Has Labor Income Become More Volatile? Evidence from International Industry‐Level Data

Changes in labor market institutions and the increasing integration of the world economy may affect the volatility of capital and labor incomes. This article documents and analyzes changes in income volatility using data for 11 industrialized countries, 22 industries and 35 years (1970–2004). The article has four main findings. First, the unconditional volatility of labor income has declined in parallel to the decline in macroeconomic volatility. Second, the industry‐specific, idiosyncratic component of labor income volatility has hardly changed. Third, cross‐sectional heterogeneity is substantial. If anything, the labor incomes of high‐ and low‐skilled workers have become more volatile relative to the volatility of capital incomes. Fourth, the volatility of labor income relative to the volatility of capital income declines in the labor share. Trade openness has no clear‐cut impact.     

Interaktion mit Online-Communities — Spielregeln zur Stärkung der Marke

Zusammenfassung  Innerhalb kürzester Zeit hat sich im Internet eine gro?e Bandbreite von Online-Communities entwickelt, als fester Bestandteil der Beziehungswelt vieler Kunden. Unternehmen k?nnen für die Markenführung der Zukunft das Thema Online-Communities nicht mehr ausklammern, finden sich aber h?ufig im Internetdschungel (noch) nicht zurecht. Um Bewertungsportale, Blogs, Social Networking Sites, Virtual Worlds etc. im Sinne der Marke verstehen und nutzen zu k?nnen müsse Markenmanager eine Reihe von Spielregeln erlernen und beachten. Dr. Claudia Fisher-Buttinger Markenberaterin und Gründerin der Lemontree Brand Strategy mit Sitz in München. Dr. Christine Vallaster Dozentin an der Hochschule Liechtenstein in Vaduz am Institut für Entrepreneurship.     

Technical progress in Joan Robinson's view: an attempt at systematisation and formalisation

This paper deals with Joan Robinson's contributions to the issue of technical progress and her attempts at treating this subject in accordance with the Keynesian theory of employment and income distribution, mainly in the long run. The paper aims to review this aspect of her work and to establish a systematisation and a formalisation of her approach. At the same time, the paper exposes the problems she faced—but did not always solve. Looking through her main contributions, the paper concludes that she used different criteria for the classification of innovations and that they depended on the specific situations described by the models in which she used the classification.     

Communication and mobility behaviour – a trend and panel analysis of the correlation between mobile phone use and mobility

The paper examines the assumption about the complementarity between telecommunications and transport on the level of individual persons. Taking into account that previous studies have shown the particularly strong correlation between mobile phone use and travel behaviour, telecommunications use is considered by focussing on the mobile phone. Using panel data from Germany for the years 2004 and 2007 the first step consisted in an investigation of changes in mobile phone use taking into consideration also the level from which potential changes started. About one half of the respondents had changed their mobile phone use, in most cases by an increase of use. In a second step a comparison was made to potential changes in travel behaviour of the observed persons. The results show that in those groups of persons where the mobile phone use was on a high level or even increased from a high level in 2003, travel behaviour in terms of travel frequency decreased less than for all other persons or even increased. The assumption that changes in “life circumstances” such as new place of residence or change of household size trigger the change in mobile phone use or travel behaviour could be generally confirmed.     

Einstieg in die Insulintherapie

Zusammenfassung  Typ-2-Diabetes — Die Behandlung eines Typ-2-Diabetes stellt für die Patienten, aber auch für betreuende Pflegekr?fte in der ambulanten Versorgung, eine Herausforderung dar. Vor allem die Umstellung von oralen Antidiabetika auf Insulin bedeutet für viele Patienten eine gro?e Hürde. Wie kann dem Patient die Angst vor der Insulintherapie genommen werden?     

Functions of scenarios in transition processes

Given the interplaying tendencies of economic decline, social instability, and environmental depletion, any transition towards sustainable development faces a challenging task. To successfully cope with this complexity requires transition management. Integrated approaches for supporting sustainability transitions have been elaborated in the last years. Future studies and scenario construction are regarded as essential components in these approaches. However, the related studies in this field have focused either on a specific type of transition process, or on decision support in a different contextual process, or on a specific function of scenarios. Thus, an evaluation of the wide range of viewpoints on the functions of scenarios with respect to the requirements for transition management is still missing. In this paper, we systematically elaborate upon the functions for transition management that scenarios can fulfil. The developed concept is applied to five empirical scenario studies supporting transition processes on the national, regional and local level in Switzerland. The paper contributes to the development of a functional methodology of transition support, providing initial guidelines for answering the question of which method is appropriate for what type and phase of a transition process.     

Zurück zur Sprache

Zusammenfassung  Aphasie – Auf einmal ?ndert sich alles — Unsere Welt ist von kommunikativen und sprachlichen Prozesse gepr?gt – für Menschen mit Sprachst?rungen – beispielsweise nach einem Schlaganfall – entstehen damit umfassende Probleme. Wie und wobei k?nnen Pflegekr?fte helfen?     

Size and industry effects in the performance of agricultural cooperatives

The objective of this study is to determine if there are important size and industry effects on financial performance of agricultural cooperatives. The performance of 43 dairy, food, grain, and farm supply cooperatives in the U.S. was analyzed over the period 1970-1987 using financial ratios derived from accounting data. The analysis revealed significant size and industry effects. Large regional cooperatives are more efficient in utilizing their assets to generate sales, while small regional cooperatives have higher profitability. The findings suggest that the emphasis on growth may not always produce beneficial results among agricultural cooperatives. Among the four industries studied, the dairy regional cooperatives appear to be the strongest performers, while the food marketing cooperatives are characterized by the lowest performance measures. Since both dairy and food cooperatives engage in value-added processing, this difference in performance makes it difficult to reach clear conclusions about possible advantages of disadvantages or vertical integration relative to traditional cooperative activities. Trend analysis indicates that the profitability of the agricultural cooperatives in all industry and size categories declined in response to the downturn in U.S. agriculture after 1980. While the decline in profitability was at similar rates for both large and small cooperatives, the variation of efficiency and leverage was in opposite directions. Large cooperatives may be expected to continue improving their asset utilization without relative improvement in profitability, and increasing the level of their debt in relation to equity.     

New evidence on the efficiency of Italian airports: A bootstrapped DEA analysis

A bootstrapped DEA procedure is used to estimate technical efficiency of 18 Italian airports during the period 2000-2004. Departing from previous studies, we separate the efficiency related to ability to manage airside activities (operational) from that related to the management of all business activities (financial). In general, Italian airports operate at poor levels of efficiency, with slightly better performance in terms of their financial activities. In the current study, selected intrinsic and environmental characteristics are considered as possible drivers of Italian airport performance. In particular, we found that: (i) the airport dimension does not allows for operational efficiency advantages, (ii) on the other hand, the airport dimension allows for financial efficiency advantages for the case of hubs and disadvantages for the case of the smallest airports (iii) the type(s) of concession agreement(s) might be considered as important source of technical efficiency differentials for those airports running marginal commercial activities; (iv) the introduction of a dual-till price cap regulation might create incentives which lead to the increase of financial efficiency at the detriment of the operational performance. Lastly, the development of a second hub (Milano Malpensa), has negatively affected the performance of the country’s national hub (Roma Fiumicino).