Product acceptance by middleman in export channels

The factors associated with gaining product acceptance by middleman in the target country are reported. The hypotheses, drawn from the international marketing and exporting literature as well as from previous studies on product acceptance by supermarkets, are tested in the context of the export channel for French motion pictures.     

Risikomanagement und -controlling bei Offshore-Windenergieanlagen

In this paper we provide an overview of the various terms and methods used in risk management and risk controlling. Further, we identify and discuss internal and external risks of offshore wind power plants (WPP) and demonstrate for the concrete example of a fictitious 400 MW offshore wind park in the North Sea the use of the discounted cash flow (DCF) method. The offshore risks involved are considered as part of the different components of the free cash flow, which form the basis for the DCF evaluation, by using a Monte Carlo simulation. The latter contains assumptions for the distribution of each cash flow component, which are based on a detailed consideration of the risk bearings. We use the cash flow at risk (CFaR), with the DCF as the risk-carrying target variable, as a quantitative risk measure for the simulated DCF evaluation. The CFaR enables us to draw a conclusion regarding the risk distribution of the DCF. According to the fictitious offshore wind park studied, the CFaR obtained provides evidence that the investment project investigated is indeed economically viable.     

Techno-?konomische Bewertung eines ver?nderten Zuschnitts von Marktgebieten für elektrische Energie in Mitteleuropa

As a consequence of the paradigm shift in terms of the European Union??s or at least not 20/20/20 energy policy, the liberalization of the German electricity market and the German nuclear energy phase-out, power generation is often still located far from the main load centers. Hence the frequency of grid congestions is expected to rise. These congestions cannot, or not cost-efficiently, be handled with conventional congestion management methods. One approach to solve the problem is the modification of market areas via the splitting or the coupling of existing areas. This study quantitatively and qualitatively deals with the economic impacts of alternative market area definitions in Central Europe. Furthermore, our analysis puts a special emphasis on the implications of the nuclear energy phase-out in Germany in this context. Simulated power generation- and network costs are used for measuring the relative merit of the market zoning adopted. The study identifies three main scenarios as alternatives to the existing market areas: Based on an inter-German separation, for a more detailed examination (1) Austria is detached from southern Germany, (2) the Dutch market area is merged with the northern German zone and (3) the Swiss market area is integrated with the southern German zone and Austria. The implemented simulations show a distinctive trend towards economic advantages regarding alternative market areas in Central Europe. In case of a splitting of existing areas, network costs are the key factor for reducing total costs, whereas for the coupling of markets power generation costs are more crucial. Regarding the nuclear energy phase-out, the achievable cost savings are lower but still positive.     

Annual Meeting of the Austrian Economic Association (NOeG); Vienna, May 16th–17th, 2002

Call for Papers

Annual Meeting of the Austrian Economic Association (NOeG); Vienna, May 16th–17th, 2002     

Learning Direction Theory and the Winner’s Curse

We report an experiment on a decision task by Samuelson and Bazerman (1985). Subjects submit a bid for an item with an unknown value. A winners curse phenomenon arises when subjects bid too high and make losses. Learning direction theory can account for this. However, other influences on behaviour can also be identified. We introduce impulse balance theory to make quantitative predictions on the basis of learning direction theory. We also look at monotonic ladder processes. It is shown that for this kind of Markov chains the impulse balance point is connected to the mode of the stationary distribution.     

New evidence on the effects of job creation schemes in Germany—a matching approach with threefold heterogeneity

This paper evaluates the effects of job creation schemes on the participating individuals in Germany. The very informative dataset at hand justifies the application of a matching estimator and allows to take account of threefold heterogeneity. The recently developed multiple treatment framework is used to evaluate the effects with respect to regional and individual heterogeneity as well as to differences in the programme sectors. The results show considerable differences with respect to these sources of heterogeneity, but the overall finding is very clear. At the end of our observation period, that is 2 years after the start of the programmes, participants in job creation schemes have a significantly lower success probability on the labour market in comparison to matched non-participants.