Talis Bachmann, Carolina Murd, Covert spatial attention in search for the location of a color-afterimage patch speeds up its decay from awareness: introducing a method useful for the study of neural correlates of visual awareness., Vision research, Vol. 50 (11), 2010. (Journal Article)
Previous research has reported that attention to color afterimages speeds up their decay. However, the inducing stimuli in these studies have been overlapping, thereby implying that they involved overlapping receptive fields of the responsible neurons. As a result it is difficult to interpret the effect of focusing attention on a phenomenally projected target-afterimage. Here, we present a method free from these shortcomings. In searching for a target-afterimage patch among spatially separate alternatives the target fades from awareness before its competitors. This offers a good means to study neural correlates of visual awareness unconfounded with attention and enabling a temporally extended pure phenomenal experience free from simultaneous inflow of sensory transients. |
|
Carolina Murd, Jaan Aru, Mari Hiio, Iiris Luiga, Talis Bachmann, Caffeine enhances frontal relative negativity of slow brain potentials in a task-free experimental setup., Brain research bulletin, Vol. 82 (1-2), 2010. (Journal Article)
State dependent effects on brain processes are difficult to study due to the task-related confounds. Even in simple task environments external stimuli inevitably interact with dynamically changing states of the brain. Psychopharmacological manipulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation can be used independently of variations in subject's experimental task and environmental stimulation. Our aim was to show the investigative potential of combining these two methods for studying the effects of the state of the brain on the dynamics of task-free evoked brain activity. Caffeine was used for inducing higher arousal state and transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to evoke widespread bioelectrical responses of the brain. Occipitally delivered magnetic pulses caused increased global negativity of the brain potentials, but no speed-up of brain potentials when caffeine was administered. The relative negativization effect was most clearly expressed in slow potentials and as measured from frontal and parietal electrodes. This study shows how the causal effects of brain states on neural processes can be studied without the confounding influence of experimental task and stimuli. |
|
David Bardey, Jean-Charles Rochet, Competition among health plans: a two-sided market approach, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Vol. 19 (2), 2010. (Journal Article)
We set up a two-sided market framework to model competition between a Prefered Provider Organization (PPO) and a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). Both health plans compete to attract policyholders on one side and providers on the other. The PPO, which is characterized by a higher diversity of providers, attracts riskier policyholders. Our two-sided framework allows us to examine the consequences of this risk segmentation on the providers' side, especially in terms of remuneration. The outcome of the competition depends mainly on two effects: a demand effect, influenced by the value put by policyholders on the providers access and an adverse selection effect, captured by the characteristics of the health risk distribution. If the adverse selection effect is too strong, the HMO receives a higher profit in equilibrium. On the contrary, if the demand effect dominates, the PPO profit is higher in spite of the unfavorable risk segmentation. We believe that by highlighting the two-sided market structure of the health plans' competition, our model provides a new insight to understand the increase in the PPOs' market share as observed in the USA during the last decade. |
|
Bruno Staffelbach, Barbara Brenzikofer, Outsourcing des Personalmanagements: Auslagern ist im Trend. Interwiew., Das Schweizer HRM-Journal (05/06), 2010. (Journal Article)
|
|
Reto Eberle, Wieso in der Schweiz ein Audit nicht ein Audit ist, in: 25 Jahre Unternehmertum, In: Festschrift für Giorgio Behr, Versus Verlag, Zürich, p. 297 - 305, 2010. (Book Chapter)
|
|
Inna Shkodrova, CDO Pricing via Stochastic Filtering, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2010. (Master's Thesis)
|
|
Raffael Werner, Value Creation in Focusing Versus Diversifying Mergers in the IT Industry, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2010. (Bachelor's Thesis)
|
|
Eun Chi Koh, Unternehmensskandale in der Schweizer Wirtschaft nach dem Internet und Technology Bubble - Fälle, Ursachen, Folgen, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2010. (Bachelor's Thesis)
|
|
Remo Stössel, Controlling the tactical Asset-Allocation of a Pension Fund using fundamental and psychological Indicators, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2010. (Master's Thesis)
|
|
Jiri Woschitz, Credit Risk and the Issue Price of Structured Derivatives, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2010. (Master's Thesis)
|
|
