Kapitalmarktorientierte Unternehmensbewertung bei asymmetrischer Besteuerung von Soll- und Habenzinsen

Drukarczyk and Lobe argue that the value of a company depends on individual preferences for leveraged or unleveraged companies if debt and credit interest rates after personal taxes differ. Consequentially they derive two preference-dependent valuation formulas. Based on these results an increasing amount of literature proposing preference-dependent valuation formulas emerged. We claim that this has to be viewed critically. In order to show that even in a world of different debt and credit interest rates after personal taxes a market value can be determined we develop a new version of the Tax CAPM. Based on this model the market value of leveraged and unleveraged companies is derived. Finally we show that the corresponding valuation function significantly differs from the preference-dependent valuation formulas.     

Cross-national policy learning in health system reform: The case of Diagnosis Related Groups

Observations of policy convergence and the cross-national diffusion of ideas, knowledge and policies have raised the question about the ways countries might learn from their peers. This article examines the role of cross-national learning with regard to Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs). We review the spread of this policy instrument and analyse the implementation of DRGs in three late-adopting countries: Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The three cases show that the implementation of this policy instrument required intense studies, cooperation with stakeholders and adjustment to country-specific needs. The countries learned from foreign experience, but it was only with the introduction of a regulatory framework for competition between sickness funds that DRGs came fully onto the political agenda. While Germany and Switzerland drew upon foreign DRG models, the Netherlands developed an alternative system to classify patients according to case-mix.     

Output-Flexibilität in der Dienstleistungsproduktion

Zusammenfassung  Den Ausgangspunkt der überlegungen bildet die Interpretation von Dienstleistungen als Probleml?sungen, die eine M?glichkeit zur formalen Analyse der Output-Flexibilit?t er?ffnet. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden in einer eigenschaftsorientierten Betrachtung zun?chst die Komponenten der Output-Flexibilit?t identifiziert, um dann darauf aufbauend ein Kalkül zur Gestaltung der Output-Flexibilit?t von Dienstleistungsunternehmungen abzuleiten.

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Summary  Output flexibility enables the service provider to cope with both uncertainties in demand and the external production factor. This paper aims at formulating a calculus for the design of output flexibility based on production theory. The interpretation of services as specific problem solutions serves as a basis for a feature-oriented modelling of service production.

Die Autoren danken zwei anonymen Gutachtern für wertvolle Verbesserungsvorschl?ge.     

Item‐Level RFID in the Retail Supply Chain

Analyzing the proliferation of item‐level RFID, recent studies have identified the cost sharing of the technology as a gating issue. Various qualitative studies have predicted that conflict will arise, in particular in decentralized supply chains, from the fact that the benefits and the costs resulting from item‐level RFID are not symmetrically distributed among supply chain partners. To contribute to a better understanding of this situation, we consider a supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer. Within the context of this retail supply chain, we present analytic models of the benefits of item‐level RFID to both supply chain partners. We examine both the case of a dominant manufacturer as well as the case of a dominant retailer, and we analyze the results of an introduction of item‐level RFID to such a supply chain depending on these market power characteristics. Under each scenario, we show how the cost of item‐level RFID should be allocated among supply chain partners such that supply chain profit is optimized.     

Separating trend and cyclical dynamics in state space models with exogenous inputs

In the present study we compare three state rotation methods in modelling the impact of the US economy on the Finnish economy, i.e. Schur decomposition, eigenvalue analysis and singular value decomposition. Singular value decomposition is seen to provide a robust approximation of the state rotation in most cases studied, irrespective of whether the characteristic roots of the state transition matrix are complex. Thus, singular value decomposition seems to be a viable computational device not only in estimating the system matrices of the state space model, but also in state rotation, as compared to the more involved techniques based on eigenvalue analysis or Schur decomposition.     

