 Fabio Braggion, Steven Ongena, Banking Sector Deregulation, Bank–Firm Relationships and Corporate Leverage, Economic Journal, Vol. forthcoming, 2019. (Journal Article)
 
We study the effects of the 1971 deregulation of UK banking on firms’ financial and investment policies. The deregulation was a turning point in the evolution of firm-bank relationships during the twentieth century. Indeed, for more than 80 years prior to deregulation most firms had had a relationship with only one bank: this was no longer the case from 1971 on. Deregulation and intensifying competition in the banking sector spurred firms-in local markets with many banks already active-to increase leverage and to invest more in research and development. Bank debt similarly expanded while trade credit contracted. |
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Rafael Polania, Michael Woodford, Christian Ruff, Efficient coding of subjective value, Nature Neuroscience, Vol. 22 (1), 2019. (Journal Article)
Preference-based decisions are essential for survival, for instance, when deciding what we should (not) eat. Despite their importance, preference-based decisions are surprisingly variable and can appear irrational in ways that have defied mechanistic explanations. Here we propose that subjective valuation results from an inference process that accounts for the structure of values in the environment and that maximizes information in value representations in line with demands imposed by limited coding resources. A model of this inference process explains the variability in both subjective value reports and preference-based choices, and predicts a new preference illusion that we validate with empirical data. Interestingly, the same model explains the level of confidence associated with these reports. Our results imply that preference-based decisions reflect information- maximizing transmission and statistically optimal decoding of subjective values by a limited-capacity system. These findings provide a unified account of how humans perceive and valuate the environment to optimally guide behavior. |
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Ulrich Woitek, Gabriela Wüthrich, Switzerland, In: The economic development of Europe's regions: a quantitative history since 1900, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, p. 1 - 18, 2019. (Book Chapter)
This book is the first quantitative description of Europe’s economic development at a regional level over the entire twentieth century. Based on a new and comprehensive set of data, it brings together a group of leading economic historians in order to describe and analyze the development of European regions, both for nation states and for Europe as a whole. This provides a new transnational perspective on Europe’s quantitative development, offering for the first time a systematic long-run analysis of national policies independent from the use of national statistical units. The new transnational dimension of data allows for the analysis of national policies in a more thorough way than ever before.
The book provides a comprehensive database at the level of modern NUTS 2 regions for the period 1900–2010 in 10-year intervals, and a panoramic view of economic development both below and above the national level. It will be of great interest to economic historians, economic geographers, development economists and those with an interest in economic growth. |
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Alexander Wagner, The Experiment Donald Trump, In: finews.asia, p. online, 24 December 2018. (Newspaper Article)
With the election of Donald Trump, climate protection is exposed to strong headwinds. What does this mean for financial institutions? New research results reveal surprising findings. |
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Ignacio Obeso, Marius Moisa, Christian Ruff, Jean-Claude Dreher, A causal role for right temporo-parietal junction in signaling moral conflict, eLife, Vol. 7, 2018. (Journal Article)
The right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) has been proposed to play a key role in guiding human altruistic behavior, but its precise functional contribution to altruism remains unclear. We aimed to disentangle three possible functions of the rTPJ for human altruism, namely: implementing the motivation to help, signaling conflicts between moral and material values, or representing social reputation concerns. Our novel donation-decision task consisted of decisions requiring trade-offs of either positive moral values and monetary cost when donating to a good cause, or negative moral values and monetary benefits when sending money to a bad cause. Disrupting the rTPJ using transcranial magnetic stimulation did not change the general motivation to give or to react to social reputation cues, but specifically reduced the behavioral impact of moral-material conflicts. These findings reveal that signaling moral-material conflict is a core rTPJ mechanism that may contribute to a variety of human moral behaviors. |
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Redaktion, Marc Chesney, La micro-taxe comme solution au "ras-le-bol fiscal"?, In: Sud-Ouest, 17 December 2018. (Media Coverage)
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Redaktion, Marc Chesney, La mascotte suisse des "gilets jaunes", In: Le temps, 17 December 2018. (Media Coverage)
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Rafael Ziolkowski, Gianluca Miscione, Gerhard Schwabe, Consensus through Blockchains: Exploring Governance across interorganizational Settings, In: International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS 2018), s.n., San Francisco, USA, 2018-12-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
The blockchain technology challenges the view on established modes of governance by offering distributed authentication without the need for a central authority, which is well-exemplified by Bitcoin. While the governance of and through Bitcoin is well- accentuated in research, we spotlight impacts on governance which blockchain-based systems bring to inter-organizational settings as well as their purpose. To build our arguments, we explore those impacts on two contrasting cases from the domains of automotive and public administration and relate them to cryptocurrencies. Relying on interviews with experts from said organizations utilizing blockchain technology, and a content analysis of related grey literature, we discuss established forms of governance as well as platforms and infrastructures against the impacts which blockchain-based systems cause. After referring those to the concepts of markets, hierarchies, networks, and tribes, we critically reflect on their purpose by utilizing the notions of infrastructures and platforms, and conclude blockchain-based systems to possibly alter the way established modes of governance are enacted. |
