Exploring the adjustment of American expatriate spouses in Germany

This paper re-conceptualizes the adjustment of expatriate spouses during overseas assignments and explores various factors influencing the level of spousal adjustment. It does so by using a combination of qualitative data, collected through interviews and group discussions with expatriate spouses, and quantitative data, gathered by means of a questionnaire survey of American expatriate spouses in Germany. The results support the existence of a hitherto neglected facet of spousal adjustment, designated 'role adjustment', and highlight some important antecedents of spousal adjustment. The implications of the results for research and the practice of international HRM are discussed.     

Duration, volume and volatility impact of trades

This paper presents a framework to model duration, volume and returns simultaneously, obtaining an econometric reduced form that incorporates causal and feedback effects among these variables. The methodology is applied to two groups of stocks, classified according to trade intensity. We find that: (1) all stocks exhibit trading volume clustering (which is significantly higher for frequently traded stocks); (2) times of greater activity coincide with a higher number of informed traders present in the market only for the frequently traded stocks; (3) the more frequently traded stocks converge more rapidly (in calendar time) to their long-run equilibrium, after an initial perturbation.     

Kommunikationssteuerung und Kommunikationscontrolling Das Beispiel Henkel

Zusammenfassungen  In Zeiten von immer knapper werdenden Ressourcen sehen sich viele Kommunikationsverantwortliche zunehmend in der Pflicht, die vorhandenden Budgets effizient und effektiv einzusetzen sowie ihren Wertsch?pfungsbeitrag nachzuweisen. Dabei unterliegen sie den gleichen Controllinganforderungen, die an andere Funktionen eines Unternehmens gestellt werden. Eine m?gliche Strategie zeigt das Praxisbeispiel des internationalen Konsumgüterherstellers Henkel. Ernst Primosch Corporate Vice President und Head Corporate Communications bei der Henkel KGaA in Düsseldorf M. A. Simone Gleumes Leiterin Strategy & Steering im Bereich Corporate Communications bei der Henkel KGaA in Düsseldorf     

A Reasonable Price for Electricity

Over the past decade, consumers’ electricity costs have risen disproportionally compared with the average inflation rate, mostly as the result of increased network tariffs and taxes. This development appears to be at odds with the stated purpose of introducing competition into the electricity sector through implementation of the EU Electricity Directive to realize benefits for end users in terms of lower prices as well as better quality of goods and services. This article discusses the conditions under which the price of electricity can be considered reasonable according to the Directive. The meaning of the term “reasonable” may depend on a number of factors, and it is necessary to distinguish between the various components of an energy bill. The various objectives of the directive could lead to diverging interpretations, even when applied to the same component of the bill, the supply price. According to the underlying market principle, reasonable may imply “economically efficient.” However, in line with the principle of universal service for households, reasonable should be understood to mean “affordable.” The article also examines the conditions under which a substantial rise of consumer energy costs due to increasing network tariffs can be justified. The focus of this article is on electricity, although, as stipulated under the Third Gas Directive, a consumer’s right to pay a reasonable price, while enjoying universal service, applies equally to gas. Therefore, the observations outlined in this paper are relevant also for gas consumers.     

Für Sie Gelesen

JOURNAL CLUB

Für Sie Gelesen     

Endogenous technological progress in a multi-sector growth model

This paper presents an endogenous growth model driven by human capital, where human capital can be allocated across three sectors: the production of the final consumption good, the educational sector and the production of technological capital (in the form of knowledge or ideas). In our model, which also includes public expenditure and population growth, labor augmenting technical progress is endogenous and this enriches the transitional dynamics of the economy. With respect to ideas-based growth models, we assume knowledge is produced according to a neoclassical technology, combining ideas and human capital. Such an assumption is motivated by empirical works showing the existence of significant decreasing returns in the creation of ideas at the aggregate level (as Kortum, 1993; and Pessoa, 2005) and of the weak relationship between some inputs of the knowledge production process (as the number of researchers) and the total factor productivity growth rate (as Jones, 2002). Under some general conditions, this economy exhibits the existence of a steady state equilibrium and an unstable multidimensional manifold. Numerical examples are provided to show the existence of stable arms.     

Consumption multipliers of different types of public spending: a structural vector error correction analysis for the UK

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between government spending and private consumption in the UK, for which there is scarce previous empirical evidence. We disaggregate public expenditure into three categories and search for the corresponding private consumption multipliers. Our analysis is based on the estimation of a structural vector error correction model with quarterly non-interpolated data for the period 1981:1–2007:4. Initially, we estimate negative but barely significant effects on consumption of shocks to total public spending. Then, using the public spending breaking down, we find that while shocks to public wages crowd-out private consumption as predicted by neoclassical models, shocks to the non-systematic component of social spending and government purchases of goods and services generate a positive reaction, so to crowd-in private consumption. Thus, the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of fiscal multipliers on private consumption change across different public spending categories. Our findings suggest that any empirical support of competing theoretical models on the issue would benefit from a disaggregation of government expenditure, rather than focusing on the aggregate measure.     

Probabilistic sophistication,second order stochastic dominance and uncertainty aversion

We study the interplay of probabilistic sophistication, second order stochastic dominance and uncertainty aversion, three fundamental notions in choice under uncertainty. In particular, our main result, Theorem 2, characterizes uncertainty averse preferences that are probabilistically sophisticated, as well as uncertainty averse preferences that satisfy second order stochastic dominance. As a byproduct, Proposition 2 highlights a fundamental tension between probabilistic sophistication/second order stochastic dominance and uncertainty aversion in the presence of nontrivial unambiguous events.