THE EVOLUTION OF COMPETITIVENESS IN HUNGARIAN AGRICULTURE: FROM TRANSITION TO ACCESSION

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Retail banking and behavioral financial engineering: The case of structured products

We apply cumulative prospect theory and hedonic framing to evaluate discount reverse convertibles (DRCs) and reverse convertible bonds (RCBs) as important examples of structured products from a boundedly rational investor’s point of view. While common expected utility theory would also conclude that DRCs and RCBs are of interest to investors with moderate return expectations and underestimated stock return volatility, that theory would overestimate the market success of DRCs and underestimate that of RCBs in comparison to a situation with bounded rationality. Hedonic framing and relatively low subjectively felt competence levels of investors are decisive for the demand for RCBs.     

Öffentliche Meinung als Online-Diskurs – ein neuer empirischer Zugang

The paper introduces a new empirical approach for measuring public opinion in the Internet: In a first step, all web pages containing relevant messages dealing with a specific issue are retrieved with a search engine. The pages are then content-analyzed in a second step. To answer the theoretical question of which kind of public opinion is registered by applying this method, the two basic paradigms of public opinion, which have hardly ever been connected so far, are discussed: public opinion as discourse and public opinion as measured by surveys. For the first time, both paradigms can be empirically compared by using a survey on the one hand, and the search engine based content analysis of web pages on the other. We conducted such a comparison for the issue of a smoking ban in restaurants, which was heavily discussed in Germany in 2007. The results reveal some fascinating parallels between both data sets and some differences, which are quite well in line with the theoretical assumptions. The paper finishes with some considerations on the theoretical and empirical capabilities of the approach.     

Zur Lage der Kommunikationswissenschaft und ihrer Fachgesellschaft. Ergebnisse der DGPuK-Mitgliederbefragung 2003

Like other broad disciplines in the media/communications field, communication science is characterized by rapid growth and increasing diversity and hence confusion. That also affects the discipline’s scholarly associations. So the German Association for Communication Science (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, DGPuK), the largest German-speaking association in this field, conducted a survey among its members in early 2003. This article reports on the design and findings of this study, focusing on the perception and evaluation of the association and on the scholarly orientations (theoretic perspectives and methodologies) of its members. Various subgroups within the DGPuK diverge in their positions and opinions. This applies in particular to the less well represented research traditions and subdisciplines (as compared to the social-scientific mainstream), which tend to view the DGPuK as one-sided. Deviations also show for professionals working outside the academic field (as compared to DGPuK members from universities) and in part for older members and women. The findings not only give an up-to-date picture of the state of the DGPuK but also shed light on the situation and development of the discipline as a whole.     

Right to work: Job creation New Zealand style

Between 1984 and 1994, successive New Zealand governments—first of the left, then of the right—managed the most dramatic and comprehensive deregulation exercise of any OECD country in decades. What have been the effects of this on the labour market?     

ON ACCURACY AND PRECISION IN STATISTICAL ESTIMATES

In the exact sciences one distinguishes between the exactness of the estimate of a quantity, or the ‘accuracy’, and the exactness of the symbolic representation of the estimate, its ‘precision’. The significant-digits rule, the subject of the most elementary education in these disciplines, establishes a rough correlation between accuracy and precision. It is shown that many agricultural economists and statisticians are unsure about the proper representation of accuracy in writing. The accuracy of one particular statistic, net farm income in Canada, has been estimated using Theil's RMSE statistic. The results suggest that net farm income should be written with two or three digits only according to the significant-digits rule. The author recommends that the significant-digits rule generally be followed. Economy in communication and greater awareness of the nature and limitation of the empirical basis of our knowledge would be gained. Dans les sciences exactes une distinction précise est fait entre 1'exactitude de la mesure d'une quantité et la précision de la représentation symbolique de cette mesure. La règie des chiffres signicatifs, le sujet de l'enseignement le plus élémentaire en les sciences naturelles, établit une corrélation approximatif entre l'exactitude de la mesure et la précision de la représentation. Les économistes et les statisticiens rurales semblent être incertains sur la représentation de l'exactitude de la mesure das la communication écrite. L'exactitude d'un devis particulier - la revenu net agricole canadien - a été estimé en utilisant la statistique RMEC (la racine de la moyenne de l'erreur carré) de THEIL. Les resultats suggerent que cette statistique devrait être écrit avec seulement deux ou trois chiffres, suivant la règie des chiffres signicatifs, au lieu de l'écrire avec sept chiffres d'après I'usage courant. l'auteur voudrait conseiller que, à I-avenir, la règie des chiffres signicatifs soit utilisé dans toutes les publications de manière à encourager l'économie dans la communication et une conscience professionnelle plus grand de la nature des limitations de la base empirique de notre connaissance.