Gloomy prospects for social retirement insurance

Recently, important experts have presented two studies concerning the current situation and future prospects of social retirement insurance in the Federal Republic of Germany.¹ Now there is also an Internationally comparative study on the same subject available.² The German co-authors summarize the results of that study and add some proposals for further discussion.     

Does Distance Still Matter? The Information Revolution in Small Business Lending

The distance between small firms and their lenders is increasing, and they are communicating in more impersonal ways. After documenting these systematic changes, we demonstrate they do not arise from small firms locating differently, consolidation in the banking industry, or biases in the sample. Instead, improvements in lender productivity appear to explain our findings. We also find distant firms no longer have to be the highest quality credits, indicating they have greater access to credit. The evidence indicates there has been substantial development of the financial sector, even in areas such as small business lending.     

Introduction

Journal of Productivity Analysis -     

SIZE OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR,ECONOMIC GROWTH AND THE INFORMAL ECONOMY: DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY*

The growth of the public sector in the post-war period and the consequences of this development for economic growth is a strongly disputed subject of economic theory and policy. In this paper the development trends of state activities in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany are presented. The structure of public expenditures as well as the tax structure are taken into consideration and possible impacts on real economic growth are analysed. The negative correlations between some kinds of public expenditures (or taxes) and the growth rate of real GNP should not be taken in proof of the growth-retarding effects which might ensue from increasing state activities. It seems to be more likely that state activities have induced shifts of resources from the formal into the informal economy. Politicians should be aware that some measures of economic policy conventionally proposed will strengthen the movement into the informal economy, thus intensifying the current problems within the public budgets as well as in the social security system.     

The environment as a challenge for governmental responsibility — The case of the European Water Framework Directive

The European Water Framework Directive is shaping a new conception of integrative water protection. In this article, the consequences of the Water Framework Directive in respect to national environmental policy will be discussed in referring to the notion of responsibility which is a central concept of political philosophy and theory. It will be shown that the new conception of integrative water protection entails a fundamental change in European water protection policy and also environmental policy at all. It implies that environmental policy has not only to prevent environmental damage but in particular has to warrant a good status of the environment, such that it must maintain a good status of water or even achieve it if this status does not exist. Achieving and maintaining a good status of the environment is, however, an encompassing task. Thereby, state power will eventually be overexerted. The threat of such overexertion has to be kept in mind in discussing the perspective of the so called New Environmental Governance. It will be pointed out that the New Environmental Governance is not primarily a form of some sort of democratic participation but rather designed to improve state power in environmental politics.     

Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches

In corporate finance and asset pricing empirical work, researchersare often confronted with panel data. In these data sets, theresiduals may be correlated across firms or across time, andOLS standard errors can be biased. Historically, researchersin the two literatures have used different solutions to thisproblem. This paper examines the different methods used in theliterature and explains when the different methods yield thesame (and correct) standard errors and when they diverge. Theintent is to provide intuition as to why the different approachessometimes give different answers and give researchers guidancefor their use.     

Public entrants,public equity finance and creative destruction

We explore the importance of new public firms and public equity finance for R&D and creative destruction in the US high-tech sector. Over 1900 new public firms enter high-tech manufacturing between 1970 and 2004; they are increasingly R&D intensive and rely extensively on public equity finance in the 1980s and 1990s. We estimate dynamic R&D models and find a strong link between public equity finance and R&D for new entrants, but not established entrants or incumbents. Further, recent cohorts of public entrants have a substantial economic impact: by 2000, recent public entrants account for almost half of high-tech sales and more than half of R&D. Variation in the availability of public equity finance has a marked impact on entrant R&D and the rate at which entrants take market share from incumbents. Our findings identify a key channel through which public equity markets facilitate the process of creative destruction.     

Some Ethical Considerations on the use of Criminal Records in the Labor Market: in Defense of a New Practice

Employers’ access to and use of criminal records as a selection mechanism in the labor market makes it far more difficult for ex-offenders to find jobs, especially regular, well-paid jobs, than those without criminal convictions. The paper asks whether there is anything morally problematic about this practice. The aims of the paper are twofold. First, arguments based on premises of wrongful discrimination against the current, commonest use of criminal records are critically discussed. It is argued that employers do not necessarily engage in morally wrongful discrimination against job applicants when they use criminal records in recruitment screening, but it is also argued that ex-offenders who apply for jobs are subject to what can be called “structural and morally wrongful discrimination” when laws allow employers to request (or directly access) a job applicant’s full criminal record. Second, preliminary proposals on how criminal records can be used by employers in a way that avoids wrongful structural discrimination of ex-offenders will be presented and critically assessed. I suggest that it should be lawful for an employer to access an applicant’s criminal records only where there is a relevant and special match or link between the crime on the records and the job being applied for and the crime is serious. This proposal is defended against two objections, one based on concerns about crime prevention and the other based on the employer’s interest in knowing whom not to hire.     

Handelssanktionen — Wirkungen und Nebenwirkungen

Wirtschaftsdienst - Länder setzen immer wieder Wirtschaftssanktionen gegen andere Nationen ein, um diese zu einem bestimmten Handeln zu bewegen. Ein verändertes Verhalten soll dadurch...     

Target and technical efficiency in DEA: controlling for environmental characteristics

In this paper we propose a target efficiency DEA model that allows for the inclusion of environmental variables in a one stage model while maintaining a high degree of discrimination power. The model estimates the impact of managerial and environmental factors on efficiency simultaneously. A decomposition of the overall technical efficiency into two components, target efficiency and environmental efficiency, is derived. Estimation of target efficiency scores requires the solution of a single large non-linear optimization problem and provides both a joint estimation of target efficiency scores from all DMUs and an estimation of a common scalar expressing the environmental impact on efficiency for each environmental factor. We argue that if the indices on environmental conditions are constructed as the percentage of output with certain attributes present, then it is reasonable to let all reference DMUs characterized by a composed fraction lower than the fraction of output possessing the attribute of the evaluated DMU enter as potential dominators. It is shown that this requirement transforms the cone-ratio constraints on intensity variables in the BM-model (Banker and Morey 1986) into endogenous handicap functions on outputs. Furthermore, a priori information or general agreements on allowable handicap values can be incorporated into the model along the same lines as specifications of assurance regions in standard DEA.