Stromspeicher für die „Energiewende“ – eine akteursbasierte Analyse der zusätzlichen Speicherkosten

Political targets for implementing the German “energy turnaround” aiming at the ambitious extension of renewable energies to generate electricity. However, a majority of the renewable supply is provided by intermittent sources, e.g. wind and solar power. For balancing the increasing supply fluctuations additional storage options are claimed beside of an enforced grid infrastructure and a more flexible demand side. Despite of the political guidelines the economics of additional flexibility measures has to be considered. For this paper we analyse the costs of large scale stationary battery storages to be operated in wholesale markets and transmission grid level. By deriving a key figure based on a life-cycle cost approach, we are able to evaluate the additional costs of electricity of selected battery technologies (lead-acid, lithium ion, sodium sulphur, redox-flow). Moreover, current and valid parameters of the cost analysis are received by scientific and industrial stakeholders of battery systems via online survey and face-to-face interviews. According to the stakeholder estimation a nationwide operation of stationary battery storages will be established at wholesale and transmission grid level until the year 2030. The life-cycle cost analysis, which also includes estimated future cost reductions, shows that lead-acid batteries remain the cost-efficient technology, assuming about 100 storage cycles p.a. In addition, a sensitivity analysis reveals the impact of increasing annual storage cycles as well as the achievable cost reduction by economies-of-scales of the power unit of the storage system.     

Real option pricing with mean-reverting investment and project value

In this work, we are concerned with valuing the option to invest in a project when the project value and the investment cost are both mean-reverting. Previous works on stochastic project and investment cost concentrate on geometric Brownian motions (GBMs) for driving the factors. However, when the project involved is linked to commodities, mean-reverting assumptions are more meaningful. Here, we introduce a model and prove that the optimal exercise strategy is not a function of the ratio of the project value to the investment V/I – contrary to the GBM case. We also demonstrate that the limiting trigger curve as maturity approaches traces out a nonlinear curve in (V, I) space and derive its explicit form. Finally, we numerically investigate the finite-horizon problem, using the Fourier space time-stepping algorithm of Jaimungal and Surkov [2009. Lev´y based cross-commodity models and derivative valuation. SIAM Journal of Financial Mathematics, to appear. http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=972837]. Numerically, the optimal exercise policies are found to be approximately linear in V/I; however, contrary to the GBM case they are not described by a curve of the form V*/I*=c(t). The option price behavior as well as the trigger curve behavior nicely generalize earlier one-factor model results.     

The origins and evolution of democracy: an exercise in history from a constitutional economics approach

In this article the conditions for the rise and fall of representative regimes are explored. High citizen mobility and unexploited opportunities for investment create the need of reassuring factor owners against the tax hunger of the State. This may lead to the emergence of representative institutions of government, a process that reverts when those conditions disappear. Factors that facilitate or restrain the mobility of citizenry are identified, mainly in the domain of military technology. Thus, a number of interrelations between production and war technologies, political development and economic performance are revealed, giving rise to an interpretation of historical evolution.

The effect of international staffing practices on subsidiary staff retention in multinational corporations

This paper contributes to the scarce body of research on employee turnover in multinational corporations' foreign subsidiaries and addresses some key issues related to dealing with turnover of local staff. Based on a literature review, I conceptualize locals' perceived career prospects and their organizational identification as key variables mediating the relationship between international staffing practices and local staff turnover. In a second step, the paper develops instruments that help international firms to retain their subsidiary staff. Specifically, I focus on how international staffing practices need to be configured to ensure employee retention and I derive moderating factors. My arguments are integrated into a framework for the effect of international staffing practices on subsidiary staff retention in multinational corporations.     

