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Zur Offenlegung von Abfindungszahlungen und Pensionszusagen an ein ausgeschiedenes Vorstandsmitglied
(2008)
Abfindungszahlungen und Pensionszusagen gehören zu den besonders umstrittenen Bestandteilen der Vorstandsvergütung. Der deutsche Gesetzgeber ist mit dem Gesetz über die Offenlegung von Vorstandsvergütungen (VorstOG) der internationalen Entwicklung gefolgt. Bereits Ziff. 4.2.4 DCGK a.F. hatte die individualisierte Offenlegung der Bezüge aktueller Vorstandsmitglieder empfohlen. In Frankreich wurde bereits 2001 die Pflicht zur Offenlegung von Vorstandsgehältern in den Art. L. 225-102-1 des Code de commerce aufgenommen. Aktuell beschäftigt sich das französische Parlament mit dem Gesetz „Croissance, emploi et pouvoir d’achat: modernisation de l’économie“, das bei Vereinbarungen von Abfindungen einen Hauptversammlungsbeschluss notwendig machen würde. In England sind die Bezüge der „Directors“ in einem Remuneration Report offenzulegen (Sec. 420 CA 2006). Vorreiter auf dem Gebiet der Offenlegungspflicht waren die Vereinigten Staaten, die seit 1992 eine individualisierte Offenlegung vorschreiben. Auch die Europäische Kommission hat sich für die Pflicht zur individualisierten Offenlegung ausgesprochen. Im Mittelpunkt der Diskussion steht insbesondere die Frage der Offenlegung der Abfindungs- und Pensionszusagen. Scheidet ein Vorstandsmitglied vorzeitig aus, hat es grundsätzlich einen Vergütungsanspruch bis zur Beendigung seines Anstellungsvertrags, außer wenn der Aufsichtsrat ihm aus wichtigem Grund gekündigt hat. In der Regel werden aber mit dem Vorstandsmitglied Abfindungsvereinbarungen getroffen. Neben den Abfindungsvereinbarungen spielen auch die Pensions- und Versorgungszusagen in der Praxis eine wichtige Rolle. Mit Blick auf den Wortlaut des § 285 HGB stellt sich, auch zwei Jahre nach Inkrafttreten des VorstOG, immer noch die Frage, ob bei börsennotierten Aktiengesellschaften die Abfindungszahlungen und Pensionszusagen individualisiert oder nur aggregiert offenzulegen sind. Fraglich ist zum einen, wie eine vereinbarte Abfindungszahlung im Lagebericht bei der Angabe der Vorstandsbezüge zu behandeln ist, wenn ein Vorstandsmitglied vorzeitig ausscheidet (III.). Zum anderen stellt sich die Frage, wie Pensionszusagen darzustellen sind (IV.). Bevor auf diese beiden Fragen eingegangen werden kann, soll kurz der gesetzliche Rahmen der Offenlegungspflicht skizziert werden (II.). ...
We show that the use of correlations for modeling dependencies may lead to counterintuitive behavior of risk measures, such as Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Expected Short- fall (ES), when the risk of very rare events is assessed via Monte-Carlo techniques. The phenomenon is demonstrated for mixture models adapted from credit risk analysis as well as for common Poisson-shock models used in reliability theory. An obvious implication of this finding pertains to the analysis of operational risk. The alleged incentive suggested by the New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II), amely decreasing minimum capital requirements by allowing for less than perfect correlation, may not necessarily be attainable.
A data set of annual values of area equipped for irrigation for all 236 countries in the world during the time period 1900 - 2003 was generated. The basis for this data product was information available through various online data bases and from other published materials. The complete time series were then constructed around the reported data applying six statistical methods. The methods are discussed in terms of reliability and data uncertainties. The total area equipped for irrigation in the world in 1900 was 53.2 million hectares. Irrigation was mainly practiced in all the arid regions of the globe and in paddy rice areas of South and East Asia. In some temperate countries in Western Europe irrigation was practiced widely on pastures and meadows. The time series suggest a modest rate of increase of irrigated areas in the first half of the 20th century followed by a more dynamic development in the second half. The turn of the century is characterized by an overall consolidating trend resulting at a total of 285.8 million hectares in 2003. The major contributing countries have changed little throughout the century. This data product is regarded as a preliminary result toward an ongoing effort to develop a detailed data set and map of areas equipped for irrigation in the world over the 20th century using sub-national statistics and historical irrigation maps.