Release of maintenance jobs in a decentralized multi-stage production/maintenance system with continuous condition monitoring

Condition-based maintenance is analyzed for multi-stage production with a separate maintenance department. It is assumed that the conditions of the machines deteriorate as a function of multiple production parameters and that the task of maintenance is to keep up predefined operational availabilities of the individual machines. In this context the problem of determining the optimal machine condition that triggers the release of a preventive maintenance job and the problem of scheduling maintenance jobs at the maintenance department arise. Existing approaches to solve these problems either assume a monolithic production/maintenance system or concentrate on a decentralized system in which the information flow and resource transfer do not cause delays. With our paper we aim at (1) deriving a triggering mechanism that is able to cope with relaxed assumptions and at (2) developing specific priority rules for scheduling maintenance jobs. Therefore, in this paper a specific continuous condition monitoring and a suitable information exchange protocol are developed, factors determining the release situation are operationalized, impacts of choosing the triggering conditions are identified and the components of specific priority rules for scheduling maintenance jobs are clearly elaborated. Finally the performance of the resulting solution approach is analyzed by simulations. Thereby, relevant characteristics of the production/maintenance system, the maintenance task and relevant priority rules are varied systematically. This research contributes answers to the questions on how the exchange of local information can be structured, the parameters of condition-based maintenance can be set and on what maintenance-specific priority rules can be applied in case of incomplete information about deterioration in a decentralized multistage production/maintenance system.     

Strategic management staffing decisions among German subsidiaries in Japan

This study discusses the composition of strategic management teams in foreign subsidiaries beyond decisions solely about the general manager, i.e. encompassing third-country nationals; locally hired “foreigners” as well as managers on short-term assignments. We extend the discussion about expatriates by developing hypotheses about those issues based on the resource-based view of the firm and the principal agent theory and find that both are important for understanding staffing decisions. This research analyses these issues by means of a data set on German subsidiaries in Japan and shows that recent changes in the global environment are providing multinationals greater latitude when staffing foreign-based subsidiaries, including choices that have not been given due weight in IHRM literature.     

Frame Correction Modelling with Applications to the German Register‐Assisted Census 2011

Frame corrections have been studied in census applications for a long time. One very promising method is dual system estimation, which is based on capture–recapture models. These methods have been applied recently in the USA, England, Israel and Switzerland. In order to gain information on subgroups of the population, structure preserving estimators can be applied [i.e. structure preserving estimation (SPREE) and generalized SPREE]. The present paper extends the SPREE approach with an alternative distance function, the chi‐square. The new method has shown improved estimates in our application with very small domains. A comparative study based on a large‐scale Monte Carlo simulation elaborates on advantages and disadvantages of the estimators in the context of the German register‐assisted Census 2011.     

European competitiveness: Bargaining between boom and gloom

The newly-renamed European Union is in crisis from economic weakness and political claustrophia. Ralf Boscheck argues that, in addition to a suggested ‘New Founding Contract’, broad-based development of the EU requires that priority is given to adjusting competitive specialization and to centralizing political power. The management of internal and external bargaining is critical. per cent, and 19 per cent respectively. EUROSTAT (1994).     

sCARy! Risk Perceptions in Autonomous Driving: The Influence of Experience on Perceived Benefits and Barriers

The increasing development of autonomous vehicles (AVs) influences the future of transportation. Beyond the potential benefits in terms of safety, efficiency, and comfort, also potential risks of novel driving technologies need to be addressed. In this article, we explore risk perceptions toward connected and autonomous driving in comparison to conventional driving. In order to gain a deeper understanding of individual risk perceptions, we adopted a two‐step empirical procedure. First, focus groups ( $N=17$) were carried out to identify relevant risk factors for autonomous and connected driving. Further, a questionnaire was developed, which was answered by 516 German participants. In the questionnaire, three driving technologies (connected, autonomous, conventional) were evaluated via semantic differential (rating scale to identify connotative meaning of technologies). Second, participants rated perceived risk levels (for data, traffic environment, vehicle, and passenger) and perceived benefits and barriers of connected/autonomous driving. Since previous experience with automated functions of driver assistance systems can have an impact on the evaluation, three experience groups have been formed. The effect of experience on benefits and barrier perceptions was also analyzed. Risk perceptions were significantly smaller for conventional driving compared to connected/autonomous driving. With increasing experience, risk perception decreases for novel driving technologies with one exception: the perceived risk in handling data is not influenced by experience. The findings contribute to an understanding of risk perception in autonomous driving, which helps to foster a successful implementation of AVs on the market and to develop public information strategies.