Modeling of CPDOs – Identifying optimal and implied leverage

When the subprime crisis started to emerge, collateralized products based on credit default swap (CDS) exposures combined with security features seemed to be a more rational alternative to classic asset backed securities. Constant Proportion Collateralized Debt Obligations (CPDOs) are a mixture of Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and CPPIs with inverse mechanism. This new asset aims at meeting the investors’ demand for credit derivatives with security enhancements, but to our knowledge quantitative approaches for pricing other than simulation algorithms do not exist yet. CPDOs became famous notably by Standard & Poor’s rating model error which illustrated that closed-form analytical pricing is necessary in order to evaluate and understand complex derivatives. This article aims to shed a light on CPDOs’ specific structural enhancements and mechanisms. We quantify inherent risks and provide a dynamic closed-form pricing formula.     

Strategic responses to fuel cell hype and disappointment

This article investigates the interplay of expectation dynamics and innovation processes at the level of organizations and at the innovation system level. We examine how different kinds of organizations contributed and responded to a recent hype and disappointment cycle in the field of stationary fuel cells. Among others, we trace how innovation and discourse activities changed and we explain the observed differences in strategic responses. We show that the sensitivity of organizations to expectation dynamics depends on at least three factors: the strategic embedding of the new technology, the organization's dependence on external legitimacy and its role in the innovation system. Moreover, we show that – in their aggregation – strategic responses affected the level of the technological innovation system as well. Not only did the pace and direction of innovation activities change, but structures such as actor constellations and institutions were also modified. Our study thus provides insights into the interplay of expectation and innovation dynamics, which is important for our understanding of larger transformation processes, e.g. toward more sustainable modes of energy supply.     

Information,Knowledge and Agency: The Information Theoretic Approach and the Austrians

Both the Information Theoretic Economics and Austrian Economics investigate the impact on market activity of problems of information and knowledge. The conceptions of information and knowledge they employ, however, as well as their respective views on and treatment of economic agency, are quite different. The purpose of this paper is to examine these differences, not primarily from an abstract philosophical point of view, but by looking at substantive examples of the economics offered by the two approaches. An attempt is made to explain the Austrian preference for non-formalist approaches to economic analysis.     

西方误读中国商道

中国文化相当多面和多变，商业文化也不例外，有三个方面最常被误读。 美国式个人主义：多年以来，中国似乎都是笼罩着浓厚集体主义的国家，但环境已经发生巨变。陈伟是一位巴黎奢侈品行业的经理，他不断亲身感受到中国个人主义的上升。     

Economics and the treatment of AIDS: a preliminary assessment

This paper applied cost-effectiveness analysis to the use of drug therapy in the treatment of AIDS. The empirical approach adopted overcame the facts that the samples of patients had varying clinical prognoses, had variable entry dates into the samples and, because AIDS is a terminal disease, had variable exit dates. Holding these variables constant, administration of the drug AZT proved to be a less costly alternative than other existing palliatives for AIDS. The sub-sample of patients treated with AZT had lower hospitalization costs, lower caring costs and sufferers had an increased ability to continue to participate for longer as economically active members of society.     

Adäquate Wundauflagen

Wundumgebung und Wundauflagen - Die wundumgebende Haut, sofern sie intakt ist, hat eigentlich keinen direkten Einfluss auf die Wundheilung, da aber die Wundauflagen oder der Sekund?rverband auf der wundumgebenden Haut fixiert wird, ist die Beurteilung und Schutz dieser Hautareale für die Wundheilung von Bedeutung.     

Komplexe Kompressionstherapie

pAVK: Wann ist Kompression erlaubt? - Eine periphere arterielle Verschlusskrankheit (pAVK) gilt meist als Kontraindikation für eine komplexe Kompressionstherapie – nicht immer zum Nutzen des Patienten. Bei strenger Indikationsstellung und intensiver Betreuung k?nnen jedoch auch diese Patienten von der Behandlungsform profitieren.     

Integrating soft factors into the assessment of cooperative relationships between firms: accounting for reputation and ethical values

Alliances and other forms of cooperation between firms often promise great benefits, for example, by the exchange of knowledge or co‐specialization of resources. At the same time, the necessary actions to realize these benefits can augment vulnerability to opportunistic behaviour of partners. In addition to formal contracts to mitigate the resulting behavioural uncertainties, often, mechanisms, such as reputation or ethical values, are suggested as important supplements. However, when it comes to assessment of a specific cooperation opportunity, it is difficult to account systematically for the economic consequences of these ‘softer factors’. Therefore, this paper aims to surpass mere financial analysis of chance and risk and to integrate systematically both reputation and ethical values into an economic assessment of cooperative relationships. For this purpose, we develop a theoretical framework that is based on a simple‐decision model to account for reputation and ethical values of potential partners as drivers of behavioural uncertainty reduction. We also discuss how this framework can be used to assess cooperative relationships and illustrate these ideas with reference to the inter‐organizational accounting practices of a large drugstore chain and its suppliers.