infonet-economy

In 1997, the Swiss government introduced active labor market programs on a large scale to improve the job chances of unemployed workers. This paper evaluates the effect of these programs on the duration of unemployment. Our evaluation methodology allows for selectivity affecting the inflow into programs. We find that in most cases the programs do not reduce the duration of...

Though the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) has failed, the original draft is likely to serve as a basis for future negotiations. This article gives a critical assessment of the draft from an industrial economics point of view. First, I summarize the contents of the agreement which is relevant for market structure and competition. Then I develop the industrial economics...

Wie in allen hoch entwickelten Volkswirtschaften ist die Sicherung von Wohlstand und Lebensqualität in der Schweiz nur möglich, sofern die Unternehmen im globalen Innovationswettbewerb erfolgreich sind. Bildung, Forschung und Technologie kommt deshalb eine überragende Bedeutung zu. Ebenso wichtig sind die Wechselwirkungen an den Schnittstellen von Wissenschaft, Technik, Berufsbildung...

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht das Beförderungskalkül von Topmanagement-Beratungen. Wir zeigen, dass die Auswahl von Kandidaten durch die spezifischen Produktionsbedingungen, unter denen Beratungen agieren, beeinflusst wird. Entzieht sich die Arbeit von Partnern einer unmittelbaren Beobachtbarkeit durch den Klienten und sind die angebotenen Beratungsdienste Vertrauensgüter, ist...

Insurers traditionally use risk-specific characteristics of insureds to classify them according to risk. In this article, the practical relevance of information about multiple risks is demonstrated for the case of content insurance of a Swiss company. Two types of such information prove important: information about "spillover moral hazard" caused by mandated prevention...

This paper analyzes the effects of intermediate goods trade on the development of real wages in Central and Eastern European manufacturing. The empirical findings show that world exports in intermediate goods of the CEEC exhibit a negative impact on wages, and imports a positive one. Since 1993, intermediate goods trade between the EU and the CEEC accounted for an increase in wages...

This paper analyzes the distributional effects of international outsourcing in a two sector Heckscher-Ohlin type model if both sectors get economical access to cost-saving international outsourcing. Thereby, it is shown that if both sectors are engaged in international outsourcing in equilibrium, the cost-saving effects of outsourcing as well as the factor contents of the outsourced...

We identify and characterize a class of term structure models where bond yields are quadratic functions of the state vector. We label this class the quadratic class and aim to lay a solid theoretical foundation for its future empirical application. We consider asset pricing in general and derivative pricing in particular under the quadratic class. We provide two general transform...