Urban land rent theory: a regulationist perspective

Whilst real estate capital became a driving force in analyses of urban development, urban land rent theory has made only very limited progress during the past decade. There are a number of reasons for this – such as a weak conceptualization of the role of political agency, for example. Hence, a way out of this relative stagnation, by attempting to systematically develop an integrated view on structure and agency in the context of urban land rent, is offered in this article. Advances in critical theory, thinking about space and dialectic reasoning contribute to the development of a new perspective on land rent. Land rent is conceptualized as a middle‐range theory. In order to bring together concrete urban phenomena with the general process of political‐economic development, a systematic link between land rent theory and the theoretical apparatus of the French Regulation School is developed. The reformulation of land rent theory from a regulationist perspective underlines the importance of the institutional context (and its changes) for an understanding of rent and its role in the urban context. In so doing, land rent theory proves to be a very useful tool for providing an integrated political‐economic perspective for analyses of urban phenomena. This is illustrated briefly in the cases of Vienna and Montevideo. Si le capital immobilier est devenu un point central des analyses du développement urbain, la théorie n'a guère progressé au cours de la dernière décennie. Plusieurs facteurs sont en cause, telle la faible conceptualisation du rôle politique d'agence. Cet article propose donc une porte de sortie à cette relative stagnation, en tentant de construire systématiquement une vision intégrée de la structure et l'agence dans le cadre de la rente urbaine. Les progrès en matière de théorie critique, réflexion en termes d'espace et raisonnement dialectique facilitent l'élaboration d'une nouvelle perspective sur la location foncière, laquelle est conceptualisée en tant que théorie intermédiaire. Afin de regrouper phénomènes urbains concrets et processus général d'aménagement politico‐économique, une relation systématique est établie entre la théorie sur la rente foncière et l'appareil théorique de l'École Française de Régulation. Reformuler la théorie sur la rente foncière d'un point de vue régulationiste souligne combien le contexte institutionnel (et ses changements) est important pour comprendre la rente et son rôle dans le cadre urbain. Ce faisant, la théorie sur la rente foncière se révèle un outil très utile pour créer une perspective politico‐économique intégrée permettant d'analyser les phénomènes urbains. Cet aspect est brièvement illustré dans les cas de Vienne et Montevideo.     

Disaggregate productivity comparisons: sectoral convergence in OECD countries

International comparisons of productivity have used exchange rates or purchasing power parity (PPP) to make output comparable across countries. While aggregate PPP holds well in the long run, sectoral deviations are persistent. It raises the need for a currency conversion factor at the same level of aggregation as the output that is compared. Mapping prices from household expenditure surveys into the industrial classification of sectors and adjusting for taxes and international trade, I obtain an expenditure-based sector-specific PPP. Using detailed price data for up to 8 years between 1970 and 1999, I test whether the sectoral PPPs adequately capture differential changes in relative prices between countries. They work well for agriculture and the majority of industrial sectors, but not for most service sectors and for manufacturing sectors that produce differentiated products. Using the most appropriate conversion factor for each industry, productivity convergence is found to be taking place in all but a few industries for a group of 14 OECD countries. The latter results are robust to the base year used for the currency conversion.     

Recognition Based upon the Vitality Criterion: A Key to Sustainable Economic Success

Recognition is a basic precondition of participation. This article applies the dimension of recognition to business ethics. A case is made for normative stakeholder management as a voluntary commitment at the level of corporate leadership; this also meets management’s strategic demands. A vitality criterion is offered as a heuristic instrument, suggesting that any operation should be avoided which would violate the legitimate interests of stakeholders. For this reason, the recognition of mutually-conditioned stakeholder claims is understood as the central management idea.     

Eine goldene Regel für die Modellierung von Daten zur Erstellung von Data-Mining-Klassifikationsmodellen unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Problemstellungen in der Versicherungswirtschaft

A golden rule for data modelling for data mining classification models with special considerations of problems in insurances. To create classification models to avoid contract cancellations and for cross selling purposes to be used in marketing and sales of insurance companies the necessary data modelling will be discussed. Starting from a binary classification variable — cancelled contracts and active contracts, customers of a branch and non-customers of a branch — we in particular focus on the importance of historical data: To be able to detect decision patterns for cancellations respectively for new contracts in the data with the help of data mining tools, it is necessary for such contracts respectively customers not to use actual data, but data as they were at the time of decision. This obvious, but rarely used principle, is presented in detail as a golden rule for correct data modelling in such situations. As a case study a project and results for nine branches in each case of the Gothaer Versicherungen is presented.     

Institutional arrangements and price rebalancing: empirical evidence from the United States and Europe

This paper explores the rebalancing of prices for voice service in the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) from conceptual and empirical perspectives. We determine the overall cost and structure of a standardized basket of residential and business services. Our data indicate that during the 1994–2000 period the degree of rate rebalancing was significantly higher in the EU than in the US. While the developments at the level of EU Member States are more heterogeneous and the process of rate rebalancing is not completed, these findings correspond to the predictions derived from our comparative institutional analysis.     

Eigentumspolitik und Eigentumsethik

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Student(in) der Altenpflege

Zusammenfassung  Lohnt sich ein Pflegemanagement-Studium? — Bessere Jobs, Führungsaufgaben und letztendlich auch mehr Geld sind schon Motivation genug, um nach einer Berufsausbildung noch ein Studium zu beginnen. Doch zahlt sich der Einsatz am Ende auch aus? Die Hamburger Fern-Hochschule wollte es genau wissen.     

The Effect of Oil Prices on Field Production: Evidence from the Norwegian Continental Shelf

I use detailed field‐level data on Norwegian offshore oil production and a semi‐parametric additive model to control for the production profile of fields to estimate the effect of oil prices on production. I find no significant evidence of a concurrent reaction of field production to oil prices, though a modest lagged effect is found of the magnitude of approximately 2% to 7% for a $10 per barrel increase in the real price of oil.