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The main argument in this paper is that new information and communication technologies (ICT) in the financial industry will increase specialisation and competition within the European financial centre system and thereby lead to a ‘re-bundling’ of functions of the various financial centres. Frankfurt plays an interesting role in this development as it is one of the main development centres for ‘financial technology’. With these technologies, remote access to the Frankfurt stock exchange and inter-bank payment system is now feasible from most European cities. This leads to a reduced need for physical presence, which opens up new possibilities for the financial sector’s spatial organisation. However, as financial production is information- and knowledge-intensive, spatial and other types of proximity between financial actors and clients are still essential in many stages. We examine the value chains of three different products (advisory, lending, trading) with regard to different proximities, in order to identify possible patterns of their spatial (re)organisation. From these findings, inferences are drawn for a ‘new’ role for Frankfurt in the European financial centre system.
Economic theory suggests that a commitment by a firm to increased levels of disclosure should lower the information asymmetry component of the firm’s cost of capital. But whi le the theory is compelling, so far empirical results relating increased levels of disclosure to measurable economic benefits have been mixed. One explanation for the mixed results among studies using data from firms publicly registered in the US is that, under current US reporting standards, the disclosure environment is already rich. In this paper, we study German firms that have switched from the German to an international reporting regime (IAS or US -GAAP), thereby committing themselves to increased le vels of disclosure. We show that proxies for the information asymmetry component of the cost of capital for the switching firms, namely the bid-ask spread and trading volume, behave in the predicted direction compared to firms employing the German reporti ng regime.
Kursänderungen auf Aktienmärkten können informationsinduziert durch neu zu verarbeitende Informationen oder liquiditätsinduziert durch kurzfristige Angebots- bzw. Nachfrageüberhänge auftreten. Diese zwei so unterschiedlich verursachten Kursreaktionen sind in empirischen Untersuchungen nur schwer zu trennen. Das Modell von Easley, Kiefer, O’Hara und Paperman (1996) bietet eine theoretische Basis zur separaten Erfassung von liquiditätsorientiertem und informationsbasiertem Handel und eröffnet darüber hinaus auch einen Weg zur empirischen Quantifizierung dieser Größen.
In der vorliegenden Untersuchung nutzen wir diesen Ansatz zur Analyse des Handels deutscher Aktien über das Computerhandelssystem IBIS. Dabei zeigt sich, daß innerhalb der DAX-Werte Informationsereignisse bei den sehr stark gehandelten Aktien nicht häufiger als bei weniger oft gehandelten Werten auftreten. Die Unterschiede im Handelsvolumen sind auf unterschiedlich starke Handelsaktivität sowohl informierter als auch uninformierter Marktteilnehmer zurückzuführen. Weiterhin zeigt sich, daß das Risiko, mit informierten Marktteilnehmern zu handeln, bei den sehr umsatzstarken Aktien am geringsten ist.
In Einklang mit dem sogenannten Montagseffekt ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit für das Auftreten von negativen Informationsereignissen zu Wochenanfang besonders groß. Dieses Ergebnis könnte durch eine Tendenz von Managern erklärt werden, negative Informationen freitags nach Börsenschluß zu veröffentlichen. Eine getrennte Untersuchung für Handelstage mit niedriger und solche mit hoher Volatilität zeigt, daß an Handelstagen mit höherer Volatilität die Handelsintensität sowohl informierter als auch uninformierter Investoren größer ist. Auch die Wahrscheinlichkeit, an solchen Tagen mit besser informierten Marktteilnehmern zu handeln, steigt. Dieser Anstieg ist allerdings nicht statistisch signifikant.
Es gibt Überlegungen, Kreditinstituten den Besitz der Anteilsmehrheit an Kapitalanlagegesellschaften (KAGs) zu untersagen. Dahinter steht die Vorstellung, daß solche Beteiligungen Gestaltungsspielräume eröffnen, die mißbräuchlich genutzt werden. Die Neuemission von Aktien ist einer der Fälle, die in diesem Zusammenhang erörtert werden. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es zu prüfen, ob die zum Konzernverbund einer konsortialführenden Bank gehörenden KAGs bei Erstemissionen anders behandelt werden als andere KAGs.
Untersucht werden 46 Neuemissionen der Jahre 1994 bis 1997. Insgesamt deuten die Ergebnisse darauf hin, daß die KAGs in ihren Anlageentscheidungen unabhängig sind, und daß keine mißbräuchliche Nutzung eventuell vorhandener Informationsvorsprünge vorliegt.