Manuel Brun, Analyse von Montagsrenditen am Schweizer Akrienmarkt, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2010. (Master's Thesis)
|
|
Oliver Schrempp, Say-on-Pay and the Value of Swiss Corporations, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2010. (Bachelor's Thesis)
|
|
Anja Schulze, Mareike Heinzen, Willi Lüchinger, Fallstudie Verbesserungskultur bei Jansen AG: Was wir wirklich von Japan lernen können, KMU-Magazin, Vol. 10 (Dezember 2), 2010. (Journal Article)
|
|
James Glattfelder, Ownership Networks and Corporate Control: Mapping Economic Power in a Globalized World, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design, 2010. (Dissertation)
|
|
Stefano Battiston, James Glattfelder, Diego Garlaschelli, Fabrizio Lillo, Guido Caldarelli, The Structure of Financial Networks, In: Network Science: Complexity in Nature and Technology, Springer, London, p. 131 - 163, 2010. (Book Chapter)
We present here an overview of the use of networks in Finance and Economics. We show how this approach enables us to address important questions as, for example, the structure of control chains in financial systems, the systemic risk associated with them and the evolution of trade between nations. All these results are new in the field and allow for a better understanding and modelling of different economic systems. |
|
Philippe Mahler, Bruno Staffelbach, L'avancement militaire, un handicap sur le marché du travail?, La Vie économique, Vol. 83 (6), 2010. (Journal Article)
|
|
Shen Gao, Yu Li, Jianliang Xu, Byron Choi, Haibo Hu, DigestJoin: expediting joins on solid-state drives, In: Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications - Volume Part II, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
|
|
Robert Göx, Alfred Wagenhofer, Optimal precision of accounting information in debt financing, European Accounting Review, Vol. 19 (3), 2010. (Journal Article)
This paper studies qualitative characteristics of accounting systems that are used in debt financing. We consider a financially constrained firm that provides to lenders information on the value of assets that serve as collateral in a financing contract for a risky investment project. We find that the investor prefers an accounting system that provides biased signals about the value of assets. This bias adjusts the information content of the signals to maximize the probability of undertaking the project. Under fair value accounting, low book values are more precise measures of actual value than high book values, which is consistent with conditional conservatism. Next, we study accounting risk to study the effect of institutions that govern the financial reporting policy based on the optimal precision. We find that fair value measurement introduces greater accounting risk and is preferred by financially constrained firms to measurement at historical cost. |
|
Robert Göx, Discussion of decentralized capacity management and internal pricing, Review of Accounting Studies, Vol. 15 (3), 2010. (Journal Article)
Dutta and Reichelstein (2010) study the role of transfer pricing and organizational choice in providing incentives for efficient decisions on the acquisition and subsequent reallocation of capacity within decentralized firms. Their analysis suggests that transfer prices based on the historical cost of capacity facilitate the efficient allocation of resources. They also find that symmetric responsibility center structures are generally better suited for providing efficient investment incentives than hybrid organizations. An important condition for the derivation of the two results is the linearity of the shadow prices of capacity. If shadow prices are nonlinear, transfer prices should be below (above) the historical cost of capacity in order to counteract the managers’ incentives to underinvest (overinvest). Because profit center organizations can use transfer prices for mitigating the inefficiency caused by nonlinear shadow prices, they offer a natural advantage over pure investment center organizations in implementing efficient capacity decisions. Overall, these observations suggest that the curvature of profit functions is an important factor in determining the suitable instruments for decentralized capacity management. |
|
Jens Schmidt, Thomas Keil, Unique demand complementaries: resource relatedness and market connectedness as divers of value creation in diversification, Academy of Management. Proceedings, Vol. 8 (1), 2010. (Journal Article)
The article discusses the development of a systematic framework to describe demand-based strategies to diversification and to compare it with supply-side-based strategies. The concept of unique demand complementarity is proposed to capture the idea that companies sell two or more products to the same customers, and possess the unique capability to provide value for customers who buy both products. By contrasting unique demand complementarities with cost-based economies of scope, a conceptual difference between them is found for business expansion. The difference between the performance effect of unique demand complementarities and the performance effect of economies of scope are also considered. |
|