Unemployment, life satisfaction and retrospective error

Summary.  The paper compares current and 1-year retrospective data on unemployment in the German Socio-Economic Panel study. 13% of all unemployment spells are not reported 1 year later, and another 7% are misreported. The ratio of retrospective to current unemployment has increased in recent years and is related to salience of unemployment measures such as the loss of life satisfaction that is associated with unemployment. Individuals with weak labour force attachment, e.g. women with children or individuals who are close to retirement, have the greatest propensity to under-report unemployment retrospectively. The data are consistent with evidence on retrospective bias found by cognitive psychologists and survey methodologists.     

Leadership and team identification: Exploring the followers' perspective

This study investigates the influence of leadership on followers' identification with their work group. Adopting a qualitative research approach, it takes on the followers' perspective for inductively deriving leadership behaviors that pertain to the development of team identification. Based on in-depth data from members of seven teams in the context of UN peacebuilding operations, four aggregate leadership dimensions can be identified that are conducive to members' team identification: providing guidance, encouraging involvement, role modeling, and administering teamwork. Accordingly, this study adds to the exploration of leadership behaviors relevant for team identification that have not been considered by extant research. The results may lay the foundations for future investigations on complementary effects of different leadership behaviors for fostering followers' identification with their work group.     

Internalization and internationalization under competing real options

The theories of internalization and internationalization provide general factors of international market entry but are not precise about its timing. The theory of real options may complement these approaches as it centers the impact of uncertainty on the timing and dimensioning of investment. A panel study of 5379 German entries to 22 countries suggests that, under the moderating influence of competition, the economic uncertainty in a host country has a U-shaped influence on the moment of entry. The results further reveal that uncertainty has a negative effect on the amount of capital at entry. Uncertainty shows no impact on the share in capital at entry, which challenges the view of international joint ventures as real options.     

THE EFFECT OF CENTRAL EXIT EXAMINATIONS ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: QUASI‐EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FROM TIMSS GERMANY

This paper makes use of the regional variation in schooling legislation within the German secondary education system to estimate the causal effect of central exit examinations on student performance. We propose a difference‐in‐differences framework that exploits the quasi‐experimental nature of the German TIMSS middle school sample and discuss its identifying assumptions. The estimates show that students in federal states with central exit examinations clearly outperform students in federal states without such examinations. However, only part of this difference can be attributed to the existence of the central exit examinations themselves. Our results suggest that central examinations increase student achievement by the equivalent of about one‐third of a school year. (JEL: D02, H42, I28)     

When policy advisors cannot reach a consensus

In this paper advisors are selected by two ministers with conflicting interests in order to (1) acquire information, and (2) obtain political legitimacy concerning a project. In the end, parliament decides whether or not the project, of which the consequences are uncertain, is implemented. In principle a minister wants to appoint an advisor whose preferences are similar. However, since the advisor needs to convince the decisive player in the model, the minister may appoint an advisor whose preferences are closer to those of the agents to be persuaded. We also show when polarised advice occurs (the advisors have different preferences) and when consensual advice occurs (they have the same preferences). Received: 29 June 1998/Accepted: 26 May 1999     

How Dynamic Capabilities Affect the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Operating Routines under High and Low Levels of Environmental Dynamism

In analysing data on the purchasing routines of 200 small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), this study underscores the overall importance of dynamic capabilities as a way to understand differences in operating‐routine performance. The results suggest that dynamic capabilities have different performance effects in high‐dynamic and low‐dynamic environments. Dynamic capabilities enhance the effectiveness of operating routines under both high and low levels of environmental dynamism. Yet, when analysing the efficiency of operating routines, taking into account the costs of increased effectiveness, dynamic capabilities appear to pay off only under high levels of environmental dynamism.     

An Asymptotic Linear Representation for the Breslow Estimator

We provide an asymptotic linear representation for the Breslow estimator of the baseline cumulative hazard function in the Cox model. Our representation consists of an average of independent random variables and a term involving the difference between the maximum partial likelihood estimator and the underlying regression parameter. The order of the remainder term is arbitrarily close to n ^?1.     

Accelerated life testing models for nonhomogeneous Poisson processes

In this paper an axiomatic approach is used to construct accelerated life testing (ALT) models for Nonhomogeneous Poisson Processes (NHPPs). First, the models of random lifetime variables and Nonhomogeneous Poisson Processes used for modeling non-repairable and repairable systems are compared. Then, an axiomatic approach for the construction of ALT models for NHPPs is given. Particular models are considered that can be constructed by this method.