Traditional tests of the CAPM following the Fama / MacBeth (1973) procedure are tests of the joint hypotheses that there is a relationship between beta and realized return and that the market risk premium is positive. The conditional test procedure developed by Pettengill / Sundaram / Mathur (1995) allows to independently test the hypothesis of a relation between beta and realized returns. Monte Carlo simulations show that the conditional test reliably identifies this relation. In an empirical examination for the German stock market we find a significant relation between beta and return. Previous studies failed to identify this relationship probably because the average market risk premium in the sample period was close to zero. Our results provide a justification for the use of betas estimated from historical return data by portfolio managers.
This paper studies the incentives of German firms to voluntarily disclose cash flow statements over time. While cash flow statement are mandated under many GAAP regimes, its disclosure has not been mandatory in Germany until recently. Nevertheless, an increasing number of firms provides cash flow statements voluntarily. These firms are likely to be influenced by recommendations of the German accounting profession, IAS 7 as well as the respective standards of other countries. The idea of the paper is to study this influence by looking at the adoption pattern over time and the format of the cash flow statement. It documents the development of voluntary cash flow statement disclosures by German firms with respect to ”milestones” in the evolution of German professional recommendations and respective international standards. The cross-sectional determinants of voluntary and international cash flow statements are analyzed using probit regressions and factor analysis. The results are generally consistent with the idea that capital-market forces drive voluntary cash flow statements that are in line with international reporting practice.
This paper draws a parallel between German society and politics, German football and coursebooks for German as a foreign language (DaF) in the second half of the twentieth century. Departing from observations on the analogies between German football and politics made by Norbert Seitz, it discusses the cultural and pedagogical spirit of DaF-coursebooks from the fifties to the nineties.
This article shows how the genre Bildungsroman (self-development novel) has been assimilated to the Brazilian literary tradition. Through the examples of Cristina Ferreira Pinto's "O 'Bildungsroman' feminino" ("The female novel of development") and Eduardo de Assis Duarte's "Jorge Amado e o 'Bildungsroman' proletário" ("Jorge Amado and the proletarian novel of development"), this article focuses the dynamic process by means of which a typical European genre has been assimilated by a young South-American literary tradition.
All-over in Europe, unemployment became a growing problem from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. Nevertheless, the effects on the economical situation of the unemployed and the whole population are quite different in European countries. In this paper we first give a brief overview over the development of unemployment rates in eight member states of the European Union and over the different reactions to provide the social protection of the unemployed. Therefore we look at the social security expenditures, the level of income replacement for the unemployed and recent social policy reforms concerning them. In the second section of the paper, we examine the development of income distribution and poverty taking different poverty lines into consideration. There is no general pattern neither for the relationship of inequality among the unemployed to the whole economically active population nor for the development from the 80s to the 90s. But one can say that in countries with increasing income inequality also poverty is rising (especially in the UK) and that where inequality among the unemployed is less pronounced the proportions of the poor went down from the mid 80s to the mid 90s (France and Ireland). In nearly all countries the risk of being poor is ernormously high for the unemployed, Denmark is the only exception.
To sum up our findings we come to the following statements. - During the period from 1973 to 1993 inequality of the personal distribution of equivalent pre-government income increased to some extent, as was to be expected given the enormous rise in unemployment. - Inequality of post-government income also increased slightly, but was much lower than inequality of pre-government income due to the equalizing effect of the German tax and transfer system. - In 1993 inequality of pre-government income was higher, and inequality of post-government income was considerably lower in East Germany than in West Germany; the West German tax and transfer system that was transferred to East Germany after reunification - with some additional but temporary minimum regulations - seems to have had a stronger equalizing effect in the East than in the West. - A decomposition into three age groups, the young and the middle-aged group sub-divided further according to whether household members were affected by unemployment, showed that within-groups inequality explained by far more of overall inequality than between-groups inequality. - The relative positions of the two young groups as well as of the middle-aged group with unemployed members deteriorated with respect to their equivalent pre-government and post-government incomes. - During the first period with rising unemployment (1973 to 1978), the development of within-groups inequality and of between-groups inequality contributed to about the same extent to the increase of overall inequality of pre-government income. But this was fully compensated by the tax and transfer system as there were only a negligible change in inequality of equivalent net income and very slight effects of the (four) components of change which nearly compensated each other. - During the last period from 1988 to 1993 the equalizing effect of the German tax and transfer system seems to have weakened, at least in the western part of Germany. The increase in inequality of equivalent net income is mainly due to developments of within group inequalities.