Christoph Wenk Bernasconi, Reinhard Madlener, Efficient Investment Portfolios for the Swiss Electricity Supply Sector, In: FCN Working Paper, No. 2, 2008. (Working Paper)
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Fabrizio Zilibotti, Michael Zheng, Kjetil Storesletten, Rotten Parents and Disciplined Children: A Politico-Economic Theory of Public Expenditure and Debt., In: IEW, No. 325, 2007. (Working Paper)
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Sandro Favre, The Impact of Immigration on the Wage Distribution in Switzerland, In: The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, No. 1108, 2011. (Working Paper)
Recent immigrants in Switzerland are overrepresented at the top of the wage distribution in high and at the bottom in low skill occupations. Basic economic theory thus suggests that immigration has led to a compression of the wage distribution in the former group and to an expansion in the latter. The data confirm this proposition for high skill occupations, but reveal effects close to zero for low skill occupations. While the estimated wage effects are of considerable magnitude at the tails of the wage distribution in high skill occupations, the effects on overall inequality are shown to be negligible. |
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Michelle Rendall, Technical Change in Developing Countries: Has It Decreased Gender Inequality?, In: Forthcoming World Development, No. XXX, 2012. (Working Paper)
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Thi Quynh Anh Vo, Banking competition, monitoring incentives and financial stability, In: Norges Bank Working Paper, No. 16, 2010. (Working Paper)
This paper addresses the desirability of competition in banking industry. In a model where banks compete on both deposit and loan markets and where banks can use monitoring technology to control entrepreneurs' behavior, we investigate three questions: what are the effects of competition on banks' monitoring incentives? Does competition hurt banks' stability? What can be devices to correct potential negative effects of competition vis à vis financial stability? We find that impacts of competition on banks' monitoring incentives can be decomposed into two effects: one on the attractiveness of monitoring and the other on the monitoring efficiency. The first effect operates through the link between competition and loan margin. The second effect comes from the fact that marginal effect of monitoring on entrepreneur's effort depends on loan rate. We characterize the sufficient condition under which competition will increase monitoring incentives as well as banks' stability. For the third question, we focus on the role of capital requirement and claim that with capital requirement, we can attain a weak correction but not strong correction. |
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Thi Quynh Anh Vo, Optimality of prompt corrective action in a continuous - time model with recapitalization possibility, In: Norges Bank Working Paper, No. 28, 2009. (Working Paper)
Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) is a system of predetermined capital/asset ratios that trigger supervisory actions by a banking regulator. Our paper addresses the optimality of this regulation system by adapting a dynamic model of entrepreneurial finance to banking regulation. In a dynamic moral hazard setting, we first derive the optimal contract between the banker and the regulator and then implement it by a menu of regulatory tools. Our main findings are the following: first, the insurance premium is a risk-based premium where the risk is measured by the capital level; second, our model implies a capital regulation system that shares several similarities with the US PCA. According to our proposed system, regulatory supervision should be realized in the spirit of gradual intervention and the book-value of capital is used as information to trigger intervention. Banks with high capital are not subject to any restrictions. Dividend distribution is prohibited in banks with intermediate level of capital. When banks have low capital level, a plan of recapitalization is required and in the worst case, banks are placed in liquidation. |
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Gino Gancia, Andreas Müller, Fabrizio Zilibotti, Structural Development Accounting, In: CEPR Discussion Paper, No. 8254, 2011. (Working Paper)
We construct and estimate a unified model combining three of the main sources of cross-country income disparities: differences in factor endowments, barriers to technology adoption and the inappropriateness of frontier technologies to local conditions. The key components are different types of workers, distortions to capital accumulation, directed technical change, costly adoption and spillovers from the world technology frontier. Despite its parsimonious parametrization, our empirical model provides a good fit of GDP data for up to 86 countries in 1970 and 122 countries in 2000. Removing barriers to technology adoption would increase the output per worker of the average non-OECD country relative to the US from 0.19 to 0.61, while increasing skill premia in all countries. Removing barriers to trade in goods amplifies income disparities, induces skill-biased technology adoption and increases skill premia in the majority of countries. These results are reverted if trade liberalization is coupled with international IPR protection. |
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Gabriel Grigore Drimus, Volatility-of-volatility : A simple model free motivation, In: SSRN, No. 1743495, 2011. (Working Paper)
Our goal is to provide a simple, intuitive and model-free motivation for the importance of volatility-of-volatility in pricing certain kinds of exotic and structured products. |
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Luca Taschini, Santiago Moreno-Bromberg, Pollution permits, Strategic Trading and Dynamic Technology Adoption, In: SSRN, No. 1786679, 2011. (Working Paper)
This paper analyzes the dynamic incentives for technology adoption under a transferable permits system, which allows for strategic trading on the permit market. Initially, firms can both invest in low-emitting production technologies and trade permits. In the model, technology adoption and allowance
