Decentralizing Wage Bargaining in Germany — A Way to Increase Employment?

Abstract. The area‐wide wage agreement is at the centre of Germany's system of collective bargaining. In recent years, however, there has been a tendency towards the decentralization of collective bargaining. Individual wage agreements have led to more moderate wage developments, whilst collective agreements with individual firms, and agreements at the production unit level, have not had this moderating effect. On the other hand, collective bargaining has become more flexible, leading to greater pay differentiation. The further decentralization of collective bargaining, although desirable, has given rise to objections based in constitutional law and to resistance from employees and employers.     

I get paid fast; what about you?

The process of billing an insurance company for health care services has changed radically. In the past few years, the emphasis has been on automation. The change is fueled by the opinion of cost containment experts who claim that automation will help reduce costs in the U.S. health care delivery system. Key to success for the provider in adapting to this change will be understanding the coding used in the billing process and following standards of accuracy and fairness. This article is not intended to represent the adjudication rules of any particular insurance company. It is the result of experience as a practicing surgeon and as a consultant in the health care field.     

Does Formal Education for Older Workers Increase Earnings? — Evidence Based on Rich Data and Long‐term Follow‐up

Governments in Europe, Canada and the USA have expressed an ambition to stimulate education of older. In this paper, we analyse if there are effects on annual earnings of formal education for participants aged 42–55 at the time of enrolment in 1994–95. The analysis explores longitudinal population register data stretching from 1982 to 2007. The method used is difference‐in‐differences propensity score matching based on a rich set of covariates, including indicators of health and labor market marginalization. Our findings underline the importance of long follow up periods and imply positive effects for women, especially so for women with children, and no significant average earnings effects for men. These results differ from earlier studies but are stable to several alternative assumptions regarding unobservable characteristics. Data further indicate that the gender gap in our estimates may stem from differences in underlying reasons for enrolment.     

Work Absence — A Signalling Factor for Temporary Workers?

This paper investigates whether low levels of absence increase the probability of permanent employment and reduce that of unemployment for Swedish temporary workers. We investigate two reasons for absence: worker sickness and sickness of a dependent child. Using a competing risk estimation model, we find that sick leave reduces the probability of permanent employment for women and increases the probability of unemployment for men. Absence due to child sickness increases the risk of unemployment for women. Although the influence of sick leave varies substantially among different temporary jobs, replacement and probation workers are generally the most affected.     

“U.S. Pharmaceutical Gray Markets: Why Do They Persist—and What to Do about Them?”

This article illustrates how a traditional U.S. pharmaceutical industry supply chain operates, beginning with pharmaceutical compounds and ending at patient‐dispensing hospitals or pharmacies. Furthermore, to place the problem of U.S. drug shortages in historical perspective, a review of the annual volume of such shortages over the last decade is undertaken. Following this review of recent drug shortages is an analysis of the market forces and business decisions that drive the creation of a pharmaceutical gray market, its attendant “price gouging” and product integrity issues, and the alterations in the traditional pharmaceutical industry supply chain model. In response to persistent drug shortages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently been empowered by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government to actively address this issue. To reflect these FDA challenges, a thorough review of these new agency charges and responsibilities is undertaken. Lastly, an analysis of the results of recent FDA public policy actions on mitigating drug shortages, as well as recommendations tor market‐based solutions to the gray market problem that pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitals and pharmacies could institute as industry‐wide standards of business practice, are discussed in the conclusion.     

“What—Me Worry?”1“Why So Serious?”:2 A Personal View on the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Accidents

Infrequently, it seems that a significant accident precursor or, worse, an actual accident, involving a commercial nuclear power reactor occurs to remind us of the need to reexamine the safety of this important electrical power technology from a risk perspective. Twenty‐five years since the major core damage accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, the Fukushima reactor complex in Japan experienced multiple core damages as a result of an earthquake‐induced tsunami beyond either the earthquake or tsunami design basis for the site. Although the tsunami itself killed tens of thousands of people and left the area devastated and virtually uninhabitable, much concern still arose from the potential radioactive releases from the damaged reactors, even though there was little population left in the area to be affected. As a lifelong probabilistic safety analyst in nuclear engineering, even I must admit to a recurrence of the doubt regarding nuclear power safety after Fukushima that I had experienced after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. This article is my attempt to “recover” my personal perspective on acceptable risk by examining both the domestic and worldwide history of commercial nuclear power plant accidents and attempting to quantify the risk in terms of the frequency of core damage that one might glean from a review of operational history.     

