Academic Anti-Semitism and the Austrian School: Vienna, 1918–1945

The theme of academic anti-Semitism has been widely discussed recently in histories of the interwar period of the University of Vienna, in particular its Faculty of Law and Policy Sciences. This paper complements these studies by focusing on the economics chairs of this faculty and, more generally, on the fate of the younger generation of the Austrian School of Economics. After some introductory remarks the paper concentrates on three case studies: the neglect of Mises in all three appointments of economics chairs in the 1920s; the anti-Semitic overtones in the conflict between Hans Mayer and Othmar Spann, both professors of economics in the faculty; and on anti-Semitism as a determinant of success or failure in academia, and consequently of the emigration of Austrian economists. Finally, we have a short look at the development of economics at the University of Vienna during and after the Nazi regime.     

Trust,Commitment, and Older Women: Exploring Brand Attachment Differences in the Elderly Segment

Understanding older adults’ product consumption behavior is of high importance to consumer and marketing research. Prior studies have mainly focused on older adults’ cognitive decline and compared their behavior to that of younger consumers. A neglected area of research has been older consumers’ brand attachment that is associated with potential differences between consumers in their fifties and in their seventies. In this article, the authors provide insights into the under‐researched field of elderly women's brand attachment. Drawing on socioemotional selectivity theory, a shift toward emotional aspects in brand relationships is proposed. A model involving trust and commitment processes is developed and empirically tested in a survey among 341 older women. Moderator analyses reveal significant differences between the “younger elderly” and the “older elderly” in relationships among self‐concept connection, partner quality, trust, and commitment. For the younger elderly, how a brand is (based on trust judgments) seems to be more important. For the older elderly, what a brand does in its role as relationship partner becomes more relevant.     

Properties of a Risk Measure Derived from Ruin Theory

This paper studies a risk measure inherited from ruin theory and investigates some of its properties. Specifically, we consider a value-at-risk (VaR)-type risk measure defined as the smallest initial capital needed to ensure that the ultimate ruin probability is less than a given level. This VaR-type risk measure turns out to be equivalent to the VaR of the maximal deficit of the ruin process in infinite time. A related Tail-VaR-type risk measure is also discussed.     

F.A. von Hayeks theorie der geldwirtschaft in neuerer sicht

This essay tries to reconstruct the analytical framework of F.A. von Hayek's theory of a monetary economy. In Hayek's analysis the concept of neutral money only serves to determine a point of reference which is derived from a model of ideal barter. According to Hayek's programme monetary theory should develope by giving up the implicite analogy to a barter economy and by analysing instead a monetary economy as a phenomenon of its own.The approach of the new classical macroeconomics is critically examined from this point of view. It is shown that the coordination of plans and expectations implied by this approach is incompatible with decentralized monetary transactions. This type of model therefore does not stand up to the demands formulated in Hayek's programme.     

A Note on the Stability of Full Employment

This note investigates the stability properties of the Keynesian macro-model under the assumption of slow adjustment of nominal wages and expectations of inflation. First, the stability conditions of the 'flexible-interest-rate regime' are related to those derived by Cagan (1956) and Tobin (1975), emphasising the potentially destabilising effect of wage flexibility. Then, taking the restriction of a zero floor to the nominal interest rate into account it is shown that the model exhibits 'corridor stability'. From this follows the conjecture that increasing the rate of steady-state inflation makes it 'more probable' that the system returns to full-employment after a shock of given size.