Reform of the securities class action is once again the subject of national debate. The impetus for this debate is the reports of three different groups – The Committee on Capital Market Regulation, The Commission on the Regulation of U.S. Capital Markets In the 21st Century, and McKinsey & Company. Each of the reports focuses on a single theme: how the contemporary regulatory culture places U.S. capital markets at a competitive disadvantage to foreign markets. While multiple regulatory forces are targeted by each report’s call for reform, each of the reports singles out securities class actions as one of the prime villains that place U.S. capital markets at a competitive disadvantage. The reports’ recommendations range from insignificant changes to drastic curtailments of private class actions. Surprisingly, these current-day cries echo calls for reform heeded by Congress in the not too distant past. Major reform of the securities class action occurred with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.5 Among the PSLRA’s contributions is the introduction of procedures by which the court chooses from among competing petitioners a lead plaintiff for the class. The statute commands that the petitioner with the largest financial loss suffered as a consequence of the defendant’s alleged misrepresentation is presumed to be the most adequate plaintiff. Thus, the lead plaintiff provision supplants the traditional “first to file” rule for selecting the suit’s plaintiff with a mechanism that seeks to harness to the plaintiff’s economic self interest to the suits’ prosecution. Also, by eliminating the race to be the first to file, the lead plaintiff provision seeks to avoid “hair trigger” filings by overly eager plaintiffs’ counsel which Congress believed too frequently gave rise to incomplete and insubstantially pled causes of action. The PSLRA also introduced for securities class actions a heightened pleading requirement8 as well as a bar to the plaintiff obtaining any discovery prior to the district court disposing of the defendants’ motions to dismiss. By introducing the requirement that allegations involving fraud must be plead not only with particularity, but also that the pled facts must establish a “strong inference” of fraud, the PSLRA cast aside, albeit only for securities actions, the much lower notice pleading requirement that has been a fixture of American civil procedure for decades. Substantive changes to the law were also introduced by the PSLRA. With few exceptions, joint and several liability was replaced by proportionate liability so that a particular defendant’s liability is capped by that defendant’s relative degree of fault. Similarly, contribution rights among co-violators are also based on proportionate fault of each defendant. Three years after the PSLRA, Congress returned to the topic again by enacting the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act;13 this provision was prompted by aggressive efforts of plaintiff lawyers to bypass the limitations, most notably the bar to discovery and higher pleading requirement, of the PSLRA by bringing suit in state court. Post-SLUSA, securities fraud class actions are exclusively the domain of the federal court. In this paper, we examine the impact of the PSLRA and more particularly the impact the type of lead plaintiff on the size of settlements in securities fraud class actions. We thus provide insight into whether the type of plaintiff that heads the class action impacts the overall outcome of the case. Furthermore, we explore possible indicia that may explain why some suits settle for extremely small sums – small relative to the “provable losses” suffered by the class, small relative to the asset size of the defendantcompany, and small relative to other settlements in our sample. This evidence bears heavily on the debate over “strike suits.” Part I of this paper sets forth the contemporary debate surrounding the need for further reforms of securities class actions. In this section, we set forth the insights advanced in three prominent reports focused on the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets. In Part II we first provide descriptive statistics of our extensive data set, and thenuse multivariate regression analysis to explore the underlying relationships. In Part III, we closely examine small settlements for clues to whether they reflect evidence of strike suits. We conclude in Part IV with a set of policy recommendations based on our analysis of the data. Our goals in this paper are more modest than the Committee Report, the Chamber Report and the McKinsey Report, each of which called for wide-ranging reforms: we focus on how the PSLRA changed securities fraud settlements so as to determine whether the reforms it introduced accomplished at least some of the Act’s important goals. If the PSLRA was successful, and we think it was, then one must be somewhat skeptical of the need for further cutbacks in private securities class action so soon after the Act was passed.
The reaction of consumer spending and debt to tax rebates – evidence from consumer credit data
(2008)
We use a new panel dataset of credit card accounts to analyze how consumer responded to the 2001 Federal income tax rebates. We estimate the monthly response of credit card payments, spending, and debt, exploiting the unique, randomized timing of the rebate disbursement. We find that, on average, consumers initially saved some of the rebate, by increasing their credit card payments and thereby paying down debt. But soon afterwards their spending increased, counter to the canonical Permanent-Income model. Spending rose most for consumers who were initially most likely to be liquidity constrained, whereas debt declined most (so saving rose most) for unconstrained consumers. More generally, the results suggest that there can be important dynamics in consumers’ response to “lumpy” increases in income like tax rebates, working in part through balance sheet (liquidity) mechanisms.
