On the Sustainability of Austrian Budgetary Policies

The question whether fiscal policies are sustainable in the long run has received much attention in the international political agenda. In this paper, we investigate whether Austrian fiscal policy has been sustainable during the last four decades. We apply several econometric approaches to test for the sustainability of fiscal policies. The results are ambiguous. For the period of 1960–1974, we find evidence for sustainable fiscal policies. For the period 1975–1999, the results indicate that Austrian fiscal policy was not sustainable in the long run. If Austrian policy-makers do not change their budgetary policy in the future, the long-term budget constraint of the state will be violated.     

Restricting CEO pay

We analyze several proposals to restrict CEO compensation and calibrate two models of executive compensation that describe how firms would react to different types of restrictions. We find that many restrictions would have unintended consequences. Restrictions on total realized (ex-post) payouts lead to higher average compensation, higher rewards for mediocre performance, lower risk-taking incentives, and the fact that some CEOs would be better off with a restriction than without it. Restrictions on total ex-ante pay lead to a reduction in the firm's demand for CEO talent and effort. Restrictions on particular pay components, and especially on cash payouts, can be easily circumvented. While restrictions on option pay lead to lower risk-taking incentives, restrictions on incentive pay (stock and options) result in higher risk-taking incentives.     

Going Beyond Impact Factors: A Survey‐based Journal Ranking by Agricultural Economists

A consistent and comprehensive ranking of journals relevant for agricultural economists cannot rely on impact factors for at least two major reasons: (i) the scientific database by Thomson Reuters, on which the standard impact factor is based, includes only a very limited number of relevant journals; (ii) the standard impact factor cannot be compared across research fields of different sizes. Survey‐based journal rankings may overcome these problems. We report on such a survey‐based ranking initiated by the Agricultural Economics Associations of Germany and Austria. Results of the ranking and a classification of journals, i.e. a rating, are provided for 160 selected journals. Scientific quality is assessed by an index based on the researchers’ perception of the quality standards of each journal and of the quality of its published articles. The survey‐based ranking allows a much more comprehensive and consistent ranking than the impact factor, as specific agricultural economics journals can be directly compared with neighbouring economic and interdisciplinary journals to which agricultural economists submit their work. The low impact factors of core agricultural economics journals are put into perspective. The scientific quality of the top agricultural economics journals is assessed as being rather high and above most of the relevant interdisciplinary journals from agricultural and food sciences that are typically characterised by higher impact factors. Agricultural economists’ perceptions on the scientific quality of the journals vary more across journals than perceptions of their relevance.     

Kommunale Straßensanierung: Steuerfinanzierung muss Beitragsfinanzierung ablösen

The common German practice of financing the renovation of municipal streets via contributions from home owners is based on the assumption of special advantages for the home owners. But there are no such special advantages. These assumed advantages are wrongly constructed by the courts, and thus this form of financing is totally arbitrary. Generally, the charging of contributions and fees — based on the principle of equivalence — is not applicable for the financing of street renovations. Municipal streets are “public goods”. Renovating them must be financed by taxes.     

Attitudes to externally organising knowledge management tasks: a review, reconsideration and extension of the NIH syndrome

Companies may carry out all major knowledge management tasks, i.e. knowledge acquisition, accumulation and exploitation, internally and externally. Therefore, we propose the integrate-or-relate decision in knowledge accumulation as a complement to the well-known make-or-buy and keep-or-sell decisions in knowledge acquisition and exploitation. A key factor for taking adequate decisions, for building up organisational capabilities and for realising a firm's knowledge potential are unbiased attitudes to the knowledge management tasks. While past research has focused on the 'not-invented-here' (NIH) syndrome as a negative attitude to acquiring external knowledge, a more holistic view is adopted in the present article by extending prior research on two dimensions. Firstly, we consider all major knowledge management tasks and do not limit our analysis to knowledge acquisition. Secondly, we take into account that, apart from overly negative attitudes, excessively positive attitudes may exist. Accordingly, we identify the following six syndromes: 'NIH' vs. 'buy-in' in knowledge acquisition, 'all-stored-here' vs. 'relate-out' in knowledge accumulation and 'only-used-here' vs. 'sell-out' in knowledge exploitation. After briefly reviewing research into NIH and developing a knowledge management framework, the syndromes are defined, and possible antecedents, consequences and managerial actions are described.     

On the range of options prices

In this paper we consider the valuation of an option with time to expiration and pay-off function which is a convex function (as is a European call option), and constant interest rate , in the case where the underlying model for stock prices is a purely discontinuous process (hence typically the model is incomplete). The main result is that, for “most” such models, the range of the values of the option, using all possible equivalent martingale measures for the valuation, is the interval , this interval being the biggest interval in which the values must lie, whatever model is used.     

Automation and the worldwide restructuring of the electronics industry: Strategic implications for developing countries

Governments in developing countries are placing a high priority on the development and expansion of an export-oriented electronics industry. Thus, the structural change and technological transformation currently being experienced throughout the world will have major implications for their success.Due to the oligopolistic nature of the internationalization process in this industry, the use of computerized and automation technologies in electronics manufacture is likely to penetrate into a very select group of Third World industrial growth poles in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The extent and location of this penetration will be largely controlled by the OECD-based multinationals. Consequently, the expected positive developmental effects may be diminished and limited to those few growth poles. These new constraints must be understood by LDC governments in order for them to implement countervailing strategies.     

Ownership Structure and the Life-Cycle of the Firm: A Theory of the Decision to Go Public

This paper presents a theory of initial public offerings based on the ideathat the optimal ownership structure of a company changes over the life cycleof the firm. Insiders take the company public when they have lost thecomparative advantage over outsiders in gathering information to evaluate thefirm's growth prospects. The size of the share sold to the public depends onthe relative abilities of the market and insiders to gather this informationand on the frictions in the going-public process. Intermediaries help toreduce these frictions and lead to a more efficient allocation if IPOs areconducted more frequently. Discrimination between different classes ofinvestors may be beneficial. Learning by the market about projects in a newindustry can lead to a clustering of new issues (hot issue markets).     

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