Die Privatisierung öffentlicher Wohnungen

Seit 1997 wurden rund 700 000 Wohnungen aus ?ffentlicher Hand privatisiert. Welche Auswirkungen hat diese Ma?nahme auf den Wohnungsmarkt? Ist es aus sozialpolitischen Gründen notwendig, dass Wohnungen in ?ffentlichem Besitz verbleiben? Kann die sozialpolitische Komponente auch mithilfe von Belegungsrechten gel?st werden? Dr. Michael Voigtl?nder, 32, ist Leiter der Forschungsstelle Immobilien?konomik am Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft in K?ln.     

Earnings dynamics of men and women in Finland: permanent inequality versus earnings instability

I decompose the earnings variance of Finnish male and female workers into its permanent and transitory components using the approach of Baker (J Labor Econ,15:338–375, 1997) and Haider (J Labor Econ, 19:799–836, 2001) in the spirit of scientific replication. I find that the increasing earnings inequality of men and women is driven by both the transitory and permanent components of earnings. In addition, I find considerable differences in the earnings dynamics of men and women, that have been largely neglected in previous studies of earnings dynamics. The inequality among men is dominated by the permanent component. Conversely, permanent and transitory components are of comparable magnitudes to women. As a corollary, men experience more stable income paths but display larger permanent earnings differences. Women, on the other hand, face more unstable earnings profiles but show smaller permanent differences in earnings.     

Ist die EU-Agrarpolitik ihr Geld wert?

Expenditure for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been in the centre of recent policy debate in the preparation of the Financial Framework for the period 2014–2020. Expenditure has generally been considered as the necessary costs for the achievement of the CAP objectives. The authors of this article argue that expenditure is not equal to the economic costs of a policy. Moreover, they claim that the main part of CAP expenditure is not well targeted for the achievement of the CAP’s objectives. The bulk of expenditure is for direct payments tied to agricultural land and, hence, contributes little if anything to CAP’s objectives as laid down in the treaties of the European Union or officially articulated elsewhere.     

Die Schuldenbremse der Bundesländer: eine Fehlkonstruktion?

The debt brake for the German Länder, which forbids them from taking on new net debt beginning in 2020, has two major shortcomings. First, the Länder do not have tax autonomy. In fiscal crises, they can only adjust on the expenditure side, not on the revenue side. Given the fact that most expenditure is predetermined by law, in such a crisis, a balanced budget without new debt would hardly be feasible. Second, it is not taken into account that, in particular in small regional units, large investments can hardly be financed by current expenditure. Thus, there is a very high probability that at least some Länder will still take on new net debt after 2020 and, therefore, violate the rules of the debt brake.     

Does it Pay to Be Ethical? Examining the Relationship Between Organisations’ Ethical Culture and Innovativeness

In this article, we examine the relationship between ethical organisational culture and organisational innovativeness. A quantitative empirical analysis is based on a survey of a total of 719 respondents from all levels of three Finnish organisations, both general staff and managers. The organisations belong to both the private and public sectors. The results of this study show that organisations’ ethical culture is associated with their organisational innovativeness, and that different dimensions of ethical culture are associated with different dimensions of organisational innovativeness. The ethical culture of the organisation had a specific role in process and behavioural innovativeness. It was found that congruency of management was the single dimension with the highest effect on organisational innovativeness overall and specifically on process and behavioural innovativeness. These findings suggest that when organisations are aiming for specific outcomes, such as organisational innovativeness, they need to be aware of what dimensions of ethical culture are particularly relevant.     

What is being exchanged? Framing the logic of value creation in financial services

Financial service providers are facing a major paradigm shift. The understanding of what eventually constitutes customer value is being extended; economic value as the sole core of exchange is a far too limited perspective in contemporary competition. To address this emerging shift, the purpose of this study is to reframe the logic of value creation in financial services. As a result, a tentative framework for value creation logic in financial services is developed and discussed. On the basis of the framework, financial service providers should not limit their attention and resources to the exchange process, but identify innovative value-creating mechanisms through which they could contribute to the customer value actualization process. Our tentative framework (i) offers financial service providers guidance on which innovative value-creating mechanisms would enable them to participate in their customers’ value actualization process; (ii) shows how a product becomes a channel for a service, specifically a solution possessing value in the customer’s routine processes; (iii) illustrates that researchers and service providers should develop their understanding of customers beyond the traditional loan, insurance and/or investment product orientation.     

Procuring Flexibility to Support Germany’s Renewables: Policy Options

To continue balancing supply and demand for power is a growing challenge on Germany’s path to producing 80?% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050. Large-scale investment into a range of technologies will be required to provide the flexibility necessary for balancing. This paper introduces a simple analytical framework to evaluate the German legislator’s numerous efforts to address this challenge. It then proceeds to make two proposals as to how flexibility can be sourced more cheaply. Priority should be given to measures that enable the existing power markets to generate stronger rewards for flexibility. We thus call for financial incentives for variable electricity tariffs to elicit more consumer response and for investment subsidies instead of feed-in tariffs for more demand-oriented renewable power generation. If additional explicit incentives for flexibility are necessary, they can be provided through a market for flexibility.     

Ist der Fahrplan der Energiewende noch einzuhalten?

The German energy transition represents a policy-driven, sustainability-oriented restructuring of both supply- and demand-side components of the entire energy system by 2050. Whereas the development of renewable energies in the electricity sector is right on track, due to the feed-in tariffs of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act, many other crucial requirements for a successful transition are not, amongst others the improvement of energy effi ciency and the decarbonisation of the transport sector. Contrary to the public discussion, the primary future challenges do not consist in limiting electricity prices or abandoning feed-in support schemes, but rather in coordinating the variety of actors as well as appropriately matching the different system elements (grids, technologies, energy sectors, demand and supply side, etc.). Much remains to be done. By highlighting some examples like the need to take into account future implications of climate change for the energy sector, the consequences of the current crisis in the European Union’s emissions trading scheme and the need for a cautious adjustment of the EEG, the paper argues that the major challenges regarding the German energy transition mainly go beyond the current policy-driven and short-term discussion of energy prices. Germany’s pioneering attempt to integrate steadily increasing share of non-dispatchable electricity from renewable sources is challenging the stability of the system. Several characteristics in the current selfregulating system are identifi ed and analysed, which reveal themselves as potential weaknesses or shortcomings in the upcoming system.