Politische »Kultur«

The presentation of cultural topics in the feature pages of German newspapers did change much during the past two decades. Above all, the »policialization« of cultural news coverage leaps to the eye. Nevertheless, there can be no talk of basically new cultural pages. This is demonstrated by a longitudinal analysis of four daily newspapers within the period of 1983 to 2003. The journalistic offer in the feature pages of all four newspapers has not been reduced but instead it has been strongly extended. The amount of articles as well as their size has increased considerably. »Politics« has become the most important topic. In 2003, its share of all topics is 15 percent, but it does by no means supersede the classical topics like theatre, music, the fine arts and literature. With a share of about 50 percent, those topics still are the core of cultural news coverage. Obviously, journalists are more open to popular and entertaining forms where musical topics are concerned compare to, e. g., the theatre. The most frequent genre in the feature pages in 2003 is undisputably still the review. An »end of the critique« in favor of strongly personalizing, entertainment and service-accentuated forms of presentation cannot be proven.     

Shiftable Externalities: A Market Solution

In this paper we propose a regulatory scheme for what has become known as shiftable externalities (Not In My Backyard type garbage location problemswhere the externality is characterized by the absence of jointness in supply).The scheme facilitates the establishment of a market for the externality, and it isfeasible for a wider class of regulation problems and more information efficientthan the other regulatory schemes that have been proposed for this type ofexternality. Finally, we show that it is possible to decentralize the participationdecision so as to take account of verification costs.     

Linearisierungsverfahren für Standortplanungsprobleme mit nichtlinearen Transportkosten

Dieser Aufsatz analysiert das Standortplanungsproblem in der Ebene mit stückweise linearen bzw. stückweise konstanten Transportkosten, die an praxisrelevante Frachtsatztabellen angelehnt sind. Für diese nicht-differenzierbaren Transportkostenfunktionen werden statische und dynamische Verfahren der Linearisierung vorgestellt, die auf Durchschnitts- und Grenzkostenapproximationen basieren. Diese Verfahren werden in einer umfangreichen numerischen Untersuchung mit Ergebnissen verglichen, die sich durch Approximationen der Transportkostenfunktionen mittels linearer und geometrischer Regression ergeben. Die numerischen Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die dynamischen Linearisierungen sehr gute Resultate liefern, wobei die relative Abweichung von den minimalen Transportkosten von der Anzahl betrachteter Abnehmerorte und der jeweils verwendeten Initialisierung abh?ngt.     

Efficiency and Ownership Structure: The Case of Poland

We examine the effects of foreign entry on productive efficiency during the Polish investment liberalisation. The performance of foreign acquisitions is compared to foreign firms entering the market through greenfield entry, as well as domestic acquisitions of privatised firms, domestic greenfields and remaining state‐owned (non‐privatised) firms during the period 1995–2000. We find that foreign privatised firms have realised larger productivity gains than all types of domestic firms and that this is not due to higher price‐cost margins, which is consistent with the idea that foreign firms bring in firm‐specific knowledge. Foreign greenfields have the highest average labour productivity, while foreign privatisations show the largest productivity increase.     

The Pro-competitive Effect of Two-Part Tariffs

Two producers delegate sales of differentiated products to common retailers, each with a monopoly position. Each producer can offer either a linear or a two-part tariff. In the single-period game each producer's dominant strategy is to use a two-part tariff. If the two producers' products are sufficiently close substitutes and the discount factor is sufficiently high, both producers offering linear tariffs can be sustained as an equilibrium outcome in an infinitely repeated game.     

Squandering European Labour: Social Safety Nets in Times of Economic Turbulence

This paper reviews the argument that high long‐term unemployment in Europe is caused by generous social safety nets in times of economic turbulence. We report on the empirical evidence of a more turbulent economic environment and present the theoretical arguments that establish a link between turbulence and high unemployment. We conclude that a cure to the European unemployment problem must entail a reform of the unemployment insurance system so that benefits decline over the unemployment spell. If the social consensus in Europe makes it difficult to implement declining benefits, we suggest that a complementary way of providing incentives for the unemployed would be to reduce their leisure by imposing work requirements.     

Control-trust interplays and the influence paradox: A comparative study of MNC-subsidiary relationships

This study focuses on the interplay and possible coexistence of control and trust when influencing others and when being influenced. The paper presents an analysis of change processes whereby an actor becomes ‘a trusted influenced other’. This occurs due to the controls that take place, rather than despite of these. It is suggested that intended purpose and perceived legitimacy need to be considered, as well as the type and level of control. Moreover, imbalanced interactions whereby the other actor is prevented from becoming a source of influence may negatively impact the overall development and exploitation of knowledge. A second dimension in the studied relationships is when the other becomes ‘a trusted source of influence’, not only a ‘trusted influenced other’.     

Reply to Gebhard Kirchgässner

In this reply to Kirchgässner, four issues are addressed: (1) the extent of double counting in attempts to reconcile estimates of the shadow economy based on the survey method and estimates based on the MIMIC (cum currency demand) approach, (2) advantages and disadvantages of the survey method, (3) of macro methods like the MIMIC approach and (4) the potential role of plausibility checks of estimates from the MIMIC approach with the survey method.