Distributional Implications of Environmental Taxation in Denmark

Environmental taxes have been introduced in many countries. However, few countries have reached the level of environmental taxation that is seen in Denmark today. This paper analyses the individual taxes as well as the combination of all these taxes and duties related to environmental concerns, including taxes on heating, transport fuels, electricity, water, waste, plastic bags, registration of cars, annual car use and pesticides. The distributional effect of taxes is examined in relation to household income, socio‐economic class, residential location and family status. The shifting of the tax structure from high marginal income tax to consumption‐based taxes, especially environmental taxes, might have distributional impacts that have not been considered part of the tax policy. The results suggest that in Denmark taxes on petrol and registration duties for cars are progressive, whereas most other environmental taxes are regressive, especially the green taxes on water, retail containers and CO2 emissions.     

Strategic investment decision making practices: A contextual approach

This paper proposes a contextual approach to explaining differences in strategic investment decision (SID) making practices. First, a systematic contextual framework is developed from the existing research literature. Then this framework's potential for explaining differences in SID making practices is explored through 14 case studies of U.K., U.S. and Japanese companies from both stable and dynamic business sectors. Our findings suggest substantial SID differences across our four contextual categories of market creators, value creators, refocusers and restructurers. The differences relate to the emphasis on strategic versus financial considerations, the thoroughness and rigidity of financial analysis, the attitudes towards incorporating less easily quantifiable factors and the level of hurdle rates.     

The effects of the high school curriculum on school dropout

High school dropouts and their lower employment prospects are a major concern for developed countries. This article answers the question whether the high school curriculum has the potential to affect students’ dropout decision. Focusing on the curriculum is also motivated by the manifold curriculum reforms or reform initiatives worldwide. Using a quasi-experimental evaluation design, we identify the effects of a curriculum reform on students’ probability to drop out of high school in the short run, i.e. for the first three cohorts graduating under the new curriculum requirements. The reform increased the curriculum requirements in high school, for instance, by reducing the freedom of choice in course selection. The results show that high school dropout rates increased for males and females alike.     

Viel Arbeit und wenig Geld

Belastungserleben und Burnout - Pflegende in den Krankenh?usern haben in den letzten zehn Jahren eine dramatische Verdichtung ihrer Arbeit erlebt. Restrukturierungsprojekte zur Effizienzsteigerung und Kostenminimierung wurden in den H?usern durchgeführt. Doch welchen Einfluss übt diese Entwicklung auf die psychische Gesundheit der Pflegenden aus?     

Disentangling sector and status effects in German employment growth

From 1992 to 2006, part-time employment in western Germany has grown by 83%, whereas full-time employment has shrunk by 15%. In addition, employment schemes vary substantially across industries and industries which are themselves developed differently. The paper analyses the extent to which the divergence of status-specific employment can be explained by factors inherent in full-time or part-time employment (status effect) or by changes in the sectoral composition (sector effect). A regression-analogue shift–share model is estimated. Economic variables like unit labour costs and output gap are controlled. As a dynamic panel data model is specified, a bias-corrected least squares dummy variable estimator is used. In a second step, the fixed effects of the estimation into parameters for employment status and 16 sectors are decomposed. The results show that status-specific characteristics dominantly explain changes in employment patterns.     

Nostalgia marketing and (re-)enchantment

Most marketing and branding activities are essentially concerned with enchantment—the rendering of the ordinary into something special. To create enchantment, companies are increasingly marketing past-themed brands and products. Yet, there is little research about why and how such nostalgia marketing creates enchantment for consumers. Building on different modalities of nostalgia identified in sociological literature (reluctant nostalgia, progressive nostalgia, and playful nostalgia), we analyze the creation of enchantment through a longitudinal, qualitative, multi-method program of inquiry. We find three routes to enchantment grounded in different nostalgia modes: (1) re-instantiation (symbolic retrojection into a past), (2) re-enactment (reflexively informing the present with past-themed brands and practices), and (3) re-appropriation (ludic re-interpretation of the past). By unfolding the different ways in which marketers can press rewind to create enchantment, we discern important implications for theorizing and managing past-themed brands in terms of marketing strategy, targeting and positioning, brand experience design, and marketing communications.     

Wie sollte das Steuersystem in Deutschland reformiert werden?

Some authors focus on the fact that Germany shows one of the highest tax burdens among the OECD countries. Based on their analysis, they suggest approaches to reduce the tax burden in particular for lower and medium incomes. These tax reliefs are possible, and would not compromise new public investment. But decreases in personal income tax rates mainly relieve higher income earners and are accompanied by high tax losses if the top tax rates are not increased. Alternatives are relief for social contributions or VAT. Other researchers do not look at the tax burden this way: as the income tax burden in Germany is not high from a historical perspective or by international standards, there is no case for massive tax cuts, as this would jeopardise the government’s ability to act and fail to correct past shifts of the tax burden at the expense of households with low incomes. Any tax cuts should be targeted at the bottom half of the income distribution without creating any revenue shortfalls. Instead, the government would be well advised to increase its efforts to overcome the public investment backlog and ensure a well functioning civil service. Furthermore, sustainability oriented tax reforms should focus on a shift of the tax burden from taxes on labour towards environmental and wealth based taxes.     

The Best I Can Be: How Self‐Accountability Impacts Product Choice in Technology‐Mediated Environments

Technology‐mediated environments are important not only as the location for an increasing proportion of purchases, but also as an even more pervasive part of the purchase journey. While most research into online consumer behavior focuses on attitudes as an antecedent of product choice, this article focuses on an important but hardly explored variable that may be impacted by technology‐mediated environments: self‐accountability. Laboratory experiments suggest that self‐accountability may influence online purchases, but this has not been confirmed in field studies. Furthermore, although this prior work suggests that self‐accountability may impact product choice through the elicitation of guilt, the role of positive emotions has not been explored. Using two surveys with online retailers, this paper (a) shows that in a technology‐mediated environment, self‐accountability influences product choice; (b) proposes and confirms a complementary route for this effect through pride that is stronger than that through guilt; and (c) evidences the relationship between self‐accountability and perceived consumer effectiveness. These results show a clear opportunity for digital marketers to encourage self‐accountability, to thereby elicit pride and not just guilt, and hence to impact consumer decision making in technology‐mediated environments, particularly when choices have sustainability implications.