Neue Banken- und Fiskalarchitektur für Europa: Krisen vermeiden,statt sie nur zu bewältigen

In December 2013 agreement on the second pillar of the banking union was reached. The SRM sets up restructuring guidelines for banks, including a bank-paid resolution fund, fully operational in 2025. In the article we discuss how the current design of the banking union falls short of the goal of breaking the link between governments and their banks. We explain how an insolvency code for sovereigns is central to achieving this goal and evaluate alternative mechanisms to synchronise the business cycles of member states: 1) the coordination of national stabilisation policies; 2) the introduction of a cyclical shock insurance; and 3) the enlargement of the euro area budget, of which we consider the first alternative the most promising.     

Optimal Portfolios with Bounded Capital at Risk

We consider some continuous-time Markowitz type portfolio problems that consist of maximizing expected terminal wealth under the constraint of an upper bound for the capital at risk. In a Black–Scholes setting we obtain closed-form explicit solutions and compare their form and implications to those of the classical continuous-time mean-variance problem. We also consider more general price processes that allow for larger fluctuations in the returns.     

COVID-19 Is Transforming Economic Policy in the United States

Intereconomics - Cutbacks in government spending slowed the recovery and led to lasting damage to workers and economic growth.     

A Real Chance for the Transatlantic Partnership on Climate Policy

Intereconomics - The new transatlantic partnership can be the cornerstone of this change: real climate protection without false truths and hidden smoke bombs, but a shift to a full supply of...     

GEM research: achievements and challenges

This article analyzes the content and evolution of research based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project. We conducted a rigorous search of articles published in journals within the Thomson Reuters’ Social Sciences Citation Index^® through an exploratory analysis focused on articles using GEM data. The main findings of this study reveal that the institutional approach is the most commonly used conceptual framework. Also, although there are still few academic publications using GEM data, the number of articles is increasing, as are opportunities for future research.     

Gender disparities: a medical detoxification program

Significant gaps exist in health care regarding gender in the United States. Health status, social roles, culturally patterned behavior and access to health care can be influenced by gender. Women have been the primary users of health care and minority women usually have received poorer quality care than Non-Hispanic White (NHW) females. The objectives of this study were to identify gender, racial and ethnic disparities in access to substance abuse treatment in a Texas hospital. Secondary data collected on 1,309 subjects who underwent detoxification were studied. Gender, race/ethnicity, drug of abuse, relapse and financial classification were included in the analysis. Results indicate Hispanic females and Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) females were about 5 and 3.5 more likely than NHW females to use Medicaid services respectively (p < .05). NHW and NHB males were more likely to use Medicare than females (p < .05). NHB and Hispanic females were 5.8 and 2.1 times more likely to receive care for abuse of cocaine when compared to NHW females respectively (p < .05). Hispanic females were 2.3 times more likely to relapse than Non-Hispanic females, and uninsured NHB females were 7.1 times at a higher risk to abuse multiple drugs compare to NHW females (p < .05). Socio-economic factors, lower labor force participation rates, and less financial independence can explain females utilizing more often Medicaid regardless of their race/ethnicity. These results can be also explained by aggressive case management utilization, socio cultural barriers and/or discriminatory practices, both intentional and unintentional.     

Manual dishwashing process – a pre‐assigned behaviour?

Global studies have observed many techniques of manual dishwashing causing different levels of performance and using quite different amounts of water, energy, time and detergent. It is not known, however, if these techniques are pre‐assigned to a person and persist when dishes are washed under different conditions, or are adapted to the specific type of dish‐cleaning process. Here we explored this question in a study with 40 test subjects selected equally from Germany and East European countries by asking them to wash two place settings of dishes with different amounts of soil three times. The results showed that the test subjects did not adapt their washing‐up behaviour to the amount of soil. In general, no significant differences were found in the water, energy and detergent consumption for all test subjects. Only the time used by the German test subjects to wash the fully soiled dishes was significantly longer compared with the dishes with only a quarter the quantity of soil, and no significant difference was observed for all other parts. The only significant difference found between the level of soiling of the dishes was the cleaning result achieved: The less soiled the dishes were, the better the final cleaning result was, and this related to all test subjects. This lends support to the proposition that the consumers did not adapt their washing‐up behaviour to the specific circumstances of the dishwashing job to be done but retained some pre‐assigned behaviour.     

How professional service firms compete in the market: an exploratory study

Abstract

This study investigates how professional service firms (PSFs) compete in the market. Drawing on strategic marketing literature, a managerial rather than customer perspective is adopted. The study investigates the competitive positions sought by professional service providers and the specific marketing activities actually undertaken to achieve these positions. Thirty-seven depth interviews with senior management from a range of PSFs indicate that firms seek to differentiate themselves by developing long-term relationships, providing better service quality and greater value, and developing brands with strong reputations. Organisations typically seek such interrelated competitive positions simultaneously. A list of marketing activities used by the PSFs to achieve these competitive positions offers practical insights into the specific activities needed to achieve the various competitive positions sought.     

The impact of the introduction of the Euro on firms' expectations

Firms' expectations regarding their ability to enter new markets and to develop new products, and concerning the foreign competition they will face in future, are strongly affected by the introduction of the euro. The following article analyzes these expectations using panel data taken from a quarterly business survey in the service sector. Helpful comments from our colleagues Friedrich Heinemann, Georg Licht and Herbert S. Buscher on earlier drafts of this paper are gratefully acknowledged. We are also indebted to Enrico Steeb and Rolf Kempkes for their helping hand in setting up the data set and to Christina Kaiser for research assistence. We also wish to thank Semka Thorvaldsen for proof-reading.