The "quiet life hypothesis (QLH)" posits that banks enjoy the advantages of market power in terms of foregone revenues or cost savings. We suggest a unified approach to measure competition and efficiency simultaneously to test this hypothesis. We estimate bank-specific Lerner indices as measures of competition and test if cost and profit efficiency are negatively related to market power in the case of German savings banks.We find that both market power and average revenues declined among these banks between 1996 and 2006. While we find clear evidence supporting the QLH, estimated effects of the QLH are small from an economical perspective.
Central counterparties (CCPs) have increasingly become a cornerstone of financial markets infrastructure. We present a model where trades are time-critical, liquidity is limited and there is limited enforcement of trades. We show a CCP novating trades implements efficient trading behaviour. It is optimal for the CCP to face default losses to achieve the efficient level of trade. To cover these losses, the CCP optimally uses margin calls, and, as the default problem becomes more severe, also requires default funds and then imposes position limits.
The market reaction to legal shocks and their antidotes : lessons from the sovereign debt market
(2008)
This Article examines the market reaction to a series of legal events concerning the judicial interpretation of the pari passu clause in sovereign debt instruments. More generally, the Article provides insights into the reactions of investors (predominantly financial institutions), issuers (sovereigns), and those who draft bond covenants (lawyers), to unanticipated changes in the judicial interpretation of certain covenant terms.
After the pioneering German “Aktiengesetz” of 1965 and the Brazilian “Lei das Sociedades Anónimas” of 1976, Portugal has become the third country in the world to enact a specific regulation on groups of companies. The Code of Commercial Companies (“Código das Sociedades Comerciais”, abbreviately hereinafter CSC), enacted in 1986, contains a unitary set of rules regulating the relationships between companies, in general, and the groups of companies, in particular (arts. 481° to 508°-E CSC). With this set of rules, the Portuguese legislator has dealt with one of the major topics of modern Company Law. While this branch of law is traditionally conceived as the law of the individual company, modern economic reality is characterized by the massive emergence of large-scale enterprise networks, where parts of a whole business are allocated and insulated in several legally independent companies submitted to an unified economic direction. As Tom HADDEN put it: “Company lawyers still write and talk as if the single independent company, with its shareholders, directors and employees, was the norm. In reality, the individual company ceased to be the most significant form of organization in the 1920s and 1930s. The commercial world is now dominated both nationally and internationally by complex groups of companies”. This trend, which is now observable in any of the largest economies in the world, holds also true for small markets such as Portugal. Although Portuguese economy is still dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises, the organizational structure of the group has always been extremely common. During the 70s, it was estimated that the seven largest groups of companies owned about 50% of the equity capital of all domestic enterprises and were alone responsible for 3/4 of the internal national product. Such a trend has continued and even highlighted in the next decades, surviving to different political and economic scenarios: during the 80s, due to the process of state nationalization of these groups, an enormous public group with more than one thousand controlled companies has been created (“IPE - Instituto de Participações do Estado”); and during the 90s until today, thanks to the reprivatisation movement and the opening of our national market, we assisted to the re-emergence of some large private groups, composed of several hundred subsidiaries each, some of which are listed in foreign stock exchange markets (e.g., in the banking sector, “BCP – Banco Comercial Português”, in the industrial area, “SONAE”, and in the media and communication area, “Portugal-Telecom”).
The execution, clearing, and settlement of financial transactions are all subject to substantial scale and scope economies which make each of these complementary functions a natural monopoly. Integration of trade, execution, and settlement in an exchange improves efficiency by economizing on transactions costs. When scope economies in clearing are more extensive than those in execution, integration is more costly, and efficient organization involves a trade-off of scope economies and transactions costs. A properly organized clearing cooperative can eliminate double marginalization problems and exploit scope economies, but can result in opportunism and underinvestment. Moreover, a clearing cooperative may exercise market power. Vertical integration and tying can foreclose entry, but foreclosure can be efficient because market power rents attract excessive entry. Integration of trading and post-trade services is the modal form of organization in financial markets, which is consistent with the hypothesis that transactional efficiencies explain organizational arrangements in these markets.
