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Both practitioners and academics agree about the importance of price and its direct influenceon consumers’ purchase decision as well as the company profit. In the reality, we rarely see a
single price for a given product. One visit in a store already shows that consumers face many various prices. This strategy of differential prices allows to increase profit but also improves consumers’ situation and increases welfare. A wide range of various price differentiation mechanisms exists on the market which makes price differentiation a very interesting phenomenon. Additionally, market developments constantly allow for new price differentiation applications. In this work, I research a fascinating topic of price differentiation, its various forms
and new application possibilities in changing market areas.
Applying an investment perspective to higher education, the paper presents detailed empirical evidence on the rate of return to higher education and its determinants. Employing a sample of 17,180 higher education graduates derived from the German Labor Force Survey 2004, we show considerable variation in the rates of return to higher education across the different subjects, with some subjects on average not representing attractive private investments from an economic point of view. We find that the decision what to study is worth several hundred thousand Euros. Applying regression analysis, we find gender- and degree-specific return advantages only in certain subjects. Comparing the return of an investment in higher education and the production cost of higher education, we show that more expensive subjects (apart from Medicine) yield a lower return. When considering the cost of study, the overall order of attractiveness of the different forms of education remains stable, but the investment in further subjects is no longer clearly attractive. Keywords: Returns to Education, Human Capital, Higher Education Earnings Capacity.
This paper documents the experiences of assurance evaluation during the early stage of a large software development project. This project researches, contracts and integrates privacy-respecting software to business environments. While assurance evaluation with ISO 15408 Common Criteria (CC) within the certification schemes is done after a system has been completed, our approach executes evaluation during the early phases of the software life cycle. The promise is to increase quality and to reduce testing and fault removal costs for later phases of the development process. First results from the still-ongoing project suggests that the Common Criteria can define a framework for assurance evaluation in ongoing development projects.
Die Optimierung von Fuzzy-Zielfunktionen in Fuzzy-(Mehrziel-)LP-Systemen - Ein kritischer Überblick
(2007)
Klassische Programmierungsmodelle benötigen eindeutig bestimmte Koeffizienten und exakt festgelegte Restriktionsgrenzen. Um eine Fehlmodellierung zu vermeiden, ist daher in der Regel eine umfangreiche Informationsaufnahme und -verarbeitung notwendig. Oft wird man dennoch bei Realproblemen einige der Modellparameter nur größenordnungsmäßig angeben können. Während in den klassischen Modellen nur der Weg bleibt, diese ungenauen Größen durch "Mittelwerte" zu ersetzen, bieten Fuzzy-Modelle die Möglichkeit, die subjektiven Vorstellungen eines Entscheiders so präzise zu modellieren, wie dieser es ausdrücken will und kann. Das Risiko, mit einem falschen Bild der Realität zu arbeiten und Lösungen auszuwählen, die nicht dem Realproblem entsprechen, wird somit deutlich reduziert. Beschränken wir die Betrachtung auf den am häufigsten benutzten Modelltyp, die Linearen Programmierungsmodelle, so lässt sich eine Fuzzy-Erweiterung allgemein durch das nachfolgende Fuzzy Lineare Programmierungs-Modelle (FLP-Modell) ausdrücken. ...
