infonet-economy

Die UN-Initiative will die Privatwirtschaft in die Förderung universeller Sozial- und Umweltstandards einbinden. Dies stellt Firmen vor eine Reihe organisatorischer Herausforderungen.

Vorstellung des Dissertationsprojekts "Führung und Verantwortung"

Background: A uniform package of benefits and uniform cost sharing are elements of regulation inherent in most social health insurance systems. Both elements risk burdening the population with a welfare loss if preferences for risk and insurance attributes differ. This suggests the introduction of more choice in social health insurance packages may be advantageous; however, it is widely believed that this would not benefit the elderly.

Objective: To examine the relationship between age and willingness to pay (WTP) for additional options in Swiss social health insurance.

Methods: A discrete choice experiment was developed using six attributes (deductibles, co-payment, access to alternative medicines, medication choice, access to innovation, and monthly premium) that are currently in debate within the context of Swiss health insurance. These attributes have been shown to be important in the choice of insurance contract. Using statistical design optimization procedures, the number of choice sets was reduced to 27 and randomly split into three groups. One choice was included twice to test for consistency. Two random effects probit models were developed: a simple model where marginal utilities and WTP values were not allowed to vary according to socioeconomic characteristics, and a more complex model where the values were permitted to depend on socioeconomic variables.

A representative telephone survey of 1000 people aged >24 years living in the German- and French-speaking parts of Switzerland was conducted. Participants were asked to compare the status quo (i.e. their current insurance contract) with ten hypothetical alternatives. In addition, participants were asked questions concerning utilization of healthcare services; overall satisfaction with the healthcare system, insurer and insurance policy; and a general preference for new elements in the insurance package. Socioeconomic variables surveyed were age, sex, total household income, education (seven categories ranging from primary school to university degree), place of residence, occupation, and marital status.

Results: All chosen elements proved relevant for choice in the simple model. Accounting for socioeconomic characteristics in the comprehensive model reveals preference heterogeneity for contract attributes, but also for the propensity to consider deviating from the status quo and choosing an alternative health insurance contract.

Conclusion: The findings suggest that while the elderly do exhibit a stronger status quo bias than younger age groups, they require less rather than more specific compensation for selected cutbacks, indicating a potential for contracts that induce self-rationing in return for lower premiums.

This article evaluates the effects of Swiss active labour market programmes on the job chances of unemployed workers. The main innovation is a comparison of two important dynamic evaluation estimators: the ‘matching’ estimator and the ‘timing-of-events’ estimator. We find that both estimators generate different treatment effects. According to the matching estimator temporary subsidised jobs shorten unemployment duration whereas training programmes and employment programmes do not. In contrast, the timing-of-events estimator suggests that none of the Swiss active labour market programmes shortens unemployment duration.

One can be independent, or one can be subject to decisions made by others. This paper argues that this difference, embodied in the institutional distinction between the decision-making procedures ‘market’ and ‘hierarchy’, affects individual wellbeing beyond outcomes. Taking self-employment as an important case of independence, it is shown that the self-employed derive higher satisfaction from work than those employed in organizations, irrespective of income gained or hours worked. This is evidence for procedural utility: people value not only outcomes, but also the processes leading to outcomes.

Im Schweizer HR-Barometer 2009 werden neben allgemeinen Trends die Themen Mobilität und Arbeitgeberattraktivität eingehend untersucht. Erfasst werden das tatsächliche Mobilitätsverhalten und die potenzielle Bereitschaft der Arbeitnehmenden, sich in der Arbeitswelt «mobil» zu verhalten. Weiter wird untersucht,welche Faktoren dazu führen, dass Unternehmen für Arbeitnehmende attraktiv sind und zu «Wahlarbeitgebern» werden. Die Themen der Vorjahre werden, im Hinblick auf die Trendentwicklungen von 2005 bis 2008 und auf den Vergleich zwischen deutsch- und französischsprachiger Schweiz, prägnant präsentiert. Das Schweizer HR-Barometer wird von einem wissenschaftlichen Forschungsteam der ETH und der Universität Zürich im jährlichen Turnus herausgegeben, jeweils mit einem Schwerpunktthema.

We show theoretically and empirically that Pay-for-Performance, like many management fashions, has not achieved its intended aim. Our research focuses on previous
empirical studies that examine the relation between variable executive pay and firm performance on various different dates. Our results indicate that a variable CEO income contributes very little to the increase of the firm’s performance, and that CEO salary and firm performance are not linked. The example of Pay-for-Performance shows that in the long run, many management fashions do not solve the problems that they promise to
solve.

Reducing the externalities from energy use is crucial for sustainability. There are basically four ways to reduce
externalities from energy use: increasing technical efficiency (“energy input per unit energy service”), increasing economic efficiency (“internalising external costs”), using “clean” energy sources with few externalities, or sufficiency (“identifying ‘optimal’ energy service levels”). A combination of those strategies is most promising for sustainable energy systems. However, the debate on sustainable energy is dominated by efficiency and clean energy strategies, while sufficiency plays a minor role. Efficiency and clean energy face several problems, though. Thus,the current debate should be complemented with a critical discussion of sufficiency.
In this paper, I develop a concept of sufficiency, which is adequate for liberal societies. I focus on ethical foundations for sufficiency, as the discussion of such is missing or cursory only in the existing literature. I first show that many examples of sufficiency can be understood as (economic) efficiency, but that the two concepts do not
coincide. I then show that sufficiency based on moralization of actions can be understood as implementation of the boundary conditions for social justice that come with notions of liberal societies, in particular the duty not to harm other people. By this, to increase sufficiency becomes a duty beyond individual taste. I further illustrate this in the context of the adverse effects of climate change as externalities from energy use.