This paper analyzes liquidity in an order driven market. We only investigate the best limits in the limit order book, but also take into account the book behind these inside prices. When subsequent prices are close to the best ones and depth at them is substantial, larger orders can be executed without an extensive price impact and without deterring liquidity. We develop and estimate several econometric models, based on depth and prices in the book, as well as on the slopes of the limit order book. The dynamics of different dimensions of liquidity are analyzed: prices, depth at and beyond the best prices, as well as resiliency, i.e. how fast the different liquidity measures recover after a liquidity shock. Our results show a somewhat less favorable image of liquidity than often found in the literature. After a liquidity shock (in the spread or depth or in the book beyond the best limits), several dimension of liquidity deteriorate at the same time. Not only does the inside spread increase, and depth at the best prices decrease, also the difference between subsequent bid and ask prices may become larger and depth provided at them decreases. The impacts are both econometrically and economically significant. Also, our findings point to an interaction between different measures of liquidity, between liquidity at the best prices and beyond in the book, and between ask and bid side of the market.
We report evidence that the presence of hidden liquidity is associated with greater liquidity in the order books, greater trading volume, and smaller price impact. Limit and market order submission behavior changes when hidden liquidity is present consistent with at least some traders being able to detect hidden liquidity. We estimate a model of liquidity provision that allows us to measure variations in the marginal and total payoffs from liquidity provision in states with and without hidden liquidity. Our estimates of the expected surplus to providers of visible and hidden liquidity are positive and typically of the order of one-half to one basis points per trade. The positive liquidity provider surpluses combined with the increased trading volume when hidden liquidity is present are both consistent with liquidity externalities.
The impact of European integration on the German system of pharmaceutical product authorization
(2008)
The European Union has evolved since 1965 into an influential political player in the regulation of pharmaceutical safety standards. The objective of establishing a single European market for pharmaceuticals makes it necessary for member-states to adopt uniform safety standards and marketing authorization procedures. This article investigates the impact of the European integration process on the German marketing authorization system for pharmaceuticals. The analysis shows that the main focal points and objectives of European regulation of pharmaceutical safety have shifted since 1965. The initial phase saw the introduction of uniform European safety standards as a result of which Germany was obliged to undertake “catch-up” modernization. From the mid-1970s, these standards were extended and specified in greater detail. Since the mid-1990s, a process of reorientation has been under way. The formation of the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA) and the growing importance of the European authorization procedure, combined with intensified global competition on pharmaceutical markets, are exerting indirect pressure for EU member-states to adjust their medicines policies. Consequently, over the past few years Germany has been engaged in a competition-oriented reorganization of its pharmaceutical product authorization system the outcome of which will be to give higher priority to economic interests.
A new global crop water model was developed to compute blue (irrigation) water requirements and crop evapotranspiration from green (precipitation) water at a spatial resolution of 5 arc minutes by 5 arc minutes for 26 different crop classes. The model is based on soil water balances performed for each crop and each grid cell. For the first time a new global data set was applied consisting of monthly growing areas of irrigated crops and related cropping calendars. Crop water use was computed for irrigated land and the period 1998 – 2002. In this documentation report the data sets used as model input and methods used in the model calculations are described, followed by a presentation of the first results for blue and green water use at the global scale, for countries and specific crops. Additionally the simulated seasonal distribution of water use on irrigated land is presented. The computed model results are compared to census based statistical information on irrigation water use and to results of another crop water model developed at FAO.
The future of securitization
(2008)
Securitization is a financial innovation that experiences a boom-bust cycle, as many other innovations before. This paper analyzes possible reasons for the breakdown of primary and secondary securitization markets, and argues that misaligned incentives along the value chain are the primary cause of the problems. The illiquidity of asset and interbank markets, in this view, is a market failure derived from ill-designed mechanisms of coordinating financial intermediaries and investors. Thus, illiquidity is closely related to the design of the financial chains. Our policy conclusions emphasize crisis prevention rather than crisis management, and the objective is to restore a “comprehensive incentive alignment”. The toe-hold for strengthening regulation is surprisingly small. First, we emphasize the importance of equity piece retention for the long-term quality of the underlying asset pool. As a consequence, equity piece allocation needs to be publicly known, alleviating market pricing. Second, on a micro level, accountability of managers can be improved by compensation packages aiming at long term incentives, and penalizing policies with destabilizing effects on financial markets. Third, on a macro level, increased transparency relating to effective risk transfer, risk-related management compensation, and credible measurement of rating performance stabilizes the valuation of financial assets and, hence, improves the solvency of financial intermediaries. Fourth, financial intermediaries, whose risk is opaque, may be subjected to higher capital requirements.
