The economics of delegated regulation: The EEC and the case of insurance

It is the stated objective of the European Commission to open hitherto protected industries to international competition by the end of 1992. To this end, national governments have ceded regulatory authority over insurance to the Commission. Rather surprisingly however, the Commission in its turn appears to delegate this authority to insurance associations in EEC member countries. In this contribution, an attempt is made to explain why a supranational government might take the dual decision not to wield newly-won powers and to choose industry associations rather than governments as its partners in the regulatory process. The paper also sheds some light on the implications of such delegated regulation both for the Commission and insurers.     

Law enforcement and transition

We present a simple model to analyze law enforcement problems in transition economies. Law enforcement implies coordination problems and multiplicity of equilibria due to a law abidance and a fiscal externality. We analyze two institutional mechanisms for solving the coordination problem. A first mechanism, which we call “dualism”, follows the scenario of Chinese transition where the government keeps direct control over economic resources and where a liberalized non-state sector follows market rules. The second mechanism we put forward is accession to the European Union. We show that accession to the European Union, even without external borrowing, provides a mechanism to eliminate the “bad” equilibrium, provided the “accessing” country is small enough relative to the European Union. Interestingly, we show that accession without conditionality is better than with conditionality because conditionality creates a coordination problem of its own that partly annihilates the positive effects of expected accession.     

An integrated scenario analysis for the metal coating sector in Europe

Although new paint products and technologies have been developed, the sector of paint application still contributes substantially to total volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. Recent environmental legislation, especially the EU Solvent Emission Directive 1999/13/EC and its transposition into national law, coming into force in 2007, will have an important influence on the sector structure and the associated supply chain, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This paper summarises a comprehensive scenario analysis to explore possible future trajectories for the sector. The main focus is on paint application activities, considering in particular the consequences of new environmentally friendly products and technologies which can be used by SMEs. Four different scenarios representing possible future states of the sector are evaluated, taking into account environmental, technical and socio-economic aspects along the associated supply chain and life cycle. The scenarios allow the formulation of recommendations and guidelines for policy makers and industries. This example confirms that interdisciplinary scenario analysis is a suitable approach to investigate possible future development of an industrial sector.     

Unternehmenskultur und Unternehmenserfolg: Stand der empirischen Forschung und Konsequenzen für die Entwicklung eines Messkonzeptes

Im Rahmen einer übergreifenden Analyse empirischer Arbeiten wird der State-of-the-Art der Forschung zum Zusammenhang von Unternehmenskultur und Unternehmenserfolg dargelegt. Neben der inhaltlichen Analyse des Zusammenhangs liegt der Schwerpunkt des nachfolgenden Beitrags auf einem Review der Messung von Unternehmenskultur und Unternehmenserfolg, wie sie sich in den betrachteten Zusammenhangsanalysen zeigt. Aufbauend hierauf werden die Grundzüge je eines Konzeptes zur Messung der Unternehmenskultur und des Unternehmenserfolges entwickelt, welche als Ausgangsbasis verstanden werden k?nnen, um in weiterführenden Untersuchungen den Zusammenhang von Unternehmenskultur und Unternehmenserfolg für die unterschiedlichsten Unternehmen zu bestimmen.     

Relative standing and the performance of recently acquired European firms

This study draws on the concepts of relative standing to explain the post-merger performance of recently acquired European firms. We used a 2 × 3 sampling design where we surveyed top managers of British and French firms that were acquired by British, French, and U.S. firms as to their perceptions of cultural compatibility with the buying firms, their sense of loss of autonomy since the merger, and post-merger performance. While we found that the theory adequately explains the post-merger performance of both British and French firms, suggesting that this primarily ‘made-in-the-United States’ organization theory extends beyond the cultural domain of the United States, we also found an aspect of the theory that reflects a possible cultural bias. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Operational risk and reputation in the financial industry

By examining stock market reactions to the announcement of operational losses by financial companies, this paper attempts to disentangle operational losses from reputational damage. Our analysis deals with 154 events coming from the FIRST database of OpVantage. Events occurred between 1990 and 2004 in companies belonging to the financial sector and that are listed on the major European and US Stock Exchanges. Results show significant, negative abnormal returns at the announcement date of the loss, along with an increase in the volumes of trade. In cases of internal fraud, the loss in market value is greater that the operational loss amount announced, which is interpreted as a sign of reputational damage. Negative impact is proportionally greater when the loss amount represents a larger share in the company’s net profit.     

Problem structuring for transitions: The case of Swiss waste management

Transdisciplinarity is considered an appropriate approach in supporting transitions of complex socio-technical systems as such transitions demand highly contextualized real world knowledge and valuations. This holds especially true for the problem identification and structuring (initial) phase of a transition project, which aims at supporting goal formation based on a sound understanding and representation of the system's current state and its dynamics. Throughout this phase, it is important that all relevant perspectives in terms of expertise and interests are considered and adequately fed into a process of knowledge integration. This paper presents in its first part the structuring for complex transitions (SCT) procedure aiming at this requirement. The procedure has been specifically designed for problem structuring in socio-technical systems in the initial phase of a transition project. The results of the procedure provide sound inputs for the next project phases and the transition methods applied therein, but can themselves already be used as fruitful orientations in strategy development. The second part of the paper briefly outlines the application of the SCT procedure to Swiss waste management. This application involved 48 participants who reached consensus on relevant impact factors and developed a shared vision for managing a complex transition process in the area of waste management. The approach is marked by high feasibility and socially robust results.     

Efficient self-rationing of electricity revisited

In a recent issue of this Journal, Woo (1990) suggests a mechanism to improve on a pricing scheme initially proposed by Panzar and Sibley (1978). In this paper, we analyze Woo's mechanism. Woo claims that by activating rationing fuses only when total demand reaches system capacity, the problem of untimely curtailments is avoided. We show that this is trueonly if all consumers reach their subscribed capacity at the same temperature, which will not occur in general, and clarify the implications of this assumption on Woo's improvement of the Panzar-Sibley scheme. A slightly more complex self-rationing mechanism, which addresses the problems that we point out, is suggested.