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Liudmila Zavolokina, Florian Spychiger, Claudio Tessone, Gerhard Schwabe, Incentivizing Data Quality in Blockchains for Inter-Organizational Networks – Learning from the Digital Car Dossier, In: International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS 2018), s.n., San Francisco, USA, 2018-12-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Recent research reports the need for consistent incentives in blockchain-based systems. In this study, we investigate how incentives for a blockchain-based inter-organizational network should be designed to ensure a high quality of data, exchanged and stored within the network. For this, we use two complementary methodological approaches: an Action Design Research approach in combination with agent-based modelling, and demonstrate, through the example of a real-world blockchain project, how such an incentive system may be modelled. The proposed incentive system features a rating mechanism influenced by measures of data correction. We evaluate the incentive system in a simulation to show how effective the system is in terms of sustaining a high quality of data. Thus, the paper contributes to our understanding of incentives in inter- organizational settings and, more broadly, to our understanding of incentive mechanisms in blockchain economy. |
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Luis Oliveira, Liudmila Zavolokina, Ingrid Bauer, Gerhard Schwabe, To Token or not to Token: Tools for Understanding Blockchain Tokens, In: International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS 2018), s.n., San Francisco, USA, 2018-12-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
The growing usage of tokens in real-world blockchain projects – mostly visible in ICOs – has unveiled the need to understand what blockchain tokens in fact represent and how they relate to their underlying business model. Previous research has contributed to this gap but often lacks a comprehensive understanding of tokens and their design as well as of the growing and rapidly-changing complexity in token landscape. This has crucial implications for assessing tokens' value and utility. Applying a structured, scientific approach towards blockchain tokens, we provide a comprehensive token classification and a decision-aid on token design. This is based on a literature review and an empirical study to cover this research gap. Our work offers a novel contribution in an emerging field within the Blockchain research domain and proposes structured analytical tools which can be used by both practitioners and researchers. |
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Stefano Ramelli, Alexander Wagner, Alexandre Ziegler, Richard Zeckhauser, Does it Pay to be Climate-Responsible in the Trump Era?, In: Network of Business Sustainability, p. online, 11 December 2018. (Newspaper Article)
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Matthias von Arnim, Thorsten Hens, Isabella Kooij, Warum grosse Wikifolios oft besser performen als Fonds, In: finanzen.net, 11 December 2018. (Media Coverage)
Die Trading-Plattform Wikifolio bleibt ein Phänomen. Das Finanz-Technologie-Unternehmen Financial Technologies AG, das die Plattform betreibt, wurde im August 2012 in Wien gegründet. Seitdem wachsen Nutzerzahl und Umsatz. Gleichzeitig sorgen neue Partner für die Erwei-terung der Produktpalette: Ursprünglich konnten Anleger nur einfache Aktienbaskets bauen. Einziger Emittent für die Umsetzung war das Düsseldorfer Unternehmen Lang & Schwarz. Mittlerweile sind auch die Société Générale und HSBC Trinkaus und die UBS mit im Boot. Anleger können über Wikifolio neben hauptsächlich von Amateuren entwickelten Basket-Zertifikaten auch verschiedene von professionellen Emittenten angebotene strukturierte Produkte wie etwa Bonus-, Discount- und Hebelprodukte handeln. Derzeit stehen ihnen dabei über eine Viertel-
million strukturierte Produkte zur Auswahl. |
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Julia Meyer, Kelly Hess, Swiss Investments for Development Characteristics of a Market with Strong Growth Dynamics, In: Sustainable Financial Innovation, Taylor and Francis, Oxford, p. 172 - 190, 2018-12-11. (Book Chapter)
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Jamie Lee Gloor, Twitter: A digital diversity signal?, In: Women in the Digital Future: Breaking through Stereotypes Conference, Munich, Germany, 2018. (Conference or Workshop Paper)
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Markus Leippold, Roger Rüegg, Besser als der Ruf, In: Schweizer Versicherung, p. -, 3 December 2018. (Newspaper Article)
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Flavio Iannelli, Manuel Mariani, Igor M. Sokolov, Influencers identification in complex networks through reaction-diffusion dynamics, Physical Review E, Vol. 98, 2018. (Journal Article)
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David Dorn, Ein Jahr Handelskrieg und kein Ende, In: Fiananz un Wirtschaft, p. online, 3 December 2018. (Newspaper Article)
Im Januar haben die USA den Reigen gegenseitiger Zölle mit China eröffnet. Peking hofft auf eine Normalisierung, die USA setzen auf eine Kapitulation Chinas. Ein Arrangement ist nicht in Sicht. |
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Florian Fischer, Indivi: Designing a tool for researchers to create individualized feedback, University of Zurich, Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics, 2018. (Master Thesis)
In the field of Psychology, researchers typically conduct studies with human participants. With the raise of new technologies (e.g., smartphones, sensors) and the way they affect humans’ everyday life, participants want to be more involved in research, help to shape research
questions and receive feedback. To fulfill this expectation, researchers in Psychology are in need of a tool that guides them and automates the creation of feedback reports for studies. This research focuses on three research questions: (1) find out the design principles for such a tool to follow the current practice of giving feedback, (2) find out the design
principles for such a tool to output individualized feedback, and (3) infer a good visualization for a specific feedback given the type of data provided. This research project elicited the requirements and developed a tool called Indivi. (1) Indivi creates individualized feedback following a workflow that was elaborated together with researchers in Psychology. (2) Indivi individualizes feedback on three levels: individualizing graphs displaying the individual value, individualizing texts by using placeholders to input the individual value, and individualizing text by classifying participants into categories and writing a text for each category. (3) Indivi also infers a fitting type of graph based on the type of data provided and some user choices. Indivi was found to represent an improvement compared to manual practices. In future developments, Indivi would benefit from being extended to a platform not only for researchers but also for participants. It could provide instant feedback generated directly from the data collection and this feedback be used to steer behavioral changes. |
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Wolfgang Kotowski, Ambivalent Consumer Networks: Coping with Conflicts, University of Zurich, Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics, 2018. (Dissertation)
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Simon Stalder, Identi cation of Flash Events: An Application in the Foreign Exchange Spot Market, University of Zurich, Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics, 2018. (Master Thesis)
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