On 27 and 28 September 2007, a commission formed on the initiative of the authors held its first meeting in Aarhus, Denmark to deliberate on its goal of drafting a "European Model Company Law Act" (EMCLA). This project, outlined in the following pages, aims neither to force a mandatory harmonization of national company law nor to create a further, European corporate form. The goal is rather to draft model rules for a corporation that national legislatures would be free to adopt in whole or in part. Thus, the project is thought as an alternative and supplement to the existing EU instruments for the convergence of company law. The present EU instruments, their prerequisites and limits will be discussed in more detail in Part II, below. Part III will examine the US experience with such "model acts" in the area of company law. Part IV will then conclude by discussing several topics concerning the content of an EMCLA, introducing the members of the EMCLA Working Group, and explaining the Group's preliminary working plan.
Motivated by the recent discussion of the declining importance of deposits as banks´ major source of funding we investigate which factors determine funding costs at local banks. Using a panel data set of more than 800 German local savings and cooperative banks for the period from 1998 to 2004 we show that funding costs are not only driven by the relative share of comparatively cheap deposits of bank´s liabilities but among other factors especially by the size of the bank. In our empirical analysis we find strong and robust evidence that, ceteris paribus, smaller banks exhibit lower funding costs than larger banks suggesting that small banks are able to attract deposits more cheaply than their larger counterparts. We argue that this is the case because smaller banks interact more personally with customers, operate in customers´ geographic proximity and have longer and stronger relationships than larger banks and, hence, are able to charge higher prices for their services. Our finding of a strong influence of bank size on funding costs is also in an in- ternational context of great interest as mergers among small local banks - the key driver of bank growth - are a recent phenomenon not only in European banking that is expected to continue in the future. At the same time, net interest income remains by far the most important source of revenue for most local banks, accounting for approximately 70% of total operating revenues in the case of German local banks. The influence of size on funding costs is of strong economic relevance: our results suggest that an increase in size by 50%, for example, from EUR 500 million in total assets to EUR 750 million (exemplary for M&A transactions among local banks) increases funding costs, ceteris paribus, by approximately 18 basis points which relates to approx. 7% of banks´ average net interest margin.
We study the effect of randomness in the adversarial queueing model. All proofs of instability for deterministic queueing strategies exploit a finespun strategy of insertions by an adversary. If the local queueing decisions in the network are subject to randomness, it is far from obvious, that an adversary can still trick the network into instability. We show that uniform queueing is unstable even against an oblivious adversary. Consequently, randomizing the queueing decisions made to operate a network is not in itself a suitable fix for poor network performances due to packet pileups.
In this paper, we examine the impact of mergers among German savings banks on the extent to which these savings banks engage in small business lending. The ongoing consolidation in the banking industry has sparked concerns about the continuous availability of credit to small businesses which has been further fueled by empirical studies that partly confirm a reduction in small business lending in the aftermath of mergers. However, using a proprietary data set of German savings banks we find strong evidence that in Germany merging savings banks do not significantly change the extent to which they lend to small businesses compared to prior to the merger or compared to the contemporaneous lending by non-merging banks. We investigate the merger related effects on small business lending in Germany from a bank-level perspective. Furthermore, we estimate small business lending and its continuous adjustment process simultaneously using recent General Method of Moments (GMM) techniques for panel data as proposed by Arellano and Bond (1991).
Generally, information provision and certifcation have been identified as the major economic functions of rating agencies. This paper analyzes whether the “watchlist” (rating review) instrument has extended the agencies' role towards a monitoring position, as proposed by Boot, Milbourn, and Schmeits (2006). Using a data set of Moody's rating history between 1982 and 2004, we find that the overall information content of rating action has indeed increased since the introduction of the watchlist procedure. Our findings suggest that rating reviews help to establish implicit monitoring contracts between agencies and borrowers and as such enable a finer partition of rating information, thereby contributing to a higher information quality.
