THE DOUBLE ROLE OF SKILLED LABOR,NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND WAGE INEQUALITY

We examine the relationship between the supply of skilled labor, technological change and relative wages. In accounting for the role of skilled labor in both production activities and productivity‐ enhancing ‘support’ activities we derive the following results. First, an increase in the supply of skilled labor raises the employment share of non‐production labor within firms, without lowering relative wages. Second, new technologies raise wage inequality only in so far as they give incentives to firms to reallocate skilled labor towards non‐production activities. In contrast, skill‐biased technological change of the sort usually considered in the literature does not affect wage inequality.     

ÜberfühServiceorientierte Strukturen zur Unterstützung des integrierten Konzernrechnungswesens

Ohne Zusammenfassung Ihr Forschungsschwerpunkt liegt im Bereich des Preiscontrollings, ihr Dissertationsvorhaben besch?ftigt sich mit dem empirischen Nachweis von Rationalit?tsdefiziten im Preismanagement.     

Differences and similarities between ecological and economic models for biodiversity conservation

In this paper we investigate an important obstacle which substantially complicates co-operation between ecologists and economists but which has received little attention so far: differences between the modelling approaches in economics and ecology. To understand these differences, 60 models addressing issues relevant to biodiversity conservation have been selected randomly from eight international economic and ecological journals. The models have been compared according to a number of criteria including the models' level of generality; the mathematical techniques employed for formulation and solution of the models; the level of complexity and the way time, space and uncertainty are taken into account. The economic models sampled are formulated and analysed analytically, tend to be relatively simple and are mostly used to investigate general questions. Furthermore, they often ignore space, dynamics and uncertainty. Although some ecological models have similar properties, there is also a substantial number of another type of ecological models that are relatively complex and analysed by simulation. These models tend to be rather specific and often explicitly consider dynamics, space and uncertainty. The integrated ecological-economic models are observed to lie “in the middle” between ecological and economic models. An unexpected result is that they are not more complex than ecological and economic models (as one could have expected from a simple “merger” of models from both disciplines), but have an intermediate complexity.     

Non-cooperative support for the asymmetric Nash bargaining solution

We study a model of non-cooperative multilateral unanimity bargaining on a full-dimensional payoff set. The probability distribution with which the proposing player is selected in each bargaining round follows an irreducible Markov process. If a proposal is rejected, negotiations break down with an exogenous probability and the next round starts with the complementary probability. As the risk of exogenous breakdown vanishes, stationary subgame perfect equilibrium payoffs converge to the weighted Nash bargaining solution with the stationary distribution of the Markov process as the weight vector.     

Pensions and fertility incentives

Abstract.  This paper discusses the welfare implications of a pay‐as‐you‐go pension reform by introducing a child benefit in an endogenous fertility setting. In the model of a small open economy, higher fertility is associated with a reduction of lifetime labour supply. The optimum share of fertility‐related pensions is always below unity, but generally positive. The former is true, since individuals do not take into account the impact of their labour supply choice on the parent generation. It is demonstrated that child allowances are equivalent to fertility‐related pensions as instruments to achieve the optimum allocation. JEL classification: H23, H55, J13     

Wealth Effects of Rare Earth Prices and China’s Rare Earth Elements Policy

This article identifies power, subjectivity, and practices of freedom as neglected but significant elements for understanding the ethics of social entrepreneurship. While the ethics of social entrepreneurship is typically conceptualized in conjunction with innate properties or moral commitments of the individual, we problematize this view based on its presupposition of an essentialist conception of the authentic subject. We offer, based on Foucault’s ethical oeuvre, a practice-based alternative which sees ethics as being exercised through a critical and creative dealing with the limits imposed by power, notably as they pertain to the conditioning of the neoliberal subject. To this end, we first draw on prior research which looks at how practitioners of social enterprises engage with government policies that demand that they should act and think more like prototypical entrepreneurs. Instead of simply endorsing the kind of entrepreneurial subjectivity implied in prevailing policies, our results indicate that practitioners are mostly reluctant to identify themselves with the invocation of governmental power, often rejecting the subjectivity offered to them by discourse. Conceiving these acts of resistance as emblematic of how social entrepreneurs practice ethics by retaining a skeptical attitude toward attempts that seek to determine who they should be and how they should live, we introduce three vignettes that illustrate how practices of freedom relate to critique, the care for others, and reflected choice. We conclude that a practice-based approach of ethics can advance our understanding of how social entrepreneurs actively produce conditions of freedom for themselves as well as for others without supposing a ‘true self’ or a utopian space of liberty beyond power.     

Money demand and monetary policy in Europe

Money Demand and Monetary Policy in Europe.—The European Central Bank will soon have to decide on her monetary strategy. This paper discusses properties of money demand functions and implications for monetary policy in a monetary targeting regime. Special attention is paid to different concepts of stability of money demand, to the length and variability of adjustment lags, and to the controllability of the money stock. At the European level, stable money demand functions are identified for M1 and M3. However, M3 appears to be less controllable than M1. Long and variable adjustment lags in the demand for M3 weaken the case for broad money as a monetary target. JEL no. E41, E52     

Energieeffizienznetzwerke – beschleunigte Emissionsminderungen in der mittelständischen Wirtschaft

The reduction of energy-related CO₂ emissions by more efficient enery use in medium sized companies is one of the most profitable options. However, these opportunities are scarcely realised because of many obstacles and market failures. High transaction cost and decision routines play an important role for decision making and procurement of the companies. A network concept being developed in Switzerland and covering an initial consulting of each participating company, targets for the network, regular and moderated meetings of the energy managers for mutual exchange of experiences and a yearly monitoring alleviates many of these obstacles. It doubles the energy efficiency progress relative to the average progress of industry. This network concept can be fully realised by industry itself. Average energy savings per site and year are 100,000 € and average CO₂ emission reduction about 500 t CO₂ per year and site. Assuming a maximum potential of 700 Networks, additional emission reductions of some 10 Mio. t CO₂ seem to be possible in Germany by 2020. A network management system for consulting engineers and moderators allows a minimum performance standard of how to start and operate those efficiency networks.