Contestability, Technology and Banking
S. Corvoisier, Reint E. Gropp
ZEW Discussion Papers, No. 09-007,
No. 7,
2009
Abstract
We estimate the effect of internet penetration on retail bank margins in the euro area. Based on an adapted Baumol [1982] type contestability model, we argue that the internet has reduced sunk costs and therefore increased contestability in retail banking. We test this conjecture by estimating the model using semi-aggregated data for a panel of euro area countries. We utilise time series and cross-sectional variation in internet penetration. We find support for an increase in contestability in deposit markets, and no effect for loan markets. The paper suggests that for time and savings deposits, the presence of brick and mortar bank branches may no longer be of first order importance for the assessment of the competitive structure of the market.
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Race to the Market: Can Standards Survive the Acceleration of Innovation and Product Life Cycles?
Ulrich Blum
Spatial Dispersed Production and Network Governance, Papers Presented at the 11th Uddevalla Symposium, 15 – 17. May 2008, Kyoto, Research Report 2008,
2008
Abstract
Plagiarism of emerging market countries has for a considerable time been seen as the main challenge to the western approach of codifying and securing intellectual property rights (IPRs). This neglects the fact that historically all countries which tried to converge to the level of successful economies copied technology. The discussion shadows our view that the more imminent question is whether the steady increase in competition intensity which shortens product life cycles and puts pressure on the invention and innovation system, provides enough time to patent and to standardize. As patent activity not only provides incentives for sinking costs into R&D but is also a first step in the dissemination of technologies, and as standards, especially formal standards, generate level playing fields in broad and reliable markets, this may be critical in the long run. Furthermore, the migration of technologies as a result of a steady reorganization of the spatial division of labor may lead to the adverse situation that countries harboring technologies do not have appropriate institutions for knowledge codification.
Exogenous factors that – at least in the short run – cannot be influenced by the standardization bodies are the level of cooperation among interested parties (and mutual trust and institutional linkage), the competitiveness of the technology, the ability to generate externalities by knowledge codification, and the productivity of the technologies. The most important single success factor that standardization bodies can influence is the speed with which a committee proceeds to timely publish formal standards. With reference to a game-theoretical model and based on data for 1997 and 2007 on published formal standards, we show that until now, standardization bodies seem to have successfully coped with the situation.
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Grenzen des Wettbewerbs im Gesundheitswesen
Ingmar Kumpmann
Sozialer Fortschritt,
2008
Abstract
Many health economists demand more competition in the health-care system. They focus on the competition between the individual health-insurance funds for those who want such insurance as well as on the competition between health-care providers for contracts with the health-insurance funds. However, they neglect the competition between health-care providers for patients; such competition is crucial for medical quality. This latter area of competition is in conflict with the two former ones. The empirical evidence on the effects of competition on cost and quality are also ambiguous. Thus, the mere appeal for „more competition“ does not do justice to the highly complex nature of the health-care system.
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Die Wende in Mitteleuropa aus Sicht wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Schulen
Ulrich Blum
Ein anderes Europa: Innovation – Anstöße – Tradition in Mittel- und Osteuropa,
2008
Abstract
The contribution inquires into the ability of different schools of economic thought to explain the decline, the transition and the later rise of the reform countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It shows that none of these disciplines, be they old or new institution economics or be they functionalist or structural schools, can provide a satisfactory complete explanation for decline and reconstruction. A consistent explanation rests on a transaction-cost approach extended to information economics. It sees false adaptations of institutions in the technological sense and with respect to incentive structures as main problems.
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Die volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung von Private Equity
Ulrich Blum
Private Equity. Beurteilungs- und Bewertungsverfahren von Kapitalbeteiligungsgesellschaften,
2008
Abstract
Private equity is a very specific institutional way of providing private capital to enterprises. The contribution inquires why it increased its economic importance and public visibility over the last years. The role of private capital within the framework of the innovation theory, transaction cost theory and the risk theory is assessed. Private equity is a specific way of organizing the procurement with private capital for enterprises in risky markets in order to efficiently reducing transaction costs. More and above, it is important for credible market-entry strategies. As most markets are incomplete and because of tax regulations which cannot be considered to be efficient under present conditions, the economic role of private equity has increased. The increase economic role, but also importance in the firm, necessitates a steering of enterprises along value-oriented objectives. As the “hype” has decreased in summer 2007, the article ends with an assessment of future prospects.
