Rückversicherung und Risikostrukturausgleich als Instrumente der Risikoallokation in der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung

Within the context of the Health Care Reform Act from 1992 a risk adjustment mechanism was introduced. The risk adjustment mechanism should reduce risk selecting that has increased with the introduction of greater choice for insured persons. With the redistribution of income for the risk factors age, gender, numbers of disabled people and the way to get sick-pay, competition should be developed with the aim of reduced competitive distortion and a fairer distribution of income. However, the risk adjustment mechanism has missed it aims partially, and it also has not increased the efficiency of the health care system. It is therefore necessary to ask for alternative solutions. The authors see an alternative in private reinsurance as an additional and substitute instrument to the risk adjustment mechanism.     

Ersatz für die Grundsteuer: eine einfache,effiziente, kostengünstige und gerechte Lösung

The highest constitutional court in Germany recently declared that property tax is not in conformity with the constitution. A revision of the property tax laws needs to be undertaken but there is no consensus about a favourable solution yet. One of the main obstacles to a consensus is tackling the new assessments of over 35 million households and the ensuing wave of millions of lawsuits. This paper proposes avoiding those costs by slightly increasing the tax rates of the value added tax and income tax and giving the increased revenues to the municipalities as a substitute for the property tax. This procedure has at least two advantages: (1) It can take up and reflect the distributional effects of the property tax. (2) It is simple, efficient, economic and fair.     

Creativity in the opportunity identification process and the moderating effect of diversity of information

We employ two study designs for a more detailed examination of creativity in the opportunity identification process. We employ a correlational field study to test the hypothesis that divergent thinking affects venture growth through business idea generation. We use an experimental design to test the hypothesis that diversity of information moderates the effect of divergent thinking on business idea generation. Analyses based on 98 business owners across both study designs supported our hypotheses. Combining the findings from both designs points to boundary conditions of theories suggesting constraining information; this may weaken the indirect effect of divergent thinking on venture growth.     

Reinsurance Brokers and Advice Quality: Is There a Need for Regulation?

Brokers play an increasing role in the distribution of reinsurance. In order to analyse reinsurance brokers' advice quality, we employ a model in which a monopoly broker advises cedents to buy a particular one out of similar reinsurance policies that cost the same but differ in details. The broker decides on how much to invest in his advice quality and on the price to charge for his service. We find that the broker's advice quality is generally lower and the price for his service higher than in the social optimum, even in the presence of a potential new entrant.     

Auswirkungen der EU-Vermittlerrichtlinie auf die deutsche Vermittlerlandschaft

Die Umsetzung der EU-Richtlinie 2002/92/EG über die Versicherungsvermittlung in deutsches Recht trat am 22. Mai 2007 in Kraft. Seither sind für jeden Vermittler eine Gewerbeerlaubnis und eine Registrierung erforderlich, um den Beruf ausüben zu dürfen. Bei der eigentlichen Beratung gibt es die Pflicht zur Information, Beratung und Dokumentation.     

Kapitalisierung von Paarbeziehungen

This study examines the role that the social networking site Facebook plays in the different aspects of relationship management by couples. The communication of couples is influenced not only by the relationship phase but also by the geographical distance between the partners. Based on the assumption that these factors are also important for the couple’s (partly) public Facebook communications, the online survey explores whether couples in the first phase of a relationship or in a long-distance relationship use Facebook intensively for relationship management. Furthermore, the concept of capitalization (Gable et al. (2004, 2006)) is applied to the social network communication. Originally, it referred to interpersonal communication. In conjunction with the publicity of social networks, the awareness of others could change the processes of capitalization. It can be shown that relationship management in a narrow (“romantic”) sense is upheld on a rather low level. Contrary to expectations, there is less (partly) public relationship communication in the first phase of a couple’s relationship as well as in long-distance relationships. Also contrary to a culturally pessimistic point of view, Facebook is not replacing traditional forms of relationship communication. Capitalization also has deficits; nonverbal forms of communication such as facial expressions, body language, and gestures are lacking on Facebook, despite all of its various emoticons.