Schwaches Produktivitätswachstum — zyklisches oder strukturelles Phänomen?

Labour productivity growth in Germany and in the OECD countries has decelerated significantly in recent years. This observation is astonishing, given the fact that modern digital services can now be found throughout the economy. It may be a statistical artefact, but if it is a realistic observation, it should be investigated. The authors describe many reasons for this development. For example, the services sector, with its traditionally low productivity, makes up an increasingly large part of the economy. Moreover, the cost intensity of innovations is growing, and there are not enough innovative investments. What should be done? Reforms are suggested which aim at exploiting unused potential and create suitable conditions for facilitating sustainable productivity increases. Important policy areas include digitisation, energy transition and demographic change. But reforms must also be thought of as investments into the capacity of employees to work productively.     

Management Accountants’ Occupational Prestige Within the Company: A Social Identity Theory Perspective

Abstract

Professional associations and researchers in management accounting have attempted to increase the prestige of management accountants. Although studies have suggested that occupational prestige is important, the prestige of management accountants within the employing organisation and its consequences are still not fully understood. Building on social identity theory, we investigate the effect of occupational prestige, as perceived by management accountants, on organisational–professional conflict. We suggest that prestige can mitigate conflict because management accountants with high prestige will identify more strongly with their organisation, as they see it as a source of self-esteem and might believe that they are taken more seriously by managers. At the same time, we hypothesise that prestige exerts an indirect conflict-increasing effect via professional identification. This is based on the idea that prestige may cause proud management accountants to start to identify more strongly with their profession and become hard-liners, unwilling to compromise the values associated with their profession in the interest of the firm. Results from a series of three surveys support the indirect conflict-increasing effect. Moreover, the results suggest a direct conflict-reducing effect of perceived prestige. The implications for research and practice are discussed.     

On the origin of power-law tails in price fluctuations

We analyse large stock price changes of more than five standard deviations for (i) TAQ data for the year 1997 and (ii) order book data from the Island ECN for the year 2002. We argue that a large trading volume alone is not a sufficient explanation for large price changes. Instead, we find that a low density of limit orders in the order book, i.e. a small liquidity, is a necessary prerequisite for the occurrence of extreme price fluctuations. Taking into account both order flow and liquidity, large stock price fluctuations can be explained quantitatively.