Exports, imports and firm survival: first evidence for manufacturing enterprises in Germany

This paper investigates the links between firm survival and three types of international trade activities—exports, imports and two-way trade. It uses unique new representative data for manufacturing enterprises from Germany, one of the leading actors on the world market for goods. The paper contributes to the literature by providing the first evidence on the role of imports and two-way trading for firm survival in a highly developed country. The result indicate a strong positive link between firm survival on the one hand and imports and two-way trading on the other hand, while exporting alone does not play a role for exiting the market or not.     

The european monetary system 1979–1987: Why has it worked?

The European Monetary System has remained relatively stable in the eight years of its existence. The following article analyses the factors that have contributed to this stability and assesses the prospects for the system in the years to come.     

Behavioral research and empirical modeling of marketing channels: Implications for both fields and a call for future research

Game theoretic models of marketing channels typically rely on simplifying assumptions that, from a behavioral perspective, often appear naïve. However, behavioral researchers have produced such an abundance of behavioral regularities that they are impossible to incorporate into game theoretic models. We believe that a focus on three core findings would benefit both fields; these are: first, beliefs that are held by the various players regarding profit consequences of different actions are incomplete and often biased; second, players’ preferences and optimization objectives are not commonly known; and third, players have insufficient cognitive abilities to achieve optimization objectives. Embracing these three findings shifts the focus from rational decision making to how decision makers learn to improve their decision-making skills. Concluding, we believe that greater convergence of game theoretic modeling and behavioral research in marketing channels would lead to new insights for both fields.     

Airport capacity and demand calculations by simulation��the case of Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport

Airports are vital parts of traffic infrastructure and networks in global and dynamic economies securing inter- and transcontinental mobility of goods and people in spatially dislocated market structures. The operational capacity of an airport must be dimensioned under a long-term strategic view as its productivity is determined by available infrastructure. Often expansion projects for, e.g., an additional runway require a timeframe of up to twenty years for negotiation, planning and construction. The correction of existing or future bottlenecks will be increasingly difficult, partly due to public and political opposition and environmental awareness. From this point of view we critically examine the published planning figures and forecasts of demand and capacity of the currently constructed Berlin-Brandenburg International airport over a 20-year timeframe. Our methodology is based on a computer simulation of an independent parallel runway in segregated mode. Increasing traffic and changing traffic mix are simulated with the airport and airspace modeling tool SIMMOD, which provides the output data to calculate the capacity utilization and chosen level of service indicator minutes of average delay per flight. The simulation has shown that the practical capacity of 76 flights per hour is the maximum demand to be served under the defined assumptions. We discuss our findings and compare our results with other airports operating a similar runway layout.