Wage rigidity and the structure of the Austrian manufacturing industry

Zusammenfassung Starrheit der L?hne und die Industriestruktur ?sterreichs. Eine ?konometrische Analyse der Lohnrelationen. — Die vorliegende Studie untersucht das Ph?nomen der Lohnrigidit?t in gewissen Bereichen der Volkswirtschaft. Ausgehend von einem theoretischen Modell, das die Bedeutung der internen betrieblichen Anpassungskosten berücksichtigt, werden Gleichungen für die relativen L?hne formuliert, die als Hauptdeterminanten die Arbeitsmarktbedingungen und den Anteil der Fremdarbeiter in der Gesamtwirtschaft enthalten. Dabei unterliegen die Parameterwerte gewissen Restriktionen in Abh?ngigkeit von den Charakteristika der jeweiligen Industriezweige. Die empirischen Resultate für die Industrie ?sterreichs sind mit dem Modell konsistent und erlauben es, innerhalb der Industrie zwischen Branchen mit flexiblen und rigiden L?hnen zu unterscheiden, eine Unterscheidung, die für eine wirksamere Einkommenspolitik wesentlich ist. Au\erdem bildet der empirische Befund die Basis für einen Vergleich zwischen dem vorliegenden Modell und einem Modell, in dem die Gewerkschaften die Lohnbildung determinieren.

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Résumé La rigidité de salaire et la structure de l’industrie manufacturière autrichienne. Une analyse économétrique des salaires relatifs. — Cette étude analyse le phénomène de la rigidité de salaire dans certains secteurs de l’économie. En cadre théorique basé sur l’importance des co?ts internes d’ajustement l’auteur formule sous certaines restrictions paramétriques liées aux caractéristiques industrielles des équations de salaire relatif dont les conditions du marché de travail et la part des travailleurs étrangers dans l’économie sont des déterminants principaux. Les résultats empiriques qui correspondent au modèle présenté permettent de classifier les industries selon le degré de la flexibilité (ou rigidité) des salaires et donnent ainsi la base pour une politique des revenus plus efficace. Finalement, l’auteur évalue l’applicabilité d’un modèle dont la formation des salaires est déterminée par des syndicats ouvriers.

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Resumen Rigidez salarial y la estructura de la industria manufacturera austríaca. Un anàlisis econométrico de salarios relativos. — En este axtículo se investiga el fenómeno de la rigidez de la economía. Dentro de un marco teórico basado en la importancia de costos de ajuste internos se formulan ecuaciones salariales, con ciertas restricciones de parámetres ligados a las características industriales, que incluyen las condiciones del mercado laboral y la participatión de trabajadores extranjeros en la economía como los principales déterminantes. Los resultados empíricos consistentes con el modelo presentado, permiten una clasificación en industrias con salarios flexibles y rigidos, proveiendo de esta manera una base para una política de ingresos más eficiente. Finalmente se evaluó la aplicabilidad de un modelo de orientatión sindical para la determinatión de salarios.

     

How to sell services more profitably

When products become commodities, manufacturing companies may seek to differentiate themselves with value-added services--a potentially profitable strategy. Unfortunately, companies often stumble in the effort. Reinartz and Ulaga conducted in-depth studies of 18 leading companies in a broad variety of product markets to learn what distinguished the successes from the rest. They discovered four steps to developing a profitable services capability. RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE A SERVICE COMPANY: You can identify and charge for simple services--as Merck did when it stopped quietly absorbing shipping costs. Switching services from free to fee clarifies their value for managers as well as for customers. INDUSTRIALIZE THE BACK OFFICE: To prevent delivery costs from eating up service-offering margins, build flexible service platforms, closely monitor process costs, and exploit new technologies that enable process innovations. The Swedish bearings manufacturer SKF provided off-site access to an online monitoring tool that could warn of potential failure in customers' machines. CREATE A SERVICE-SAVVY SALES FORCE: Services require longer sales cycles and, often, decisions from high up in a customer's hierarchy; what's more, product salespeople may be inimical to change. Schneider-Electric did a major overhaul of its sales organization and trained its people to switch from cost-plus pricing to value-based pricing. FOCUS ON CUSTOMERS' PROCESSES AND THE OPPORTUNITIES THEY AFFORD FOR NEW SERVICE OFFERINGS: You may need to acquire new capabilities to take advantage of those opportunities: The industrial coatings specialist PPG had to learn how painting robots function after it offered to take over Fiat's Torino paint shop. Services can both lock in customers and help acquire new accounts. They should be developed with care and attention.     

Bond pricing when the short-term interest rate follows a threshold process

This paper derives analytical solutions for arbitrage-free bond yields when the short-term interest rate follows an autoregressive process with the intercept switching endogenously. This process from the SETAR family is especially suited to capture the near-unit-root behaviour typically observed in the evolution of short-term interest rates. The derived yield functions, mapping the one-month rate into n-period yields, exhibit a convex/concave shape to the left and right of the threshold value, respectively, a pattern which is also found in US bond yield data. The longer the time to maturity, the more distinct the nonlinearity of the yield function becomes.     

Growth,distribution and motivation in LDCs

Economic growth leads, according to Kuznets, at first to glaring income disparities and only when a certain state of development has been reached to a levelling of incomes. Translating this thesis to the developing countries, one would have to assume that there exists a constant conflict of objectives between an equitable income distribution and increased economic growth. The author examines various alternative explanations of the personal distribution of income to answer the question how the distribution objective can be attained and what effect certain measures of distribution policy have on growth.     

Einrichtung einer Journalistik-Dozentur in Wien

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

TARIFF FORMATION IN A MULTIDIMENSIONAL VOTING MODEL*

The theory of endogenous trade policy formation argues that tariffs emerge from the political process. This occurs because of conflicting economic interests trying to redistribute income in their favor through the adoption of suitable trade policies. Mayer and Riezman (1987) questioned this view arguing that if individuals differ only in factor ownership they would always prefer some tax/subsidy policy to tariffs. Here we allow individuals to differ not only with respect to factor ownership, but also with respect to consumption preferences and income tax treatment. We show that tariffs might be the social decision even though nobody's individual preferences suggest tariffs as the best choice.