The ownership of ratings

We identify the optimal contract between a rating agency and a firm and the circumstances under which simple ownership contracts implement this optimal solution. We assume that the decision to obtain a rating is endogenous and the price of a rating is a strategic variable. Clients hiding their ratings can be an equilibrium only if they are ex ante uncertain of their quality and if the hiring decision is not observable. For some distribution functions, a competitive rating market is necessary for this result to obtain. In this context, competition between rating intermediaries will lead to less information in equilibrium.     

The Configuration of Organizational Images Among Firms in the Canadian Beer Brewing Industry*

abstract We integrate the literature on organizational image management and neo‐institutional theory to arrive at a better understanding of how organizations routinely represent themselves positively in their external environment. Drawing on a cross‐sectional exploratory study of the website communications of 36 firms in the Canadian brewing industry, we investigate how these organizations construct essential and distinctive organizational images in reference to a map of identity attributes and image categories at the organizational field level. We conclude that organizational self‐categorizations explain the field‐level configuration of images we discovered by establishing legitimacy claims targeted at relevant stakeholders.     

Zu den zwei Versicherungsbegriffen von Werner Mahr und ihrer Bedeutung in der heutigen Zeit

Werner Mahr differentiates between two notions of insurance based upon either the mutuality or the speculation principle. While Mahr however supposes that these two principles melt into the pure insurance-technological economics through the interplay of the probability principle, the differences will be stressed. In the first step, the (theoretical) distinctions are elaborated between the “ideal” insurance model of K. J. Arrow, based on the mutuality principle, and the “classical” insurance model of K. Borch, building on the speculation principle or the reserve theory according to A. Willett. In the second step, these differentiations are elucidated with the help of three examples: uncertainty about the risks, correlated risks, and macroeconomic, in particular demographic risks.     

Dualität in der Produktionstheorie

Ohne ZusammenfassungBesprechung des Buches Fuss and McFadden (eds.): Production Economics: A Dual Approach to Theory and Applications, 2 Bände, North Holland, Amsterdam-New York. 1978. Dfl. 240,-, US $ 106.75.     

Die Stellung von Mengers „Grundsätzen“ in der Geschichte der Volkswirtschaftslehre

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Energy Informatics

Due to the increasing importance of producing and consuming energy more sustainably, Energy Informatics (EI) has evolved into a thriving research area within the CS/IS community. The article attempts to characterize this young and dynamic field of research by describing current EI research topics and methods and provides an outlook of how the field might evolve in the future. It is shown that two general research questions have received the most attention so far and are likely to dominate the EI research agenda in the coming years: How to leverage information and communication technology (ICT) to (1) improve energy efficiency, and (2) to integrate decentralized renewable energy sources into the power grid. Selected EI streams are reviewed, highlighting how the respective research questions are broken down into specific research projects and how EI researchers have made contributions based on their individual academic background.     

Ruin probabilities and aggregrate claims distributions for shot noise Cox processes

We consider a risk process R _t where the claim arrival process is a superposition of a homogeneous Poisson process and a Cox process with a Poisson shot noise intensity process, capturing the effect of sudden increases of the claim intensity due to external events. The distribution of the aggregate claim size is investigated under these assumptions. For both light-tailed and heavy-tailed claim size distributions, asymptotic estimates for infinite-time and finite-time ruin probabilities are derived. Moreover, we discuss an extension of the model to an adaptive premium rule that is dynamically adjusted according to past claims experience.     

Fads and Trends in Business and Information Systems Engineering and Information Systems Research – A Comparative Literature Analysis

The business and information systems engineering (BISE) discipline, dominating in the German-speaking countries, where it is called“Wirtschaftsinformatik”, is currently undergoing a phase of increasing internationalization and the U.S.-based Information Systems (IS) discipline is often considered an ideal. Studies show that BISE has often dealt with fads in the past – for IS there are no findings reporting on the diffusion of fads. The objective of the paper is to close this research gap. The authors conducted a literature analysis to investigate the development of topics and terms in BISE and IS from 1994 to 2007. Titles, abstracts and keywords of 2,564 articles in three BISE journals and 5,647 articles in five IS journals were analyzed. The results show that BISE is topically more diverse and concrete than IS. In addition, the rate of fads is higher in BISE than IS. Being engaged in fads is not necessarily negative – rather, it may considerably contribute to the relevance of research. However, it has to be considered that an overly intense orientation on fads may negatively influence a cumulative research progress. Hence, the authors conclude that for BISE and IS, which both have a theoretical and pragmatic mission, a balanced ratio of short- and long-term topics seems appropriate.     

Market process(es) and (un)knowledge

By extending an underdeveloped idea of Lachmann, I show that the Austrian theory of the market process à la Kirzner is unable to explain the diversity of market processes because it neglects the imperfect inter-market mobility of factors of production. I show that by taking into account the imperfect mobility of capital equipment and the associated reshuffling costs, it is possible to formulate a set of empirically testable implications about the unfolding of the market process. Furthermore, I show that reshuffling costs shape the context in which the learning process takes place and that the epistemic assumption of structural opacity on which the Austrian theory of the market process relies is not incompatible with the epistemics assumption of structural transparency of neoclassical economics. These epistemic assumptions can be seen as the two poles of a “knowledge spectrum”, from potential omniscience to sheer ignorance.