Financial repression and debt liquidation in the USA and the euro area

Rising debt levels have caused a revival of financial repression in the euro area and the USA. The Federal Reserve directly represses US bond yields and assists in financing the state budget, resulting in an overall liquidation effect from falling bond yields of about three per cent of total government revenues and one per cent of GDP in 2011. In the euro area, the ongoing actions to contain the European debt crisis have also repressed interest rates, easing debt-servicing costs in all European countries and reducing the interest rate payments for the German government by about one to two per cent of total government revenues. This article argues that a slight rise in infl ation could even liquidate German debt.     

Pre-sale information

In markets as diverse as that for specialized industrial equipment or that for retail financial services, sellers or intermediaries may earn profits both from the sale of products and from the provision of pre-sale consultation services. We study how a seller optimally chooses the costly quality of pre-sale information, next to the price of information and the product price, and obtain clear-cut predictions on when information is over- and when it is underprovided, even though we find that information quality does not satisfy a standard single-crossing property. Buyers who are a priori more optimistic about their valuation end up paying a higher margin for information but a lower margin for the product when they subsequently exercise their option to purchase at a pre-specified price.     

The Relative Dynamics of Investment and the Current Account in the G7-Economies

This paper contributes to the empirics of the intertemporal approach to the current account. We use a cointegrated VAR framework to identify permanent and transitory components of country-specific and global shocks. Our approach allows us to investigate empirically the sensitivity to persistence implied by many forward-looking models and our results shed new light on the excess volatility of investment encountered by Glick and Rogoff (1995). In G7 data, we find the relative current-account and investment response to be in line with the intertemporal approach.     

Elektronische Datenträger als Informationsmedium

The insurer may meet his obligation to inform the insured by using a CD-ROM or an USB-Stick instead of using a paper form. Although the information’s content doesn’t depend on the used medium, special questions arise in respect of some information-parts when an electronic data medium is used. For instance, the practical question how to put the “Produktinformationsblatt” (product fact sheet) in front. Further problems in connection with the use of an electronic data medium concern the information in due time and to the burden of proof.     

The Phenomenon of “Consumer Insolvency Tourism” and its Challenges to European Legislation

Consumer insolvency tourism, i.e., the relocation of over-indebted natural persons into a Member State granting a more favourable discharge regime from personal debt than the home country, has been focused by media as well as by legal practitioners quite intensively lately. Conflicts arise not only in distinguishing genuine and fictional relocations of the centre of main interest (COMI), but also between the effect of discharge and creditor's perspectives who did not take into account the possibility of considerably more debtor-friendly discharge facilities abroad when issuing the credit. While relocating a corporate COMI to another Member State providing better restructuring conditions will generally benefit both creditor and debtor, the effect of discharge in consumer insolvency procedures leads to less balanced results. It is not controversial that the current practice is in accordance with the wording of the European Insolvency Regulation (EIR). However, little research has been done so far on the question whether the phenomenon itself has been endorsed by the EIR. Even if consumer insolvency tourism is generally not regarded as an abuse of the EIR or of European freedoms, it may still not respect the interests of both debtors and creditors appropriately. With regard to the prospective revision of the EIR, this paper proposes different approaches to balance the interests of debtors and creditors by normative means.     

National influences on European Works Councils in UK‐ and US‐based companies

The view that the role of European Works Councils (EWCs) is shaped predominantly by national industrial relations (IR) traditions in the company's country of origin derives largely from the experience of EWCs in companies based in continental Europe. This article argues that a more differentiated approach to the influence of national IR factors on EWCs needs to be developed to take account of the circumstances of companies headquartered in the UK and the US, whose national IR arrangements do not provide a strong institutional model for the EWC and, in the case of US‐based companies, where headquarters management has little or no direct involvement in the EWC. Findings from comparative case studies of EWCs in eight UK‐ and US‐based multinationals suggest that their character is shaped by the interplay between ‘country‐of‐origin’ factors,‘country‐of‐location’ factors and structural, company‐specific considerations.     

The impact of rising oil prices on oil-importing developing countries and the scope for adjustment