prices are generated endogenously and are inter-dependent. It is shown that the non-cooperative permit trading game possesses a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium, where the allowance value reflects the level of uncovered pollution (demand), the level of unused allowances (supply), and the technological status. These conditions are also satised when a price support instrument (dubbed European-cash-for-permits), which is contingent on the adoption of the new technology, is introduced. Numerical investigation conrms that this policy generates a Floating price floor for the allowances, and it restores the dynamic incentives to invest. Given that this policy comes at a cost, a criterion for the selection of a self financing policy (based on convex risk measures) is proposed and implemented. |
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Uschi Backes-Gellner, A Schlinghoff, Careers, incentives and publication patterns of US and German (business) economists, In: SSRN, No. 616822, 2004. (Working Paper)
Research productivity is not constant over the lifetime of a researcher but fluctuates substantially and often seems to follow a typical pattern. But despite stable aggregate patterns there is substantial variation of research output across individuals. Our paper aims at explaining systematic differences in lifecycle productivity patterns with differences in career incentives. We develop a theoretical model in which lifecycle research productivity is driven by a combination of incentives to invest in skills and/or to produce output. Both incentives depend on career characteristics which are set by within national university systems. From our model we derive testable hypotheses on variations in individual research productivity profiles within and across countries. We test our implications based on a unique data set which we collected for 112 (business) economists in the US and 189 in Germany. We find that promotion tournaments in the US as well as in Germany provide very effective incentives. In general this leads to elevated publication outputs in time periods preceding a major promotion and to reduced publication productivity afterwards. But we also find striking differences between US and German researchers. Skill acquisition is more important for German researchers in the screening period since the first promotion decision is strongly influenced by a qualification requirement, the so-called Habilitation. Also, German researchers lack a second major career step in comparison to US researchers, for whom a promotion to full professor is almost as important as the promotion to associate professor. Re-appointments in the German university system offer comparatively low gains and are thereby not attractive enough to induce a significant increase in research output. Therefore, incentives and publication productivity are highest early in the career of German researchers levelling off on a lower but decent level afterwards. For US researchers the situation is different. Their research output is not only significantly higher prior to their first appointment but also prior to a promotion to full professor, indicating that this promotion provides a second effective incentive to foster research output over a longer period of time. However, after promotion to full professor research output also levels off at a significantly lower level. |
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Uschi Backes-Gellner, Arndt Werner, Alwine Mohnen, Effort Provision in Entrepreneurial Teams:Effects of Team Size, Free-Riding and Peer Pressure, In: ISU Working Paper, No. 54, 2005. (Working Paper)
This paper analyzes whether effort provision in entrepreneurial teams depends on the size of the team, assuming that size determines the strength of free-ridingand peer pressure effects in entrepreneurial teams. We provide a theoretical model and empirical analyses to explain the joint effect of free-riding and peer pressure on effort in start-up teams. We begin with an economic model by Kandel and Lazear (1992) and enrich it using insights from entrepreneurship research. Based on our model,we first hypothesize that with increasing team size in entrepreneurial teams, the efforts of the individual team founders should follow an inverted U-shaped pattern. Second, we argue that the peer pressure effect is stronger if team members have stronger social ties,and thus we expect the effort-maximizing team size to be larger in teams with stronger social ties.Using a data set from 214 German start-up teams, we find that our hypotheses aresupportedby the data. |
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Christopher Wickert, Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises as Private Actors in Global Governance – Evidence from the Textile Industry, In: IOU Working Paper Series, No. 121, 2010. (Working Paper)
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Christopher Wickert, Conceptualizing the Role of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises as Private Actors in Global Governance, In: IOU Working Paper Series, No. 120, 2010. (Working Paper)
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Steffen Blaschke, Dennis Schoeneborn, David Seidl, Organizations as networks of communications: A methodological proposal, In: IOU Working Paper Series, No. 102, 2009. (Working Paper)
Organization studies increasingly draw on the idea that organizations are constituted by communications. The theoretical assumptions and empirical implications are well in development at both the Montréal School of Organizational Communication and Social Systems Theory. However, we notice that the corresponding methodologies limit themselves to the analysis of local communications. While this micro-level research pays tribute to the inherent complexity of communication, it fails to depict organizations at the macro-level of global communications. We propose to broaden the methodological range with the help of network analysis. In particular, we suggest turning organization studies inside out by using communications—not individuals - as nodes in networks. Studying organizations as networks of communications allows us to analyze the emergence of themes that drive the business of organizations. We illustrate our proposal with an empirical network analysis of two organizations. |
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Dennis Schoeneborn, Steffen Blaschke, I M Kaufmann, The organization that never sleeps: A metaphorical pathology of organizational insomnia, In: IOU Working Paper Series, No. 103, 2009. (Working Paper)
