the good and the selfish should not be taxed differently.     

Productivity and technical change: the case of Taiwan

This paper analyses productivity growth in 16 of Taiwan's manufacturing industries during the period 1978–1992. The non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis approach is used to compute Malmquist productivity indexes. These are decomposed into efficiency change and technical change. The latter is further decomposed into an output bias, an input bias and a magnitude component. In addition, the direction of input bias is identified. Empirical results indicate that the sector's TFP increased at a rate of 2.89% per annum, which could be ascribed to a technical progress (2.56%) and an efficiency improvement (0.33%).     

Erhöht Solvency II den Bedarf an Rückversicherung im Schaden-/Unfallgeschäft in Deutschland?

Reinsurers and reinsurance brokers are often of the opinion that the introduction of Solvency II will lead to changes in how re-insurance is purchased. Our analysis of these assumptions for the German property and casualty insurance market lead to a market survey. This survey revealed that overall the participating insurance companies expect no significant changes for their companies, although they do anticipate changes in buying patterns of the rest of the market and in the overall market environment. This paper examines the reasons for this difference in expectations between those of individual companies and those of the overall market.     

Information Cascades in the Labor Market

A model of herding behavior in the labor market is presented where employers receive signals with limited precision about the workers types, and can observe previous employers decisions. Both the employer and the worker can influence the signal probabilities. In particular, the employer tries to increase the precision of the signal about the workers type whereas the worker wants to get a good signal, independent of her type. In a two-period model, we derive conditions for an equilibrium in which only down-cascades occur, i.e., the second employer does not hire a worker with a bad history even if he receives a favorable private signal about the workers type, but he follows his own signal if the workers history is good.