What Determines Collection Rates of Debt Collection Agencies?

We contribute to the literature on debt collection agencies in two ways: First, we present an estimation of the collection rates. The distribution of collection rates exhibits a mean of about 65% and a strong bimodality with peaks at the very ends of the distribution. Second, we investigate potential determinants of the collection success. We find that collection rates are positively related to the exposure at default and to prior debtor‐specific collection rates. In contrast, the age of the account and—if applicable—prior experience with the debtor have a negative impact on collection rates.     

You can’t always get what you want: gender differences in job satisfaction of university graduates

Previous literature stressed on the gender differences in job satisfaction and the factors influencing the job satisfaction of men and women. Two rationales are usually provided for the finding that women tend to be relatively more satisfied with their jobs than men although disadvantaged in labour markets: first, women may have relatively lower expectations of career and income, and second, they may attach relatively less importance to extrinsic rewards than men. In order to analyse whether substantial gender differences exist already at the beginning of the career, we employ information of over 20 000 graduates collected through a large-scale survey of German university graduates who recently entered the labour market. We find that the job satisfaction of female graduates is on average slightly lower than the job satisfaction of male graduates, but our results do not point to substantial gender differences. In our sample of highly qualified individuals, men and women are very similar in what they want from their jobs and also in their perceptions of what they get. While our results point to substantial similarity of men and women in the early career stage, gender differences may emerge at later stages of the career life cycle.     

Dynamic factor demand in a rationing model

In this paper, a dynamic decision model of the firm with a delayed adjustment of employment and investment is developed. Special attention is devoted to dynamic inefficiencies, i.e. underutilizations of the capital stock and labour hoarding. Market disequilibrium is introduced by allowing for a sluggish adjustment of wages and prices. The model of the firm is complemented by explicit aggregation, and the aggregate model is estimated for the FRG for the period 1960 to 1989. The empirical results reveal that dynamic adjustment constraints for employment and capital contributed to the persistence of unemployment in Germany in the 1980s.     

Socio-economic Research in Personnel versus Personnel Economics

This paper argues that personnel economics is still dominated by the assumptions of orthodox microeconomics, and also that newer fields such as transaction cost theory are far removed from socio-economics. Personnel economics is characterised by assumptions of unbounded rationality, stable preferences and functioning markets; power differences are seen as unimportant for explanations. By contrast, a socio-economic perspective works with the assumption of bounded rationality; it takes preferences into account, assumes that markets are characterised by ‘non-equilibrium’ states and power differences. The paper outlines a socio-economic mode of explanation and suggests that any explanation should include assumptions about three theoretical mechanisms: pursuit of utility, power and sense-making.     

Determinants of innovation behaviour and investment estimates for west-german manufacturing firms

In this paper, the determinants of innovation behaviour and investment are explored with a large micro-data panel from West-German manufacturing firms. The estimates are discussed within a microeconomic model with monopolistic competition, demand uncertainty and a delayed adjustment of capacities and the production technology. The estimates reveal positive firm-size effects which hint towards scale economies associated with innovations. Market power promotes innovations but not investment, and exporters innovate more but exhibit less investment expenditures. Finally, excess demand promotes innovations. This indicates a complementarity of innovations and investment and hints towards permanent productivity effects of temporary demand shocks.     

On the Strong Liberal State: Beyond Berghahn and Young

The paper is a reply to Berghahn and Young's reflections on Bonefeld's ‘Freedom and the Strong State’. It argues that ordoliberalism focuses on the strong state as the political form of free economy.     

Social communication and discrimination: a video experiment

We report on an experiment using video technology to study effects of communication on donations to and discrimination between potential receivers. The experimental design eliminates strategic factors by allowing two receivers to unilaterally communicate with an anonymous dictator before the latter decides on her gifts. Through the use of three communication setups (none, audio, and audio-visual) we analyze purely social effects of communication. A silent video channel leads to discrimination between potential receivers based on impression formation, but does not affect average levels of donations. When the auditory channel is added, average donations increase. The social processes invoked by the visual and audio channels are heterogeneous and communicator-specific but not unsystematic.     

The Dynamics of Trustworthiness Among the Few

Conventional stochastic models of evolutionary processes with infinitely many agents are deterministic models in disguise. Only finite population models become truly stochastic. Therefore this paper focuses on an indirect evolutionary model of pair wise interaction in a pool of three (corresponding to analysing oligopolies in terms of duopoly markets). The outcomes of the process over the long haul are characterized by the stationary distribution of the underlying Markov process. Our example indicates that intermediate cases cannot be seen as convex combinations of the two polar non-stochastic cases of two or infinitely many individuals.
JEL Classification Numbers: C72, C73.