HOW INCOME INEQUALITY CHANGED IN GERMANY FOLLOWING REUNIFICATION: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS USING DECOMPOSABLE INEQUALITY MEASURES

This paper analyzes how inequality in Before and After Government income has changed in Germany since reunification using the 1990 through 1992 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel. A Theil decomposable inequality index is used to measure inequality in Germany and in its eastern and western states. Massive public transfers from west to east have narrowed the east-west income gap, substantially offset the rise in income inequality from private sources, and lowered overall inequality in the western states. The net result of this policy has been a drop in After Government income inequality in Germany between 1990 and 1992.     

Some Effects of EU Sugar Reforms on Development in Africa

Intereconomics - The sugar industry is a major provider of jobs and income for sugar-exporting countries in Africa. The lower sugar prices that were caused by the recent liberalisation of the EU...     

Connecting strategic orientation,innovation strategy,and corporate sustainability: A model for sustainable development through stakeholder engagement

This paper aims to enhance our understanding of the relationship between organizations' strategic orientation (i.e., instrumental, equidistant, and stewardship) and their innovational strategy (i.e., organizational ambidexterity and open innovation), and this relationship's influence on their sustainability performance. We expected organizations' strategic orientation to influence their innovational strategy and exhibit better corporate sustainability. We focused on 12 different multinational organizations in the Eurozone and found that inbound open innovation acts as a driver for corporate sustainability while simultaneously positively enabling organizations to pursue both financial and social initiatives. After suggesting open innovation as a new corporate sustainability antecedent, we only found empirical evidence of inbound open innovation. However, we would suggest that if organizations incorporated outbound open innovation in their strategy, they could likely improve their corporate sustainability. Also, we found that achieving an equidistant or stewardship orientation paves the way for sustainability to become an integral part of an organization's innovational culture and actualizes the organization's strategic behavior. Our findings further contribute to a deeper understanding of organizations' characteristics as their sustainability commitment grows and as they move from an instrumental to a stewardship orientation and implement an open innovational strategy.     

A unified framework for robust modelling of financial markets in discrete time

Finance and Stochastics - We unify and establish equivalence between the pathwise and the quasi-sure approaches to robust modelling of financial markets in finite discrete time. In particular, we...     

Interaction effects between dynamic hybrid products and traditional deferred annuities in the German life insurance market

Financial Markets and Portfolio Management - Dynamic hybrid products emerged in 2007 and are now well established in the German life insurance market. In this article, we study interaction effects...     

Discouraging Rainforest Transformation: An Ex-ante Policy Impact Analysis

Despite extensive efforts made by national and international certification agencies, Indonesian smallholder farmers’ participation in palm oil certification schemes adoption remains low. A fundamental obstacle is the smallholder practice of rainforest transformation into oil palm plantation which is forbidden by the agencies. In this context, we investigate three policies that could lead to a reduction in rainforest deforestation by smallholders: price premium on certified palm oil; the provision of environmental information; contributor recognition. In order to evaluate the influence of the policies ex-ante, we conduct a social dilemma experiment involving rubber and oil palm smallholders in Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. The findings indicate that the price premium and provision of context-specific environmental information could reduce rainforest transformation. However, a statistically significant effect of contributor recognition was not found.     

Bidding for Firms with Unknown Characteristics

When a region successfully attracts a firm by offering subsidies, the firm often commits itself to performance targets in terms of employment. In this paper, we interpret these firm‐specific targets as a consequence of incomplete information. We analyze a model of two regions that compete for a firm, assuming that the firm's productivity is ex ante unknown. We show that performance targets often induce overemployment in high‐productivity firms, and that tax credits are often superior to lump‐sum payments. Moreover, when regions differ in wage rates, the low‐wage region wins the bid and has a higher surplus than under complete information. Finally, we show that, under incomplete information, bidding might not lead to efficient firm location.     

Antitrust Compliance: Managerial Incentives and Collusive Behavior

This article analyzes a manager's incentives to establish and sustain an illegal collusive agreement if her firm is subject to profit shocks, if her utility function is concave in profits (e.g., because of risk aversion), and if she incurs opportunity costs (e.g., by violating a social norm). The model supports the empirical observation that if collusion is to be established and sustained in a state with low profits, then this state must be quite persistent. It also indicates that compliance with antitrust laws can be ensured best by combining a zero tolerance policy with a strategy of forgiveness. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.