On the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market

Recent operations management and innovation management research emphasizes the importance of supplier integration. However, the empirical results as to the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market are ambivalent. To understand this important relationship, we incorporate two major recent developments. First, the literature has started to redefine supplier integration into two dimensions, supplier product integration and supplier process integration. Second, recent research has begun to examine spillover effects that extend beyond the direct costs and benefits of the supplier contract. Using survey data of 116 firms in the industrials, health care, and information technology industries, the results confirm our hypotheses and show that supplier product integration decelerates time-to-market while supplier process integration accelerates time-to-market. The results also show a positive relationship between supplier integration and the adoption of external technologies, which either decelerates or accelerates time-to-market depending on the level of internal exploration activities. Our research, thus, helps to open the ‘black-box’ of the relationship between supplier integration and time-to-market, and provides a theoretically grounded explanation to the apparent contradictory results in prior research about the influence of supplier integration on time-to-market. In addition, we contribute to research on spillover effects by emphasizing that information technology adoption and assimilation is an important spillover effect of supplier integration.     

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Exchange rate determination: a theory of the decisive role of central bank cooperation and conflict

Economists’ faith that variable exchange rates benevolently equilibrate has been empirically disconfirmed. That faith is here tackled at its theoretical core with an exchange rate model that although ultra abstract, includes the undeniable fundamentals of market power and differential goals of central bankers and large-scale private players. It permits a game theoretic analysis under the assumption that all agents maximize their payoffs. The paper then relaxes the assumption of maximising agents, allowing for a more complex and thus realistic second version of the model that is interpretable within SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory of risk and uncertainty. In an experimental setting, this second version of the model points to: a) the inability of agents in central banks, governments and the private real and financial sectors to operate in maximising ways; b) destructive central bank conflict; and c) the widely discrepant outcomes arising from the dynamics of individual personality differences. The paper’s theoretical and empirical findings thus both point to the merits of a single world currency.     

Assessing Advertising Effectiveness: The Potential of Goal‐Directed Behavior

Advertising clutter and declining audience attention means advertisers need pretesting to ensure the effectiveness of their advertisements. This study uses, for the first time, a variable‐resolution display to measure viewers’ visual attention to advertising. The display features only the part of an ad that corresponds with the observer's eye gaze with high acuity, whereas the resolution of the other parts reflects the decline in spatial resolution of the human visual system. Participants keep the highest resolution area aligned with their foveal vision using manual cursor movements. In accordance with neuroscientific theory, recorded cursor movements parallel the eye gaze patterns observed in a control group. However, unlike tracking eye movements, the instrument offers a simple, unobtrusive, low‐cost, and time‐efficient way to measure the effectiveness of visual advertising. The results encourage the use of goal‐directed manual pointing movements to indicate attentional signals generated in the brain.     

Brand Attachment and Consumer Emotional Response to Unethical Firm Behavior

Attaching consumers to a brand is a cornerstone of relationship marketing as attachment increases loyalty. This research investigates another possible benefit of attachment, its potential and limits for shielding brands from firms’ ethical missteps. Merging motivated reasoning and attachment theories, two studies focus on how brand attachment influences consumer judgments of firm ethics and the emotional and behavioral consequences developing from those. A field study indicates that attachment attenuates judgments of unethical behavior, contributes to emotional ambivalence, and affects purchase intentions. A subsequent experiment corroborates these findings and shows that the buffering role of attachment is limited to conditions when the information about firm ethics is moderately rather than extremely negative. Implications focus on advancing research on ethics and emotional ambivalence in consumer brand relationships and on managerial implications.     

Defining the “global” in global leadership

While scholars have begun to develop the conceptual foundations of global leadership, few attempts have been made to unify the plethora of existing definitions. We argue that the lack of a precise, rigorous and commonly accepted definition of global leadership limits the field's conceptual and empirical progress. Building on recommended practice for construct definitions, we first review and critique existing definitions of global leadership. Second, we specifically focus on explicating the global construct encompassed by the global leadership phenomenon and propose three dimensions along which this sub-construct can be analyzed: complexity, flow, and presence. Finally, we offer a revised construct definition and conclude with implications for research and practice.