Weltgetreidemarkt: Anhaltender Boom oder kurzfristige Spekulationsblase?

Zusammenfassung   Die Weltagrarm?rkte waren im letzten Jahr von stark steigenden Preisen gepr?gt. Wird diese Entwicklung durch fundamentale Faktoren gestützt oder handelt es sich um eine kurzfristige Erscheinung? Welche Rolle spielen dabei das Bev?lkerungswachstum und die Steigerung der Pro-Kopf-Einkommen? Was geht auf die Nachfrage nach biogenen Kraftstoffen zurück? Diese Fragen werden beispielhaft anhand des Weizenmarktes behandelt. Prof. Dr. Bernhard Brümmer, 39, ist Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre am Department für Agrar?konomie und Rurale Entwicklung der Universit?t G?ttingen; Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ulrich Koester, 70, ist Emeritus des Lehrstuhls für Landwirtschaftliche Marktlehre an der Universit?t Kiel; Prof. Dr. Jens-Peter Loy, 44, lehrt in der Abteilung Marktlehre des Instituts für Agrar?konomie an der Universit?t Kiel und ist Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Marktlehre an der CAU Kiel.     

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Distributed Visual Language Environments for Cooperation and Learning: Applications and Intelligent Support

An increasing number of collaborative learning environments is based on shared workspace systems using two-dimensional graph-structured visual representations such as argumentation networks and concept maps. We propose an integrated framework that allows for flexibly specifying a wide range of visual languages and plugging in components for operational semantics, adequate feedback and intelligent support. The generic application CardBoard provides card-based user interaction and collaboration by means of different languages in shared workspaces. To enhance modifiability, the interfaces between the distributed heterogeneous system components, particularly between intelligent components and user interfaces, have been standardised.     

Mitigation of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection in Venture Capital Financing: The Influence of the Country's Institutional Setting

A venture capitalist (VC) needs to trade off benefits and costs when attempting to mitigate agency problems in their investor‐investee relationship. We argue that signals of ventures complement the VC's capacity to screen and conduct a due diligence during the preinvestment phase, but its attractiveness may diminish in institutional settings supporting greater transparency. Similarly, whereas a VC may opt for contractual covenants to curb potential opportunism by ventures in the postinvestment phase, this may only be effective in settings supportive of shareholder rights enforcement. Using an international sample of VC contracts, our study finds broad support for these conjectures. It delineates theoretical and practical implications for how investors can best deploy their capital in different institutional settings while nurturing their relationships with entrepreneurs.     

Digitalisierung und die Zukunft der Arbeit

Wirtschaftsdienst - Durch eine rasant wachsende Rechenleistung können immer mehr Tätigkeiten, die bislang dem Menschen vorbehalten schienen, mittels Maschinen und Algorithmen...     

Technology and public goods

This paper presents a theory of public goods based on production theory where public goods are viewed as inputs to the production process. We examine the pure case of public inputs (no private inputs) as well as the mixed case (private and public inputs). We show how the case of public inputs is related to certain forms of nonjoint production, and we characterize it in terms of variable profit and joint cost functions. Comparative statics results are derived graphically in the two-by-two case.     

Fixed versus flexible exchange rates in an equilibrium business cycle model

This essay re-examines the question of which exchange rate regime is preferable, using a rational expectations model that explicitly incorporates wealth, and emphasizing the information-signalling role of prices. Previous authors have stressed the argument that floating rates provide agents with an additional source of information, which improves forecasting accuracy, leading to more efficient allocations. This paper adds the counterweighing argument that they also have the effect, in contrast to fixed rates, of introducing an additional source of (monetary) disturbances in the determination of real variables. Another issue addressed is the nature of exchange rate adjustments to monetary disturbances.     

The emergence of a protective agency and the constitutional dilemma

In the last decades' revival of contractarianism a constitutional contract is interpreted as a device to overcome the hypothetical state of anarchy. It is not entirely clear, however, how, in a pre-constitutional setting that lacks any institutional forms, an unanimous agreement on the rules and the agency enforcing the rules can be imagined to emerge. This paper conceptualizes the problem in game-theoretic terms. A solution is discussed together with an old dilemma that turns up in this context. The dilemma results from the fact that the protective agency has to be endowed with sufficiently powerful coercive means to prevent anyone breaking the social contract. However, this concentration of power itself may induce a violation by making the protective agency usurp its power. The logical basis of the dilemma is explored together with the conditions under which it may challenge the contractarian approach. I would like to thank Juli Irving-Lessmann, Dennis Mueller, Viktor Vanberg, Georg von Wangenheim, and in particular Hartmut Kliemt for helpful comments on an earlier draft.