Generally, information provision and certification have been identified as the major economic functions of rating agencies. This paper analyzes whether the “watchlist" (rating review) instrument has extended the agencies' role towards a monitoring position, as proposed by Boot, Milbourn, and Schmeits (2006). Using a data set of Moody's rating history between 1982 and 2004, we find that the overall information content of rating action has indeed increased since the introduction of the watchlist procedure. Our findings suggest that rating reviews help to establish implicit monitoring contracts between agencies and borrowers and as such enable a finer partition of rating information, thereby contributing to a higher information quality.
Based on a unique dataset of legislative changes in industrial countries, we identify events that strengthen the competition control of mergers and acquisitions, analyze their impact on banks and non-financial firms and explain the different reactions observed with specific regulatory characteristics of the banking sector. Covering nineteen countries for the period 1987 to 2004, we find that more competition-oriented merger control increases the stock prices of banks and decreases the stock prices of non-financial firms. Bank targets become more profitable and larger, while those of non-financial firms remain mostly unaffected. A major determinant of the positive bank returns is the degree of opaqueness that characterizes the institutional setup for supervisory bank merger reviews. The legal design of the supervisory control of bank mergers may therefore have important implications for real activity.
Previous evidence suggests that less liquid stocks entail higher average returns. Using NYSE data, we present evidence that both the sensitivity of returns to liquidity and liquidity premia have significantly declined over the past four decades to levels that we cannot statistically distinguish from zero. Furthermore, the profitability of trading strategies based on buying illiquid stocks and selling illiquid stocks has declined over the past four decades, rendering such strategies virtually unprofitable. Our results are robust to several conventional liquidity measures related to volume. When using liquidity measure that is not related to volume, we find just weak evidence of a liquidity premium even in the early periods of our sample. The gradual introduction and proliferation of index funds and exchange traded funds is a possible explanation for these results.
Hong Kong’s Linked Exchange Rate System (LERS) has been in operation for twenty-five years during which time many other fixed exchange rate systems have succumbed to shocks and/or speculative attacks. This fact alone suggests that the LERS is a robust system which enjoys a large measure of credibility in financial markets. This paper intends to investigate whether this is indeed the case, and whether it has been the case throughout its 25-year history. In particular we will use the tools of modern finance to extract information from financial asset prices about market expectations that are related to the credibility of the LERS. The main focus is on how market participants ‘judged’ the various changes made to the LERS, such as the ‘seven technical measures’ introduced in September 1998 and the ‘three refinements’ made in May 2005. These changes have been characterizes as making the system less discretionary over time, and we hypothesize that they have also made it more credible as revealed in the prices of exchange rate related asset prices. We also investigate the relationship between interest rates and exchange rates in the current system in light of modern models of target-zone exchange rate systems. We will examine whether the intramarginal intervention in November 2007 changed the dynamic properties of the exchange rate as suggested by such models.
Inhalt: Prof. Dr. Helmut Siekmann : Stellungnahme für die öffentliche Anhörung des Haushaltsausschusses zu dem Gesetzentwurf der Fraktion der SPD und Bündnis 90/Die Grünen für ein Gesetz zur Änderung der Hessischen Landeshaushaltsordnung Gesetzentwurf der Fraktionen der SPD und Bündnis 90/Die Grünen für ein Gesetz zur Änderung der Hessischen Landeshaushaltsordnung (LHO) : Drucksache 17/265 Liste der Anzuhörenden im Haushaltsausschuss : am 17.09.2008 zur Drucksache 17/265
Die Privatisierung von Krankheitskosten durch erhöhte Zuzahlungen, informelle Leistungsverweigerungen in der GKV sowie das Nebeneinander von gesetzlicher und privater Krankenversicherung bei einer wachsenden Kluft zwischen beiden Systemen haben die sozialen und die räumlich-zeitlichen Barrieren zur Inanspruchnahme von Gesundheitsleistungen für sozial schwache Gruppen erhöht. Damit wächst die Gefahr, dass die Krankenversorgungspolitik zu einer eigenständigen Ursache für die Verstärkung und Aufrechterhaltung gesundheitlicher Ungleichheit wird. Gleichzeitig werden die Möglichkeiten der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung, durch verbesserte Prävention zu einer Verringerung gesundheitlicher Ungleichheit beizutragen, nur unzureichend genutzt. So liegt die Teilnahmequote von Personen mit niedrigem Sozialstatus an zahlreichen Maßnahmen der Krankheitsfrüherkennung, insbesondere bei der Krebsvorsorge, nach wie vor deutlich unter dem Durchschnitt. Mit der Novellierung des § 20 SGB V im Jahr 2000 hat zwar auch die Verminderung der sozialen Ungleichheit von Gesundheitschancen Eingang in das Zielsystem der GKV gefunden. Allerdings geht dieses Ziel nur teilweise in die Präventionspraxis der Krankenkassen ein. Nach wie vor existieren zahlreiche Hürden bei der Implementierung von Maßnahmen der kontextgestützten Verhältnisprävention.