Do minimum wages increase job satisfaction? Micro‐data evidence from the new German minimum wage

On January 1, 2015, a new statutory minimum wage of € 8.50 per hour of work was introduced in Germany. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach, we estimate effects on worker‐level outcomes of continuing employees. The results reveal a meaningful absolute increase in the affected workers' pay satisfaction. The increase in job satisfaction is modest and predominantly driven by changes in pay satisfaction implying only a small effect on all other dimensions of job satisfaction. Moreover, effects from the minimum wage on work engagement and turnover intention are virtually zero.     

Can Sisyphus Succeed? Getting U.S. High‐Level Nuclear Waste into a Geological Repository

The U.S. government has the obligation of managing the high‐level radioactive waste from its defense activities and also, under existing law, from civilian nuclear power generation. This obligation is not being met. The January 2012 Final Report from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future provides commendable guidance but little that is new. The author, who served on the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board from 1989 to 1994 and subsequently on the Board on Radioactive Waste Management of the National Research Council from 1994 to 1999, provides a perspective both on the Commission's recommendations and a potential path toward progress in meeting the federal obligation. By analogy to Sisyphus of Greek mythology, our nation needs to find a way to roll the rock to the top of the hill and have it stay there, rather than continuing to roll back down again.     

Split‐Award Procurement Auctions—Can Bayesian Equilibrium Strategies Predict Human Bidding Behavior in Multi‐Object Auctions?

We analyze if and when symmetric Bayes Nash equilibrium predictions can explain human bidding behavior in multi‐object auctions. We focus on two sealed‐bid split‐award auctions with ex ante split decisions as they can be regularly found in procurement practice. These auction formats are straightforward multi‐object extensions of the first‐price sealed‐bid auction. We derive the risk‐neutral symmetric Bayes Nash equilibrium strategies and find that, although the two auction mechanisms yield the same expected costs to the buyer, other aspects of the two models, including the equilibrium bidding strategies, differ significantly. The strategic considerations in these auction formats are more involved than in single‐lot first‐price sealed‐bid auctions, and it is questionable whether expected utility maximization can explain human bidding behavior in such multi‐object auctions. Therefore, we analyzed the predictive accuracy of our equilibrium strategies in the laboratory. In human subject experiments we found underbidding, which is in line with earlier experiments on single‐lot first‐price sealed‐bid auctions. To control for regret, we organize experiments against computerized bidders, who play the equilibrium strategy. In computerized experiments where bid functions are only used in a single auction, we found significant underbidding on low‐cost draws. In experiments where the bid function is reused in 100 auctions, we could also control effectively for risk aversion, and there is no significant difference of the average bidding behavior and the risk‐neutral Bayes Nash equilibrium bid function. The results suggest that strategic complexity does not serve as an explanation for underbidding in split‐award procurement auctions, but risk aversion does have a significant impact.     

Authentic Leadership: Getting Back to the Roots of the ‘Root Construct’?

In their 2011 review paper, Gardner et al. (Authentic Leadership: a review of the literature and research agenda. Leadership Quarterly, 22, pp. 1120–1145) concluded that the authentic leadership (AL) construct was still in the first stage of evolution, that of concept introduction and evaluation. At that time, the field was characterized by two types of contribution: conceptual expositions and largely quantitative research seeking to map out its antecedents and consequences, moderators and mediators. The current review aims to: (1) critically evaluate the development of the AL construct to the present time; and (2) taking this evaluation as a point of departure, propose the need for a radical re‐grounding of understanding of AL aimed at countering what the authors believe to be the substantive flaws in both its philosophical underpinnings and empirical grounding. The authors propose that these shortcomings have arisen owing to the failure of existential and other critiques of the dominant (normative and functionalist) discourse of AL to gain traction, and owing to an absence of practice‐based, qualitative research. As a strategic platform for the potential re‐grounding and relaunch of AL, the authors propose a radical return to the existential and practice roots of authenticity as the basis for a broader understanding of ‘authentic leadership’ as a ‘central organizing principle’ in leadership studies. Despite the flaws identified in the AL construct, the authors suggest that the notion of authenticity may still have a valuable role to play in the study of leadership: that role, however, can only be determined through a thorough understanding of AL as a practice‐based phenomenon.     

