The changing role of Europe's managers

The American businessman may be comforted to know that the problems he faces are like those faced by his colleagues in Europe. Economic fluctuations have demanded new talents of the European manager; organizational structures are changing, and mergers are more common. Some of the problems stem from social changes: increasing socialization, pressure from employees for codetermination, pressure concerning pollution control, and the anti-business attitude of the young. In addition, European managers face new minority problems; for example, more than 2 million foreign workers are employed in Germany alone. The author includes a sharp word for American multinational companies that fail to think in international terms.     

Pure and randomized equilibria in the stochastic von Neumann–Gale model

The paper examines the problem of the existence of equilibrium for the stochastic analogue of the von Neumann–Gale model of economic growth. The mathematical framework of the model is a theory of set-valued random dynamical systems defined by positive stochastic operators with certain properties of convexity and homogeneity. Existence theorems for equilibria in such systems may be regarded as generalizations of the Perron–Frobenius theorem on eigenvalues and eigenvectors of positive matrices. The known results of this kind are obtained under rather restrictive assumptions. We show that these assumptions can be substantially relaxed if one allows for randomization. The main result of the paper is an existence theorem for randomized equilibria. Some special cases (models defined by positive matrices) are considered in which the existence of pure equilibria can be established.     

Probabilistic assignments of identical indivisible objects and uniform probabilistic rules

We consider a probabilistic approach to the problem of assigning k indivisible identical objects to a set of agents with single-peaked preferences. Using the ordinal extension of preferences we characterize the class of uniform probabilistic rules by Pareto efficiency, strategy-proofness, and no-envy. We also show that in this characterization no-envy cannot be replaced by anonymity. When agents are strictly risk averse von Neumann-Morgenstern utility maximizer, then we reduce the problem of assigning k identical objects to a problem of allocating the amount k of an infinitely divisible commodity.     

Macroeconomic Consequences of the Adoption of the Euro: The Case of Slovenia

On 1 January 2007, Slovenia adopted the euro as the first of the ten new EU member states. By means of simulations with SLOPOL6, a macroeconometric model of the Slovene economy, this paper examines the macroeconomic consequences that can be expected from this event. It is shown that after a short period of minor turbulences related to the introduction of the euro, the adoption of the euro brings about higher real GDP growth, a higher GDP level, more employment, lower inflation, a lower price level and improved public finances in the medium run. On the other hand, the current account deteriorates. Financial support from the Province of Carinthia, Klagenfurt University and the Jubilaeumsfonds of the Austrian National Bank (project no. 12166) is gratefully acknowledged. The opinions presented need not be those of the Austrian National Bank.     

East-west cooperation: German experiences

Direct cooperation between manufacturing firms on both sides has been recommended as a new approach to overcoming the problems of traditional trade between West Germany and the COMECON states. In spite of a high degree of activity for promoting East-West cooperation, its volume, however, is still relatively low and exaggerated expectations as to future developments must be discouraged.     

Aufgabenfelder des Investitionscontrollings

Dem Investitionscontrolling obliegen vielf?ltige Planungsund Kontrollaufgaben, die sich über den gesamten Investitionsprozess hinweg erstrecken.