Der Vielfalt eine zweite Chance?

Television program diversity has been widely discussed since the introduction of the dual broadcasting system in Germany. «A chance for diversity...» was the title of the program study by Schatz/Immer/Marcinkowsky (1989), who proposed the hypothesis of convergence. This hypothesis postulates that public and private programs converge due to the built-in competition between the public and private television systems. In this paper we discuss the phenomenon of diversity and differentiate between internal (concerning the program content of one channel) and external diversity (related to the program content of several channels within a broadcasting system). We conducted a quantitative content analysis of TV program guides. Based on four different classification systems (program- and audience-oriented, format- and content-oriented), we analysed internal and external diversity in a longitudinal study. Results show an overall constant level of diversity. Especially external diversity is consistently high. Within channels, we found diversity shifts. Public programs show a slightly reduced diversity; specialized channels, on the other hand, increased their diversity. The analytic tools employed in our study and its results can contribute to the development of empirically measurable quality criteria for program development.     

Diversification of Macroeconomic Risk and International Integration of Capital Markets: The Case of Mexico

This article tests the arbitrage pricing theory in the contextof the unstable macroeconomic years in Mexico, 1977–87.Using information on returns on assets available to domesticinvestors—primarily stocks traded at the local stock exchange—anattempt is made to ascertain the extent to which these assetshave offered premia for a set of proposed sources of risk. Thepervasive factors that play an important role in asset pricingin Mexico are unexpected inflation, unexpected money growth,innovations in the Standard & Poor's 500 price series, andinnovations in the dollar oil price. A residual market factoris obtained, using the McElroy and Burmeister model. Given thatthese risks get premia over and above the riskless rate, expectedrates of return in Mexico have been higher during the yearsof erratic macroeconomic conditions. Mexico is not consideredto be well integrated with the international capital marketsbecause local sources of risk—such as inflation—arenot priced in the United States, whereas international sourcesof uncertainty—such as oil price shocks—are pricedlocally but not in the United States.     

Policy reforms and growth in computable OLG economies

We build a computable general equilibrium model with overlapping generations of agents and an endogenous growth specification à la Lucas. Two main issues are addressed: (i) to what extent does endogenous growth play a significant role in the face of policy reforms and (ii) are the simulation results robust to various calibrations of the production function of human capital. In this purpose, we simulate four large policy changes and compare the predictions with endogenous growth (under various parameter sets) to those with exogenous growth. If endogenous growth is important when examining the effects of education reform, it does not really matter with pension reforms and plays a minor role in the debt repayment scenario. These results are very robust to calibration.     

Co‐Worker Exclusion and Employee Outcomes: An Investigation of the Moderating Roles of Perceived Organizational and Social Support

When does social support alleviate or exacerbate the effects of being excluded by colleagues in the workplace? This study integrates belongingness and social support theories to predict and demonstrate the differential effects of work‐related support (i.e., perceived organizational support; POS) and non‐work‐related support (i.e., family and social support; FSS) on employee reactions to co‐worker exclusion. Consistent with our predictions, we found that employees reporting high levels of co‐worker exclusion and high levels of perceived organizational support demonstrate higher levels of performance and increased levels of self‐worth than those reporting low levels of POS. Alternatively, support from family or friends intensified the negative relationship between co‐worker exclusion and self‐esteem and the positive relationship between co‐worker exclusion and job‐induced tension. Unexpectedly, FSS did not influence the supervisor‐rated task performance of excluded workers, nor did POS mitigate the relationship between co‐worker exclusion and job‐induced tension. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

The Pricing of Experience Goods: The Example of en primeur Wine

The market for "primeur" wine in the Bordeaux region allows producers to sell wine that is still in barrels. As with all experience goods, producers send quality signals to uninformed buyers. Using original data on Bordeaux wines, we show that the pricing behavior of producers depends to a large extent on their reputation, and much less on short-term changes in quality (as measured by experts' grades). We also find that the primeur price has an informative role, since a 10% increase in primeur price leads to a 3% increase in prices on the market for bottled wine.     

Top management team's vision and human resources management practices in innovative Spanish companies

The objective of the article is to analyse whether the strategic vision of the top management team (TMT) and the way employees working in teams are rewarded and assessed affect companies' innovation performance. The study was carried out on a sample of 97 Spanish companies belonging to the three most innovative sectors based on number of patents registered. The results indicate that the top management team's strategic vision alone does not explain a company's innovation performance. Innovation also requires the existence of compensation practices based on the ideas generated and developed by project teams. These results offer relevant implications for the TMT and the managers of the research and development (R&D) and human resources (HR) functions about the way teams should be rewarded and supported in order to improve the company's innovation efforts.     

Labour mobility in the EU: Dynamics,patterns and policies

The continued economic crisis has become a major test for the labour markets of individual member states. Labour mobility within the European Union has the potential to help to reduce labour market pressures and ease economic imbalances. However, a long-term loss of working age population can be detrimental to sending countries. This Forum explores mobility patterns within the European Union and analyses the labour market and welfare effects of labour mobility via case studies of the UK, Poland, Germany and Spain. It also examines a number of its aspects that have important political and institutional relevance for the European Union and its future.     

Understanding Society: minimising selection biases in data collection using mobile apps

Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study has a programme of research and development that underpins innovations in data collection methods. One of our current focuses is on using mobile applications to collect additional data that supplement data collected in annual interviews. To date, we have used mobile apps to collect data on consumer expenditure, well-being, anthropometrics and cognition. In this paper, we review the potential barriers to data collection using mobile apps and experimental evidence collected with the Understanding Society Innovation Panel, on what can be done to reduce these barriers.     

Panama disease and contract farming in the Philippines: Towards a political ecology of risk

Despite the vast research on contract farming by agrarian scholars, little is known about interactions between biological risks and the social–political effects of contracts. This study analysed contract farming arrangements in the export banana industry in the Philippines amidst an expanding epidemic of Panama disease. We developed a political ecology of risk approach to investigate how ideas about technological and biological risks are influenced by contractual arrangements, and we borrowed from Cultural Theory the insight that risk and blame are connected concepts, always political, and disadvantage marginalized groups through disproportionate risk burdens. Data collection involved the study of contracts, interviews with decision‐makers, and focus group discussions with agrarian cooperatives. The views of both large corporations as well as organized smallholders were recorded. We found that the former contractually compel the latter to bear the burden of the disease, while blaming them for its spread. Risk decisions were embedded in the dynamics of agrarian social relationships, and economic and political arrangements between actors influenced possibilities and limitations for disease control. We argue that the contractual stipulations, in concert with blaming processes, create a discursive environment that both allow inequitable relations to remain unquestioned, and constrain possibilities for control of Panama disease.