Kooperation ohne Grenzen? — Schleswig-Holstein und Hamburg im globalen Wettbewerb

Zusammenfassung  Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein müssen sich dem globalen Wettbewerb stellen. Sie k?nnten ihre Ausgangsposition verbessern, wenn sie ihre Kr?fte bündelten. Wo liegen die St?rken und Schw?chen der beiden L?nder? Welche gemeinsamen Interessen sollten sie verfolgen? Welche Rolle spielen dabei Infrastrukturprojekte? Was l?sst sich politisch durchsetzen? Dr. Klaus Schrader, 46, ist Stellvertretender Leiter des Zentrums „Wirtschaftspolitik” am Institut für Weltwirtschaft in Kiel. Dieser Beitrag basiert auf einem Gutachten des Instituts für Weltwirtschaft für die Staatskanzlei des Landes Schleswig-Holstein, vgl. K. Schrader et al.: Neue Wege der Kooperation — Schleswig-Holstein und Hamburg in einer gemeinsamen Wirtschaftsregion, Kiel 2008.     

Lifestyles, technology and CO2 emissions in China: A regional comparative analysis

With rapid economic development, higher income levels, urbanization and other socio-economic drivers, people's lifestyles in China have changed remarkably over the last 50 years. This paper uses the IPAT model (where I = Impact representing CO₂ emissions, P = Population, A = Affluence, and T = emission intensity) to analyze how these main drivers contributed to the growth of CO₂ emissions over this time period. Affluence or lifestyle change has been variously recognized as one of the key factors contributing to CO₂ emissions. Through comparative analysis of the development of five regions in China, we trace lifestyle changes since the foundation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 until 2002. We find that household consumption across the five regions follows similar trajectories, driven by changes in income and the increasing availability of goods and services, although significant differences still exist between and within regions due to differential policies in China and different possibilities for social mobility. There are considerable differences between the southeast and northwest and between urban and rural areas. We also found that technological improvements have not been able to fully compensate for the increase of emissions due to population growth and increasing wealth, which is also in line with results from other studies. Finally, this paper emphasizes that developing countries such as China, which is home to 22% of the world population and a growing middle class, and which is on a fast track to modernization, need to ensure that people's lifestyles are changing towards more sustainable ways of living. China has been investing heavily in infrastructure and thus creating the emissions of tomorrow. Thus investing, for example, in public transport and low energy building today will help reduce emissions in the future and will support more sustainable lifestyles.     

Contextualizing experience effects in international business: A study of ownership strategies

Experienced firms act differently than newcomers, yet such differences vary with the context and with the type of experience. This research examines the effects of international experience on multinational enterprises’ (MNEs’) ownership strategy across a range of developed and developing economies. We distinguish competence-building and partner-selection effects of experience, which vary between general international experience and country-specific experience, and across host contexts. This contextualization of the theoretical arguments suggests that the predicted effects hold in some host countries, but not in others. In support of these arguments, our empirical study of subsidiaries of Taiwanese electronics forms finds that general international experience facilitates wholly owned operations in developed economies in Asia and Europe, while country-specific experience facilitates joint ownership in China.     

Bedarfsgerechte Steuerung der Gesundheitsversorgung — Chancen und Hindernisse

On 2 July 2018, the German Council of Health Experts handed over its current report entitled, “Demand-oriented health care management” to the Federal Ministry of Health. The pronounced separation of outpatient and inpatient care, and distinction between private and public health insurance, is typical of the German system. Experts’ recommendations include improved coordination of outpatient and inpatient services, monistic hospital financing and family doctor-centred patient care. The main criticism of the report is that it lacks a regulatory concept with competitive management structures.     

Luxury patient experience (LPX): review,conceptualization, and future research directions

ABSTRACT

The article offers a much-needed definition and conceptualization of the luxury patient experience (LPX) through applying customer experience (CX) theory to the patient experience (PX). The author highlights the important differences between the luxury patient, regular patient, and/or patient on the bottom of the service pyramid. The article proposes the implications these differences have for successfully managing the luxury patient experience. Based upon an investigation of prior customer experience and patient experience research, the article submits a definition of both, patient experience and luxury patient experience. The luxury patient experience conceptualization will influence service providers and their experience design and implementation practices. The article outlines fruitful avenues for future research in the patient luxury experience domain by proposing a shift from healthcare to wealthcare.     

Keynes and the international monetary system: Time for a tabular standard?

This paper discusses proposals for tabular standards in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, we focus on Keynes’ proposal for an international tabular standard (ITS) as the gold standard unravelled in the 1930s. The paper explains the origins of Keynes’ ITS proposal which pegged the value of an international reserve to a broad index of primary commodities, weighted in terms of their value in world production. We argue that the ITS should be viewed as an important and enduring component of Keynes’ ideal long-run vision for anchoring the international monetary system, even post-Bretton Woods.     

GLOBALIZATION: CONTENTS AND DISCONTENTS

William Shakespeare's Tragedy of King Richard III, written approximately in 1592, is the story of evil acts by the detested and misshapen hunchback, Richard, who plots to sow discontent among his brother, the King, and others, and has his brother murdered along with other wicked deeds in order to gain the throne. It opens with the line, “Now is the winter of our discontent” (p. 111, ed. Wright 1936). “The Winter of Our Discontent” is also the title of John Steinbeck's (1961) novel of a man who trades his moral convictions to reclaim lost family wealth. “Globalization and Its Discontents” is the title of Joseph Stiglitz's (2002) book that critiques rigid adherence by major economic institutions—such as the International Monetary Fund—to economic orthodoxy in the promotion of globalization. (JEL F6, D72, D3, O23, O24, L17, K33)     

Do expectations matter? Reassessing the effects of government spending on key macroeconomic variables in Germany

This article contributes to the debate on how to properly identify exogenous fiscal shocks in the data. We include expectations held by consumers and firms into the standard vector autoregression (VAR) framework based on information from historical issues of the German political magazine Der Spiegel. The findings underscore the need to account for expectations, as failing to do so leads to significant misinterpretation of the effects of government spending. When neglecting anticipation effects, our results support the recent findings for Germany by pointing to a rather positive effect of government spending on GDP. However, inclusion of expectations yields a change in this effect, suggesting that government spending is much less beneficial for GDP, as it crowds out private consumption and investment.