Zunehmend verschärfte regulatorische Rahmenbedingungen und wachsende Corporate-Governance-Erfordernisse stellen neue Anforderungen an interne Revisionsaktivitäten in deutschen mittelständischen Unternehmen. Vor diesem Hintergrund unternimmt der vorliegende Beitrag eine systematische Bestandsaufnahme solcher Aktivitäten. Dazu werden die Ergebnisse einer systematischen empirischen Erhebung vorgestellt, die im April und Mai 2005 vom Arbeitskreis "Interne Revision im Mittelstand" des Deutschen Instituts für Interne Revision e.V. (IIR) in Zusammenarbeit mit der Universität Freiburg durchgeführt wurde.
We investigate the impact of wage comparisons for worker productivity. We present three studies which all use three-person gift-exchange experiments. Consistent with Akerlof and Yellen's (1990) fair wage-effort hypothesis we find that disadvantageous wage discrimination leads to lower efforts while advantageous wage discrimination does not increase efforts on average. Two studies allow us to measure wage comparison effects at the individual level. We observe strongly heterogeneous wage comparison effects. We also find that reactions to wage discrimination can be attributed to the underlying intentions of discrimination rather than to payoff consequences
How micromotives, the microstructural features of interactions, and macrobehavior are related is a fundamental question in all social sciences. In this article we argue that laboratory experiments are a useful tool to study this question, because the experimenter can measure motivations, manipulate microstructures, and sometimes even exploit variation in the macrosocial environment. We illustrate the experimental approach with the help of four examples from the context of voluntary cooperation. The examples (from previous and new experiments) illustrate the link between individual pro-social motives and wage formation in labor markets, the inevitability of the ‘‘Tragedy of the Commons,'' and two potential ways to avoid the tragedy: sorting and punishment
Does the cultural background influence the success with which genetically unrelated individuals cooperate in social dilemma situations? In this paper, we provide an answer by analysing the data of Herrmann et al. (2008a), who studied cooperation and punishment in 16 subject pools from six different world cultures (as classified by Inglehart & Baker (2000)). We use analysis of variance to disentangle the importance of cultural background relative to individual heterogeneity and grouplevel differences in cooperation. We find that culture has a substantial influence on the extent of cooperation, in addition to individual heterogeneity and group-level differences identified by previous research. The significance of this result is that cultural background has a substantial influence on cooperation in otherwise identical environments. This is particularly true in the presence of punishment opportunities
Communal land tenure is a typical feature of many developing countries. Such tenure regimes implement a “use it or lose it” principle by imposing restrictions to land transferability that are enforced via the threat of expropriation. This paper measures the distortionary impact of communal land in a dynamic general equilibrium model of occupational selection, calibrated to Ethiopia. We find that lifting restrictions on land transferability lowers agricultural employment by 19% and increases GDP by 7%. It also results in a large reduction in the ratio between non-agricultural and agricultural productivity, by 40% in real and 44% in nominal terms. Limited land transferability rationalizes a substantial fraction of the large agricultural productivity gap in poor economies. The associated loss in aggregate productivity, though, is comparatively minor.
Under a great variety of legally relevant circumstances, people have to decide whether or not to cooperate when they face an incentive to defect. The law sometimes provides people with sanctioning mechanisms to enforce pro-social behavior. Experimental evidence on voluntary public goods provision shows that the option to punish others substantially improves cooperation, even if punishment is costly. However, these studies focus on situations where there is no uncertainty about the behavior of others. We investigate sanctions in a world with "reasonable doubt" about the contributions of others. Interestingly, people reveal a high willingness to punish even if their information about cooperation rates is highly inaccurate. If there is some nontrivial degree of noise, punishment (1) cannot establish cooperation high and (2) reduces welfare even below the level of a setting without punishment. Our findings suggest that sufficient information accuracy about others' behavior is crucial for the efficiency of sanction mechanisms. If a situation is characterized by low information accuracy, precluding sanctions, for example, through high standards of proof, is likely to be optimal
Personal bankruptcy regulation and redistributive taxes and transfers vary considerably across U.S. states and over time. Our hypothesis is that both policies are imperfect substitutes in insuring consumption of risk?averse agents in incomplete markets. Exploiting data variation over time for 18 U.S. states for the period 1980-2003, we find considerable support for this hypothesis: redistributive taxation and bankruptcy exemptions are negatively correlated, and both policies are associated with more equal consumption growth.
Wage rigidity - the observation that wages cannot be adjusted downwards - has important implications for labour markets and macroeconomic performance. Empirical evidence on the extent, causes and consequences of wage rigidity on the individual level is relatively scant, however. This Feature presents articles that apply a new methodology to estimate the incidence and extent of nominal and real wage rigidity among the employed in three major European countries (Germany, Italy and Great Britain). The results document the pervasiveness of nominal and, particularly, real wage rigidity in different institutional and economic environments, and a recent decline in real wage rigidity.
We describe a computerized experiment which can be used to introduce students to imperfect competition in courses on introductory economics, industrial organization, game theory, and strategy & management. In addition to introducing students to strategic thinking in general, the experiment serves to demonstrate that firm profits fall as the number of competitors is increased in a market, and that firms enter profitable markets. The authors have used the experiment in undergraduate classes on strategy and management as well as in MBA courses with great success