The application of metaphors as a means to advance our understanding of organizations has a long-standing tradition in management studies. Generally speaking, metaphors allow for a description of organizational characteristics and functions in the terminology of another domain of interest. Organizational learning and organizational memory are two prominent examples of anthropomorphic metaphors in management studies which draw on the human mind as the source domain. In the light of recent advancements in neuroscience, however, they lack the complementing metaphor of organizational sleep, though sleep plays a particularly important role for learning and memory of the human mind. Based on the view that communication constitutes organizations (CCO), this study recontextualizes the metaphors of organizational learning and memory in terms of organizational sleep-wake cycles. Finally, the ideal-typical distinction between a regularly resting organization and an insomniac organization leads to a reconsideration of existing theories of organizational learning and memory. |
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David Seidl, Dennis Schoeneborn, Niklas Luhmann’s autopoietic theory of organisations: Contributions, limitations, and future prospects, In: IOU Working Paper Series, No. 105, 2010. (Working Paper)
In this paper we discuss the strengths and limitations of Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory as a theoretical lens for studying organisations. We outline the main contributions of his work to contemporary organisation studies: the differentiation between social and psychological logics, the differentiation between different social systems, the radical process character of organisations, and the embeddedness of his organisation theory into a larger theory of society. Based on a discussion of the main limitations of Luhmann’s theory we propose an agenda for the future development of his theory. |
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Patrick Haack, Dennis Schoeneborn, Christopher Wickert, Exploring the constitutive conditions for a self- energizing effect of CSR standards: The case of the "Equator Principles", In: IOU Working Paper Series, No. 115, 2010. (Working Paper)
The past decade has witnessed the emergence of a large set of voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards. However, our knowledge is limited on how and why certain CSR initiatives diffuse extensively whereas others do so only partially or not at all. One of the rare examples of a rapidly and widely spreading CSR standard are the "Equator Principles" (EP), a global standard in international project finance to base investment decisions for large infrastructure projects (e.g., a river dam) on social and environmental criteria. In our qualitative study, we explore the constitutive conditions which facilitated the EP standardization process. First, we track the initiative’s evolution in form of a historical analysis. Second, we conduct 20 semi-structured interviews with relevant actors, e.g., representatives of banks or NGOs. Our study shows that the EP’s diffusion is fostered by dynamic negotiation processes. Instead of viewing organizational fields as relatively stable, we conceptualize them as relational, fragmented and open issue spaces where subject matters are prone to negotiation, interpretation, and contestation. |
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Dennis Schoeneborn, PowerPoint and the invisibility of contingency in project organizing, In: IOU Working Paper Series, No. 124, 2010. (Working Paper)
The emerging process view in organization studies conceptualizes organizations as fluid streams of organizing. If, however, organizations are conceived as consisting of something as ephemeral as processes, the question arises how the organization is then able to interconnect the very processes that constitute its existence. For studying this issue of connectivity we draw on one particular stream of process theorizing, that is, the theory of social systems by Niklas Luhmann. He argues that organizations are fundamentally grounded in paradox: they continuously require both to visibilize and to invisibilize the inherent contingency (i.e. alternativity) of processes in order to allow for interconnectivity between them. In this paper, we therefore examine one organizational form where the connectivity between processes is particularly at stake: the project organization. We present the findings of an empirical case study at a globally operating business consulting firm. The study involved the quantitative and qualitative analysis of 565 textual documents collected from cross-project learning databases as well as 14 qualitative interviews. We found that usually all that remains after a project has been completed is a collection of highly condensed PowerPoint documents. The narratives contained in those documents focused on consistency (e.g. highlighting "best practices" or "success stories") rather than contingency (e.g., doubts, mistakes, or alternative paths considered). Consequently, the processuality and contingency of each project remained opaque to non-participants. This also found expression in established practices of hiding the elephant, i.e. disguising the vast contingencies inherent to the processes that constitute the organization. |
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Norman Schürhoff, Alexandre Ziegler, Variance risk, Financial intermediation, and the cross-section of expected option returns, In: NCCR, No. 712, 2011. (Working Paper)
We explore the pricing of variance risk by decomposing stocks' total variance into systematic and idiosyncratic return variances. While systematic variance risk exhibits a negative price of risk, common shocks to the variances of idiosyncratic returns carry a large positive risk premium. This implies investors pay for insurance against increases (declines) in systematic (idiosyncratic) variance, even though both variances comove countercyclically. Common
idiosyncratic variance risk is an important determinant for the cross-section of expected option returns. These findings reconcile several phenomena, including the pricing differences between index and stock options, the cross-sectional variation in stock option expensiveness,the volatility mispricing puzzle, and the signifcant returns earned on various option portfolio strategies. Our results are consistent with theories of financial intermediation under capital constraints. |
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Torsten Marek, Joakim Lundborg, Martin Volk, Extending the TIGER Query Language with Universal Quantification, In: Text Resources and Lexical Knowledge. Selected Papers from the 9th Conference on Natural Language Processing. KONVENS 2008, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, . (Conference or Workshop Paper)
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