Die Unternehmensbesteuerung ist eines der Instrumentarien das im Wettbewerb um den mobilen Faktor Kapital von den Industriestaaten eingesetzt wird. Hinsichtlich der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, die den Zusammenhang zwischen der Unternehmensbesteuerung und dem unternehmerischen Kapitalstock untersucht, ist mittlerweile eine beträchtliche Zahl von Literatur entstanden. Aus der vorhandenen Literatur sind jedoch zwei Schwächen zu erkennen. Erstens basieren viele der empirischen Analysen auf makroökonomischen Zeitreihendaten und zweitens finden vor allem Reduzierte-Form-Modelle Anwendung. Die vorliegende Dissertation gliedert sich in die Reihe empirischer Arbeiten unter Verwendung von Mikrodaten ein, die Aspekte der Unternehmensbesteuerung untersuchen. Die Arbeiten liefern einen Beitrag zum tieferen Verständnis aus den Teilbereichen der Finanzierunkstruktur, der gemeinsamen Bemessungsgrundlage sowie der Messung der marginalen Steuerbelastung. Dabei konzentrieren sich die Analysen auf die Aktivitäten deutscher Unternehmen im In- und Ausland sowie ausländischer Unternehmen in Deutschland. Grundlage der empirischen Untersuchungen sind vor allem vertrauliche Mikrodaten der Deutschen Bundesbank. Im Rahmen der deskriptiven und multivariaten Analyse werden Hinweise für den Zusammenhang zwischen der Besteuerung und dem unternehmerischen verhalten nachgewiesen. Damit dienen die Resultate auch als Diskussionsgrundlage für die Ausgestaltung künftiger Steuerpolitik in Deutschland und der EU.
This paper documents the methodology underlying the construction of a global database of gross foreign asset and liability positions for 153 countries over the period 1970 to 2004 and illustrates some key data characteristics. The data cover both inflows and outflows of capital and thus allow for an assessment of the degree of international financial integration. In addition to net foreign asset stocks, we also provide details on the composition of the main asset and liability categories, namely the foreign direct investment, equity investment and debt components. Finally, we report on valuation changes as one of the main sources of discrepancy between transaction-based capital flow data and stock values of investment positions. The dataset is available for download at www.ifk-cfs.de/fileadmin/downloads/data/cfs-icfd.zip. or http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/volltexte/2007/4855/original/cfs-icfd.zip JEL Classification: F21; F34; F32
Public employee pension systems throughout the developed world have traditionally been of the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) defined benefit (DB) variety, where pensioner payments are financed by taxes (contributions) levied on the working generation. But as the number of retirees rises relative to the working-age group, such systems have begun to face financial distress. This trend has been exacerbated in many countries, among them Germany, by high unemployment rates producing further deterioration of the contribution base. In the long run, public sector pension benefits will have to be cut or contributions increased, if the systems are to be maintained. An alternative path sometimes offered to ease the crunch of paying for public employee pensions is to move toward funding: here, plan assets are gradually built up, invested, and enhanced returns devoted to partly defray civil servants’ pension costs. In this study, we evaluate the impact of introducing partial prefunding, paired with a strategic investment policy for the German federal state of Hesse. The analysis assesses the impact of introducing a supplementary tax-sponsored pension fund whose contributions are invested in the capital market and used to relieve the state budget from (some) pension payments. Our model determines the expectation and the Conditional Value-at-Risk of economic pension costs using a stochastic simulation process for pension plan assets. This approach simultaneously determines the optimal contribution rate and asset allocation that controls the expected economic costs of providing the promised pensions, while at the same time controlling investment risk. Specifically, we offer answers to the following questions: 1. How can the plan be designed to control cash-flow shortfall risk, so as to mitigate the potential burden borne by future generations of taxpayers? 2. What is the optimal asset allocation for this fund as it is built up, to generate a maximum return while simultaneously restricting capital market and liability risk? 3. What are reasonable combinations of annual contribution rates and asset allocation to a state-managed pension fund, which will limit costs of providing promised public sector pensions? We anticipate that this research will interest several sorts of policymaker groups. First, focusing on the German case, the state and Federal governments should find it relevant, as these entities face considerable public sector pension liabilities. Second, our findings will also be of interest to other European countries, as most have substantial underfunded defined benefit plans for civil servants. In what follows, we first offer a brief description of the structure of civil servant pensions in Germany, focusing on their benefit formulas, their financing, and the resulting current as well as future plan obligations for taxpayers. Next, we turn to an analysis of the actuarial status of the Hesse civil servants’ pension plan and evaluate how much would have to be contributed to fund this plan in a nonstochastic context. Subsequently we evaluate the asset-liability and decision-making process from the viewpoint of the plan sponsor, to determine sensible plan asset allocation behavior. A final section summarizes findings and implications.