Inept or Badly Matched? — Effects of Educational Mismatch in the Labor Market

Negative wage effects of educational mismatch have become a stylized fact. Whether these are explained by differences in unobserved productivity or poor matching is still to be answered conclusively. In an empirical analysis based on data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel and the International Adult Literacy Survey, a broad econometric strategy is applied to solve the problem of unobserved heterogeneity and reveal the mechanism underlying wage differences between matched and mismatched workers. Results show that wage differentials can be explained by a poor matching in the labor market, rejecting the hypothesis that mismatched workers compensate for unobserved productivity differences.     

Does Future PC Use Determine Our Wages Today? — Evidence from German Panel Data

Abstract. Using 1985–99 data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) we confirm the hypothesis that existing computer wage premiums are determined by ability or other unobserved individual characteristics rather than by productivity effects. In addition to the conventional longitudinal regression analysis, the two competing hypotheses were tested by employing future PC variables in the wage regressions in order to obtain a further control for worker heterogeneity. The finding that future PC variables have a statistically significant effect on current wages leads us to conclude that computer wage differentials can be attributed to worker heterogeneity rather than to computer‐induced productivity.     

Can Businesses Be Too Good? Applying Susan Wolf's “Moral Saints” to Businesses

Susan Wolf famously argues that moral sainthood is not an ideal for which persons should aim because it requires one to cultivate moral virtues to the exclusion of significant, nonmoral interests, and skills. I find Wolf's argument compelling in her context of persons, and seek to demonstrate that it remains so when the context is expanded to businesses. I argue that just as moral perfection precludes individuals from challenging societal norms and traditions in ways that benefit us, moral perfection prevents businesses from challenging norms and traditions in ways that can promote positive social change. I also describe, and respond to, three possible objections to my position, most notably the claim that businesses' greater social power justifies demanding moral perfection from them even though we should not demand moral perfection from persons.     

Do the Falling Earnings of Immigrants Apply to Self‐employed Immigrants?

It is well known that the earnings of recent cohorts of immigrant men have fallen further behind native‐born men. Using several years of Canadian Census data, this study finds that immigrants have turned to self‐employment at a much faster rate than the native born. In addition, the earnings gap between self‐employed immigrant and native‐born men has not grown with successive cohorts, but rather has followed a cyclical movement: narrowing at the peak, and widening in times of weaker economic activity. However, immigrants choosing self‐employment still face challenges, as their earnings are far below native‐born earnings, and convergence is a lengthy process.     

Which Fire to Extinguish First? A Risk‐Informed Approach to Emergency Response in Oil Terminals

The performance of fire protection measures plays a key role in the prevention and mitigation of fire escalation (fire domino effect) in process plants. In addition to passive and active safety measures, the intervention of firefighting teams can have a great impact on fire propagation. In the present study, we have demonstrated an application of dynamic Bayesian network to modeling and safety assessment of fire domino effect in oil terminals while considering the effect of safety measures in place. The results of the developed dynamic Bayesian network—prior and posterior probabilities—have been combined with information theory, in the form of mutual information, to identify optimal firefighting strategies, especially when the number of fire trucks is not sufficient to handle all the vessels in danger.     

What Number is “Fifty‐Fifty”?: Redistributing Excessive 50% Responses in Elicited Probabilities

Studies using open-ended response modes to elicit probabilistic beliefs have sometimes found an elevated frequency (or blip) at 50 in their response distributions. Our previous research suggests that this is caused by intrusion of the phrase "fifty-fifty," which represents epistemic uncertainty, rather than a true numeric probability of 50%. Such inappropriate responses pose a problem for decision analysts and others relying on probabilistic judgments. Using an explicit numeric probability scale (ranging from 0-100%) reduces thinking about uncertain events in verbal terms like "fifty-fifty," and, with it, exaggerated use of the 50 response. Here, we present two procedures for adjusting response distributions for data already collected with open-ended response modes and hence vulnerable to an exaggerated presence of 50%. Each procedure infers the prevalence of 50s had a numeric probability scale been used, then redistributes the excess. The two procedures are validated on some of our own existing data and then applied to judgments elicited from experts in groundwater pollution and bioremediation.