Zusammenfassung Die Auswirkungen steigender ?lpreise auf die ?limportierenden Entwicklungsl?nder und der Spielraum für Anpassungen. — In diesem Aufsatz werden mit Hilfe eines Simulationsmodells sowohl die Auswirkungen steigender ?lpreise auf die ?limportierenden Entwicklungsl?nder als auch die Anpassungsma\nahmen untersucht, die dazu beitragen, diese Folgen weitgehend zu mildem. Ermittelt werden die Wirkungen auf das Wachstum des Bruttoinlandsprodukts, die Inflationsrate und die Handelsbilanz von Brasilien, Indien und Kenia. Es zeigt sich, da\ nach einer ?lpreiserh?hung das Realeinkommen am st?rksten zurückgeht und die Inflationsrate am h?chsten ist, wenn die Nominall?hne der Inflationsrate angepa\t werden. Die geringsten Einbu\en für das Realeinkommen ergeben sich, wenn die Staatsausgaben nicht durch die Inflation aufgezehrt, sondern real aufrechterhalten werden. Die Kehrseite der Medaille ist, da\ sich die Handelsbilanz bei voller Anpassung der L?hne am wenigsten und bei konstanten realen Staatsausgaben am st?rksten verschlechtert. Ein beruhigendes Ergebnis ist, da\ alternative Annahmen über die Einkommens- und Preiselastizit?ten die Resultate der verschiedenen Simulationen nicht wesentlich beeintr?chtigen.

---

Résumé Les effets des prix pétroliers accroissants sur les pays développants importants du pétrole et la marge d’ajuster. — Dans cet article les auteurs appliquent un modèle de simulation pour analyser les effets des prix pétroliers accroissants sur les pays développants importants du pétrole aussi bien que les mesures d’ajustement qui contribuent à mitiger largement cet effet. On démontre les effets sur la croissance du produit intérieur brut, le taux d’inflation et sur la balance commerciale du Brésil, de l’Inde et du Kenya. On a trouvé que le revenu réel se réduit le plus et l’inflation s’accroit le plus après une augmentation du prix pétrolier si les salaires nominaux sont ajustés suivant le taux d’inflation. L’effet le plus faible sur le revenu réel est obtenu si les dépenses du gouvernement ne sont pas érodées par l’inflation mais maintenues en terme réel. Le revers de la médaille est que la balance commerciale se détériore le moins dans le cas d’un ajustement complet des salaires et qu’elle est affectée le plus dans le cas mentionné en dernier lieu. Un résultat rassurant est que des suppositions alternatives sur les élasticités de revenu et de prix n’influencent pas significativement le résultat des simulations différentes.

---

Resumen El impacto de precios del petróleo crecientes sobre los países en desarrollo importadores de petróleo y el ámbito de ajuste. — En este artículo se analizan mediante la utilización de un modelo de simulación el impacto de precios del petróleo crecientes sobre países en desarrollo importadores de petróleo como también las medidas de ajuste que ayudan a suavizar ampliamente este impacto. El modelo se aplicó para mostrar el impacto sobre el crecimiento del producto geográfico bruto, la tasa de inflaeión y la balanza comercial de Brasil, India y Kenia. Se descubrió que después de un aumento de precios del petr?leo la declinación del ingreso real es mayor y la inflaeión es la más alta si los salarios nominales se ajustan en la misma proporeión que la tasa de inflaeión. El impacto ’mas bajo sobre el ingreso real se obtiene si el gasto del Gobierno no se erosiona por la inflaeión y se mantiene en términos reales. La otra cara de la medalla es que en el caso de ajuste total de los salarios, la balanza comercial se détériora en la menor proporeión mientras que en el último caso es afectada en la mayor proporeión. Un resultado reconfortante es que suposiciones alternativas sobre elasticidades de ingresos y precios no afectan significativamente los resultados de las variadas simulaciones.

     

Rezensionen

Ohne Zusammenfassung

---

Book reviews

     

You get what you pay for: the link between price and food safety in Kenya

The lack of a reliably safe food supply in developing countries imposes both health and economic costs. Food safety is one of several dimensions of food quality that are typically unobservable at the time of purchase. Branding can overcome this information problem by allowing firms to build reputations based on the quality of their products. If a reputation for food safety is valued directly by consumers, or if food safety is correlated with other valued attributes, firms producing safer food should be able to use their brand equity to charge higher prices. In addition, firms with stronger brand equity have stronger incentives to meet food safety standards in order to maintain that equity. Using data from more than 900 maize flour samples representing 23 distinct brands in eastern and central Kenya, we explore the relationship between price and contamination with aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is a fungal toxin common in maize, groundnuts, and other crops around the world. We find a strong negative correlation between price and contamination at the brand level, consistent with the hypothesized positive relationship between brand equity and food quality.     

Entrepreneurial capacities as antecedents of business performance in Brazilian firms

We investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial capacities and firm performance. More specifically, we investigate the effects of radical innovation and learning orientation on business performance. We test the effects of entrepreneurial orientation on learning orientation and radical innovation. The results suggest that radical product innovation and companies' orientation to learn have a positive effect on organizational performance. Additionally, we find that entrepreneurial orientation positively influences a firm's capability to learn and innovate. Our findings also show a direct effect of learning orientation on radical innovation, which means that companies with a higher proclivity to learn are more likely to create products and processes, representing a major departure from the state of current knowledge. Copyright © 2014 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.