Do “blacklists” enhance aviation safety?

For some time now, discussions have been under way in the EU on the possible publication of an official “blacklist” of unsafe airlines or countries where accident rates are above average. How effective is this instrument? What are the conceivable alternatives?     

The Climate Policy of the European Union

There is now almost universal agreement that climate change, with potentially disastrous consequences, is happening and that it is contributed to by human activities. This Forum is dedicated to the discussion of various aspects of the European Union's climate policy, e.g. the EU's future role in the global effort to combat global warming, the efficiency of its climate strategy, the design of a new rule for sharing the corresponding burdens fairly among member states, and the interrelationships between the Union's climate policies, on the one hand, and its energy and transport policies, on the other. * and member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). The author wishes to thank Helen Bicknell (Mainz University of Applied Sciences), Oliver Deke (WBGU) and Jürgen Schmid (ISET, Department of Efficient Energy Conversion at the University of Kassel) for their helpful comments. ** This contribution is based on a Jean Monnet Lecture held at Aarhus University on 19 March 2007. The author would like to thank Harri Kalimo for valuable comments.     

Spieltheoretische Analyse von Konflikt und Kooperation

Mit dem diesj?hrigen Nobelpreis für Wirtschaftswissenschaften wurden die Forscher Robert Aumann und Thomas Schelling für ihre spieltheoretischen Beitr?ge zu Konflikt und Kooperation in (wiederholten) Spielen ausgezeichnet. Inwieweit haben die beiden Forscher die Spieltheorie weiterentwickelt? Auf welche zentralen sozialwissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen lassen sich ihre Erkenntnisse anwenden?     

Die Erwartungen an die neue Bundesregierung

Das Ergebnis der Bundestagswahl ist eine gro?e Koalition zwischen CDU/CSU und SPD. Was erwarten die Arbeitgeber und die Arbeitnehmer von der neuen Bundesregierung? Dr. Dieter Hundt von der Bundesvereinigung der deutschen Arbeitgeberverb?nde und Michael Sommer vom Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbund nehmen Stellung.     

Fixed costs per shipment

Exporting firms do not only decide how much of their products they ship abroad but also at which frequency. Doing so, they face a trade-off between saving on fixed costs per shipments (by shipping large amounts infrequently) and saving on storage costs (by delivering just in time with small and frequent shipments). The firm's optimal choice defines a mapping from size and frequency of shipments to fixed costs per shipment. We use a unique dataset of Swiss cross-border trade on the transaction level to infer the size and shape of the underlying fixed costs. The inferred fixed costs are specific to each firm–country–product combination. Our results suggest that the fixed costs per shipment of the average Swiss exporter are large, ranging between 0.82% of the export value in our most conservative specification and 5.4%. We document that the imputed fixed costs per shipment correlate negatively with language commonalities, trade agreements and geographic proximity.     

Economic Analysis for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis and Scenario Valuation of Changes in Ecosystem Services

We combine natural science modelling and valuation techniques to present economic analyses of a variety of land use change scenarios generated for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. Specifically, the agricultural, greenhouse gas, recreational and urban greenspace impacts of the envisioned land use changes are valued. Particular attention is given to the incorporation of spatial variation in the natural environment and to addressing issues such as biodiversity impacts where reliable values are not available. Results show that the incorporation of ecosystem services and their values within analyses can substantially change decisions.     

Vor der Europawahl: Wie lässt sich die demokratische Legitimität verbessern?

The EU suffers from a democratic deficit that arises not first and foremost from a lack of institutional competencies, but rather from the double weakness of politics vis-à-vis economics and law at the European level. This “functional democratic deficit” renders the existing mechanisms of democratic control increasingly ineffective. Especially for its citizens, a politically integrated Europen Union might be difficult to grasp, and it may only be reached gradually through a continuous process of dynamic development; however, “United in Diversity” seems to be the better alternative, and not only for historical reasons. The direct elections for the European Parliament, although not denying deficits of democratic legitimacy and participation at the Union level, should not be underestimated in their legitimising influence for the Union as an associated structure of members without obvious hierarchies.     

Trust and controllability in venture capital fundraising

This study discusses a model of success in venture capital (VC) fundraising. We develop this model based on agency and trust theory. The model is tested against quantitative data collected from 151 limited partners (LP) with headquarters predominantly in North America and Europe. Beyond the well-known criterion of the VC firm's track record, results suggest that trust and perceived controllability shape the investment decisions of those LPs. Moreover, antecedents of these main factors are evaluated. In sum, this study shows how fundraising VC firms can systematically manage the fundraising process.     

Socially responsible investing and stock performance: New empirical evidence for the US and European stock markets

This paper empirically examines the theoretically ambivalent relationship between socially responsible investing (SRI) and stock performance. It contributes to the existing literature by considering both the US and the entire European stock markets and by using consistent world-wide corporate sustainability performance data. Our portfolio analysis from 1998 to 2009 is based on the common four-factor model according to Carhart (1997), which comprises market return, size, value, and momentum factors. We show for the US and the European stock markets that SRI is associated with large-sized firms. The insignificant abnormal stock returns for SRI in both regions are the main result of our paper. Therefore, our study supports the view that SRI stocks are correctly priced by market participants, although we cannot rule out that a corresponding mispricing has existed before the beginning of our observation period in 1998.