Die prämienbegünstigte Zukunftsvorsorge in Österreich

Due to the predictable demographic developments and the budgetary restrictions in the Stability Pact of the Treaty of Maastricht the big pay-as-you-go public sector pension systems in many western European countries seem to have reached their limits. Since 2003 the Austrian government has put its trust in strengthening the third pillar of the pension system and supports private provision with state-aided premiums. In this paper this state-aided private provision system with its capital guarantee is presented, evaluated and analyzed. Moreover we point out the dilemma of this pension provision product: in the case of low asset returns the state premiums will be eroded by the expenses of the issuers. Furthermore it will be clarified that the issuers, in contrast to the clients, have no interest in investing in volatile assets since in that case the probability of exercising the capital guarantee will increase.     

THE EFFECTS OF GOAL EMPHASIS ON PERFORMANCE ON A COMPLEX TASK[1]

The article reports the results of a naturally occurring field experiment which took place in the Judge Advocate function of the Tactical Air Command (TAC), a major command within the US Air Force. Official Air Force goals for courts-martial processing time had existed for years but generally were ignored because they were considered unrealistic and unimportant. A new TAC staff advocate decided that processing time should be improved and took steps to emphasize goal attainment through various procedures. The result was a significant improvement in courts-martial processing time as compared to the rest of the Air Force where no such emphasis occurred. The implications of the results for goal setting theory and leadership are discussed.     

Is It What We Do or How We Do It? New Evidence on Agglomeration Economies and Metropolitan Growth

This paper uses data on U.S. metropolitan areas from 1970 to 1999 to examine the extent to which recent increases in earnings are attributable to agglomeration economies. We decompose the total change in earnings over the 1970–1999 period into components attributable to changes in relative growth, industry mix and interaction effects. We find strong evidence that relative growth matters more than industry mix. In addition, we find that relative growth effects are related to both localization and urbanization economies.     

Kalman filtering estimation of unobserved rational expectations with an application to the German hyperinflation

The assumption that rational expectations always lie on a convergent path is subject to an empirical test using the German hyperinflation data. The estimation technique employs a Kalman filtering algorithm. After presenting a brief background for the convergent expectations problem and a derivation of the various model specifications, a generalized expectations model and its attendant Kalman filtering estimation technique are discussed. Additional estimation details and empirical results are then presented. Based on an assumption of normally distributed errors, the null hypothesis of convergent paths is rejected in all situations involving a deterministic specification of the evolution of the unobserved parameter which characterizes the convergent path. The same null hypothesis is rejected in four of the six cases corresponding to a stochastic specification of the evolution of the unobserved parameter which characterizes the convergent path. A discussion of these findings, their economic significance, and suggestions for further research concludes the paper.