Prüfungshonorare in Deutschland – Determinanten und Implikationen

The audit fees available since 2005 as a consequence of the Bilanzrechtsreformgesetz (commercial code reform act) show an extremely high supplier concentration on the German audit market of publicly listed companies. This justifies the assumption of audit fees above perfect market equilibrium prices. However, the complete collection and multivariate regression analysis of all relevant audit fee and client data document a 24 % decrease in audit fees in 2005 and an average 15 % decrease in the two subsequent years due to auditor changes. This can be interpreted as an indicator for price competition. In addition, the audit fee data shows that the audit fee decreases are only partially compensated by subsequent increases. As a consequence, there is no evidence for lowballing at present. Further time series are necessary to show if the current trend is sustainable.     

Parental Involvement Laws and Minor and Non-Minor Teen Abortion and Birth Rates

The effects of parental notice and consent laws on abortion and birth rates were analyzed for two groups of teens: those 15 to 17 years old (i.e., minor teens) and those 18 to 19 years old (i.e., non-minor teens). Twelve states report abortion and birth statistics at the county level for these two age groups. The sample consists of 597 counties from these twelve states. Residence county abortion and birth rates were regressed against parental notice laws, parental consent laws, and several control variables (i.e., type of state public funding, population density, education and income levels, unemployment rate, family stability, extent of poverty, church membership, and geographic region).An important finding of this study is that both parental consent and notification laws were related to significantly lower abortion rates and to significantly higher birth rates for both minor and non-minor teens. Three measures (i.e., church membership, family stability, and education level) were related negatively and significantly to minor and non-minor teens' abortion rates and birth rates. One other measure (i.e., restrictive public funding) was related significantly to lower abortion rates and higher birth rates for minor and non-minor teens.     

Religion in families 1999 to 2009: A relational spirituality framework

This review examines the role of religion, for better and worse, in marital and parent-child relationships according to peer reviewed studies from 1999-2009. A conceptual framework labeled "relational spirituality" is used to: (a) organize the breadth of findings into the three stages of the formation, maintenance, and transformation of family relationships, and (b) illustrate three in-depth sets of mechanisms to delve into unique ways religion may shape family bonds. Topics include union formation, fertility, spousal roles, marital satisfaction and conflict, divorce, domestic violence, infidelity, pregnancy, parenting children, parenting adolescents, and coping with family distress. Conclusions emphasize moving beyond markers of general religiousness and identifying specific spiritual beliefs and practices that could prevent or intensify problems in traditional and nontraditional families.     

Barriers to organizational learning: An integration of theory and research

This paper develops a theoretical foundation to describe and explain impediments to organizational learning (OL). Based on the expanded 4I model ( Crossan et al . 1999 . Academy of Management Review , 24 , 522–537), which was further developed by Lawrence et al . (2005 . Academy of Management Review , 30 , 180–191), different learning barriers are categorized and discussed with regard to factors complicating or impeding OL. Finally, the paper analyses the impact of particular barriers on different kinds of organizational units, the relationship between OL barriers, single-loop and double-loop learning, as well as typical combinations of barriers and their respective impact on organizational performance.     

Middle‐Class Political Activism and Middle‐Class Advantage in Relation to Public Services: A Realist Synthesis of the Evidence Base

Since the late 1960s social policy scholarship has been concerned with the distribution of the resources or benefits across social gradients. This article presents a review of the literature on one mechanism by which inequity might be produced – activism by middle‐class service‐users enabling them to capture a disproportionate share of resources. The review used the methodology of realist synthesis to bring together evidence from the UK, the USA and Scandinavian countries over the past 30 years. The aim was to construct a ‘middle‐theory’ to understand how and in which contexts collective and individual activity by middle‐class service‐users might produce inequitable resource allocation or rationing decisions that disproportionately benefit middle‐class service‐users. The article identifies four causal theories which nuance the view that it is the ‘sharp elbows’ of the middle‐classes which confer advantage on this group. It shows how advantage accrues via the interplay between service‐users, providers and the broader policy and social context.     

One-sided commitment in dynamic insurance contracts: Evidence from private health insurance in Germany

This paper studies long-term private health insurance (PHI) in Germany. It describes the main actuarial principles of premium calculation and relates these to existing theory. In the German PHI policyholders do not commit to renewing their insurance contracts, but insurers commit to offering renewal at a premium rate that does not reflect revealed future information about the insured risk. We show that empirical results are consistent with theoretical predictions from one-sided commitment models: front-loading in premiums generates a lock-in of consumers, and more front-loading is generally associated with lower rates of lapse. Due to a lack of consumer commitment, dynamic information revelation about risk type implies that high-risk policyholders are more likely to retain their PHI contracts than are low-risk types.     

Taiwan's path to national health insurance (1950–1995)

This study explores the evolution of statutory health insurance in the Republic of China on Taiwan from its inception in 1950 through to the inauguration of the National Health Insurance Programme in 1995. The main focus of the study is the timings of the adoption of the different statutory health insurance schemes targeted to the various segments of the population. It is argued that Taiwan's adoption of Labour Insurance for workers in 1950 could be best explained by the country's specific historical circumstance. The then-ruling Nationalist government was keen to build up Taiwan as a showcase for the whole of China. The inauguration of the National Health Insurance Programme in 1995 was predominantly subjected to the Nationalist government's adjustment to its changing political position.     

Comparison of the EU T25 Single Point Estimate Method with Benchmark Dose Response Modeling for Estimating Potency of Carcinogens

The T25 single-point estimate method of evaluating the carcinogenic potency of a chemical, which is currently used by the European Union (EU) and is denoted the EU approach, is based on the selection of a single dose in a chronic bioassay with an incidence rate that is significantly higher than the background rate. The T25 is determined from that single point by a linear extrapolation or interpolation to the chronic dose (in mg/kg/day), at which a 25% increase in the incidence of the specified tumor type is expected, corrected for the background rate. Another method used to obtain a carcinogenic potency value based on a 25% increase in incidence above the background rate is the estimation of a T25 derived from a benchmark dose (BMD) response model fit to the chronic bioassay data for the specified tumor type. A comparison was made between these two methods using 276 chronic bioassays conducted by the National Toxicology Program. In each of the 2-year bioassays, a tumor type was selected based on statistical and biological significance, and both EU T25 and BMD T25 estimates were determined for that end point. In addition, simulations were done using underlying cumulative probability distributions to examine the effect of dose spacing, the number of animals per dose group, the possibility of a dose threshold, and variation in the background incidence rates on the EU T25 and BMD estimates. The simulations showed that in the majority of cases the EU T25 method underestimated the true T25 dose and overestimated the carcinogenic potency. The BMD estimate is generally less biased and has less variation about the true T25 value than the EU estimate.