Overtime Work and Overtime Compensation in Germany

Sharing the available stock of work more fairly is a popular concern in the public policy debate. One policy proposal is to reduce overtime work in order to allow the employment of more people. This paper suggests that such a concept faces major problems. Using Germany as a case study, it is shown that the group of workers with the highest risks of becoming unemployed, namely the unskilled, also exhibit low levels of overtime work. Those who work overtime, namely the skilled, face excess demand on the labour market. Since skilled and unskilled workers are largely complements in production, a general reduction in overtime will lead to less production and hence also to a decline in the level of unskilled employment. The paper provides empirical support for this line of argument. It is also shown that paid overtime work has lost relative importance over time.     

The relevance of irrelevance in brand communication

Brand managers strive to achieve an outstanding position in the psyche of the user by differentiating the product and service. In order to do so, brands are now often promoted by communications that focus on a trivial attribute difference. The current study tests both how the use of such an irrelevant attribute affects the perceptions of the consumer and how they rate the brand when the irrelevance of the attribute is previously revealed. The results of a controlled experiment (n = 894) show that the use of irrelevant attributes generally has a positive effect on buying behavior and that this effect is obtained even when the actual irrelevance is previously proven to the consumer. Further, the results are consistent across a variety of outcome variables, including attention, perceived uniqueness, price fairness, attitude toward the brand, and intention to buy the brand. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cybersecurity: Stakeholder incentives,externalities, and policy options

Information security breaches are increasingly motivated by fraudulent and criminal motives. Reducing their considerable costs has become a pressing issue. Although cybersecurity has strong public good characteristics, most information security decisions are made by individual stakeholders. Due to the interconnectedness of cyberspace, these decentralized decisions are afflicted with externalities that can result in sub-optimal security levels. Devising effective solutions to this problem is complicated by the global nature of cyberspace, the interdependence of stakeholders, as well as the diversity and heterogeneity of players. The paper develops a framework for studying the co-evolution of the markets for cybercrime and cybersecurity. It examines the incentives of stakeholders to provide for security and their implications for the ICT ecosystem. The findings show that market and non-market relations in the information infrastructure generate many security-enhancing incentives. However, pervasive externalities remain that can only be corrected by voluntary or government-led collective measures.     

An economic analysis of cooperative research

The U.S. government's most recent policy initiative to increase industrial research activity is the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984. Since its passage much attention has been given to this new organizational research form, but to date there has not been any systematic investigation of the participants in cooperative research. This paper is an initial attempt to fill that void. First, a classification scheme is presented to describe the research activity of firms currently engaged in cooperative endeavors, as evidenced by mandated filings reported in the Federal Register. Then, a model of inter-firm differences in cooperative research activity is posited and tested using survey-based data for a sample of R&D active firms in the U.S. manufacturing sector. We conclude that market power is the principal determinant of involvement in cooperative research.     

The Hungarian alternative to soviet-type planning

The basic features of the post-1968 Hungarian economic system are compared with the traditional Soviet model. In practice the New Economic Mechanism has differed both from the model outlined in reform proposals and from the Soviet model as well. These latter differences include changes in planning behavior, instruments used to control resource allocation, and the evaluation of enterprises. The social constraints to system changes as revealed by the Hungarian experience are analyzed, and recent developments in the reform of the Hungarian economic system are evaluated.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME AND WEALTH IN JAPAN

This paper reviews research on the distribution of income and wealth in Japan, identifies sources of data on income and wealth, and describes limitations of these data. Evidence that Japan's poorest income groups are relatively well-off is convincing, but there is less evidence that the overall distribution of income in Japan is more equal than in other OECD countries. Agricultural policy, social welfare policy, the tax system, trends in earnings differentials, and the role of the Japanese family are among the many factors that have shaped Japan's income distribution. The rapid appreciation of the stock market and land prices during the late 1980s led to greater inequality in the distribution of wealth. Rapid population aging is expected to lead to an increase in total national wealth relative to national income which may have an adverse impact on the distribution of income.     

Debt-for-nature swaps: Axing the debt instead of the forests

Combining debt reduction with halting deforestation seems to be an attractive way of solving two urgent global problems at the same time at hardly any cost. But this view may be overly optimistic. What are the advantages and the drawbacks of debt-for-nature swaps? Are there any better alternatives?     

Ecosystem Service Value and Agricultural Conversion in the Amazon: Implications for Policy Intervention

We explore the welfare implications of agricultural expansion in the Brazilian Amazon by comparing spatially explicit estimates of soybean rents and the value of ecosystem services. Although these estimates are generated from different datasets, models, and estimation techniques, the values are comparable, such that the value of ecosystem services is greater than soybean rents for about 61% of the total area and 24% of the area where soybean rents are positive if protected areas are well enforced. Based on the balance between the benefits and costs of conversion, failure to value ecosystem services reduces total social welfare by 7.13 billion dollars annually relative to an optimum. Policy instruments that internalize the value of ecosystem services via protected lands, land conversion taxes, conservation subsidies, or excise taxes can avoid much of this loss. Regardless of intervention regime, policy makers should be cognizant of the diminishing net benefits of converting natural ecosystems to agriculture. Realizing the final 3.8% requires the conversion of an additional 15% natural ecosystems to soybean production.     

Education and its intergenerational transmission: country of origin-specific evidence for natives and immigrants from Switzerland

This study compares the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment across immigrant groups using the Swiss Census 2000. Determinants of educational outcome and educational mobility are examined. A child’s educational opportunity depends on its parental background. Not only the effect of parental human capital but also other determinants of child educational attainment vary depending on the child’s nationality. Overall educational upward mobility is more pronounced among second generation immigrants than among natives. Children of Turkish, Portuguese and former Yugoslavian origin appear to be most disadvantaged in the process of human capital formation.