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Forecasting the CO2 certificate price risk
Henry Dannenberg, Wilfried Ehrenfeld
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 5,
2008
Abstract
Modeling the price risk of CO2 certificates is one important aspect of integral corporate risk management related to emissions trading. The paper presents a risk model which may be the basis for evaluating the risk of emission certificate prices. We assume that the certificate price is determined by the expected marginal CO2 abatement costs prevailing at the current trade period and stochastically fluctuates around the respective level as returned from the mean reversion process. Due to uncertainties about future environmental states we suppose that within one trade period, erratic changes in the expected marginal abatement costs may occur leading to shifts in the price level. The aim of the work is to model the erratic changes of the expected reversion level and to estimate the parameters of the mean reversion process.
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Capital Stock Approximation using Firm Level Panel Data: A Modified Perpetual Inventory Approach
Steffen Müller
Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik,
No. 4,
2008
Abstract
Many recent studies exploring conditional factor demand or factor substitution issues use firm level panel data. A considerable number of establishment panels contains no direct information on the capital input, necessary for production or cost function estimation. Incorrect measurement of capital leads to biased estimates and casts doubt on any inference on output elasticities or input substitution properties. The perpetual inventory approach, commonly used for long panels, is a method that attenuates these problems. In this paper a modified perpetual inventory approach is proposed. This method provides more reliable measures for capital input when short firm panels are used and no direct information on capital input is available. The empirical results based on a replication study of Addison et al. (2006) support the conclusion that modified perpetual inventory is superior to previous attempts in particular when fixed effects estimation techniques are used. The method thus makes a considerable number of recently established firm panels accessible to more sophisticated production function or factor demand analyses.
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The Achilles Heel of the EMU: The Labour Markets
Hubert Gabrisch
One-off Publications,
No. 1,
2008
Abstract
Recent diverging labour cost developments among EMU countries, affecting the trade and inflation position of each country, raise some doubts regarding the equal distribution of costs and benefits of shocks among the member countries and, hence, the long term stability of the Euro.
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An Assessment of Bank Merger Success in Germany
Michael Koetter
German Economic Review,
No. 2,
2008
Abstract
German banks have experienced a merger wave since the early 1990s. However, the success of bank mergers remains a continuous matter of debate.This paper suggests a taxonomy to evaluate post-merger performance on the basis of cost and profit efficiency (CE and PE). I identify successful mergers as those that fulfill simultaneously two criteria. First, merged institutes must exhibit efficiency levels above the average of non-merging banks. Second, banks must exhibit efficiency changes between merger and evaluation year above efficiency changes of non-merging banks. I assess the post-merger performance up to 11 years after the mergers and relate it to the transfer of skills, the adequacy to merge distressed banks and the role of geographical distance. Roughly every second merger is a success in terms of either CE or PE. The margin of success in terms of CE is narrow, as efficiency differentials between merging and non-merging banks are around 1 and 2 percentage points. PE performance is slightly larger. More importantly, mergers boost in particular the change in PE, thus indicating persistent improvements of merging banks to improve the ability to generate profits.
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The European Emissions Trading System: What Have We Learned so Far?
Wilfried Ehrenfeld
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 3,
2008
Abstract
The IWH occupies with the consequences of the emission trading for the effected companies. The first period of the European Emission Trading System was conceived as a learning phase during which two problems occurred: The first and most obvious one was the surplus of certificates. The incentives to invest in the mitigation of CO2 can therefore be considered to be low. The second problem resulted from the allocation which was entirely for free. While electricity customers had to bear the main financial burden, electricity producers profited as the certificate-prices were obviously added to the electricity-prices as opportunity costs. The analysis comes to the conclusion that it was right to shorten the amount of certificates on the EU-level for the second trade period and to establish the partly sales or auctioning of certificates in German legislation. Furthermore, the simplification of the allocation method in Germany can be considered to be a progress.
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