Does aging influence structural change? Evidence from panel data

Our study represents a first attempt to single out the effects of aging on the entire structure of the economy that is approximated by employment shares in different sectors. We find that even after controlling for the effects of other relevant factors - e.g., income per capita, share of trade in GDP, government consumption share in GDP, population size - aging does have a statistically significant differentiated impact on the employment shares. In particular, we find that an increase in aging exerts a statistically significant adverse effect on the employment shares in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and mining and quarrying industries. At the same time, an increasing share of the elderly (decreasing share of the youth) in society positively affects employment shares in community, social, and personal services as well as in the financial sector.     

Vertragsschluß und Probleme des Internationalen Privatrechts beim E-Commerce

The use of the internet has developed significantly in recent years and has created new opportunities for the insurance sector. The virtual nature of the internet supports an effective medium for the sale of insurance products. An internet presence is a key part of an effective marketing and distribution strategy for every insurance company; despite uncertainties concerning expansion into an eletronic market, such strategies remain indispensable. The legal system is continuing to adapt to the ?intangible“ and borderless nature of e-commerce; clearly there remain problematic areas and issues which have yet to be adequately addressed. The article deals with essential questions related to the formation and the implementation of insurance contracts via the internet and focuses on still existing obstacles to the formation of the contract and possible solutions through the implementation of european directives. In this context, the digital signature plays a significant role. Furthermore, questions regarding the applicable law in the formation of contracts with international character will be addressed. In the light of the expansion of internet use and its facilitation of cross border contracts, consumer protection becomes more difficult. Efficient supervision and control of insurance providers that are located in other countries and offer insurance products on the internet is difficult to regulate.     

From Partners to Players: Extending the HR Playing Field

HR professionals must always be “becoming” or constantly changing and adapting. For the last decade, many have argued the business partner role as a complement to traditional HR administrative work. We argue in this paper that HR professionals should move beyond partners to become players. HR professionals as players are “in the game, on the field, making a difference” through their HR work. In this article, we suggest that to become players, HR professionals must learn to coach, architect, build, facilitate, lead, and provide a conscience to business leaders. Specific knowledge and tools for each of these roles are described. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

On a stochastic approximation procedure based on averaging

Based on the idea of averaging a new stochastic approximation algorithm has been proposed by Bather (1989), which shows a preferable performance for small to moderate sample sizes. In the present paper an almost sure representation is established for this procedure, which gives the optimal rate of convergence with minimal asymptotic variance. Work partly supported by the research grant Ku719/2-1 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft     

Breakthrough in agricultural policy,or another policy failure?

Before the European summit in February 1988, EC agricultural policy was being criticized by almost all those affected. Farmers complained about low incomes and the lack of prospects, consumers and taxpayers about the high cost of agricultural support, politicians about spending commitments that could no longer be financed, agricultural economists about the waste of economic resources and trading partners about disruption of the world market. Have the decisions taken at the European summit set the Community on a fundamentally new course?