Der Prozess der europäischen Integration wirkt zunehmend auf die Gestaltung der Gesundheitssysteme der Mitgliedstaaten ein. Die von der Kommission und dem EuGH vorangetriebene Anwendung des europäischen Binnenmarkt- und Wettbewerbsrechts auf die Gesundheitspolitik hat zur Folge, dass marktlichen Steuerungsprinzipien ein Primat gegenüber staatlicher und korporatistischer Regulierung eingeräumt wird. Die gesundheitspolitische Gestaltungskompetenz liegt bei den Mitgliedstaaten, diese haben jedoch die „vier Freiheiten“ bzw. das europäische Wettbewerbsrecht zu beachten. Das Prinzip der Solidarität spielt in den europäischen Verträgen dagegen nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Solidarität erscheint im europäischen Diskurs als ein Wert, der für die Europäische Union einen wichtigen Bezugspunkt darstellt, ohne dass er eine rechtlich verbindliche Form erhalten hat. Im Resultat entscheidet daher die Auslegung des Solidaritätsprinzips durch den Gerichtshof darüber, ob solidarische Elemente in der nationalen Gesundheitspolitik mit dem europäischen Recht vereinbar sind. Dieser Mechanismus beruht nicht auf demokratisch organisierten Meinungs- und Willensbildungsprozessen, sondern ist Gegenstand schwer prognostizierbarer richterlicher Interpretationskunst.
Der bevorstehende Beitritt Sloweniens in die OECD1 (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), die jüngste Bewertung des BTI-Status-Index 2008 (Bertelsmann-Transformation-Index) auf dem 2. Platz, der Ratsvorsitz der EU (Europäische Union) im 1. Halbjahr 2008, die Mitgliedschaft zum Schengen-Raum und die Einführung des Euro, sind nur die jüngsten Meilensteine der erfolgreichen und nachhaltigen Transformation in ein demokratisches System und die Festlegung auf eine marktwirtschaftliche Ordnung. Die Geschichte Sloweniens stand lange Zeit im Schatten der Geschichte Österreichs und Jugoslawiens. Als eine Nation in einem eigenen Staat sieht sich Slowenien seit dem Zerfall Jugoslawiens in einer gänzlich neuen Rolle. Das Erbe der früheren Abhängigkeiten ist einem neuen Selbstbewusstsein gewichen. Die graduelle Transformation Sloweniens während der 1990er Jahre in einen völkerrechtlich unabhängigen Staat, eine politische Demokratie und eine freie Marktwirtschaft erscheint im europäischen Kontext „…only [as] a chapter in the larger tale of the democratic wave that rather unexpectedly swept across Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe during the last years of the twentieth century.“ In Reflexion der historischen Ereignisse beurteilt Kornai die Transformation am Ende des letzten Jahrhunderts in Europa „…in spite of serious problems and anomalies …[as] a success story.“ Im Rahmen des Transformationsprozesses konnte sich Slowenien als „politischer und ökonomischer Zwerg“ als unabhängiger Staat in das demokratische Europa und die Europäische Union integrieren und fest verankern. Um Gründe und Faktoren dieses Prozesses zu identifizieren, ist eine Betrachtung der Entwicklungen in den 1980er Jahren, die zur Auflösung des blockfreien sozialistischen Jugoslawiens und zur Selbstständigkeit Sloweniens geführt haben, notwendig. Jede der konstituierenden Teilrepubliken und Regionen Jugoslawiens blickt zurück auf eine eigene historische, religiöse und sprachliche Tradition mit individuellen Erfahrungen und spezifischen Spannungen innerhalb und außerhalb der gemeinsamen Föderation. Sloweniens Weg in die politische, ökonomische und demokratische Unabhängigkeit war ein individueller nationaler Differenzierungs- und Umgestaltungsprozess und Ergebnis vielfältiger mehrdimensionaler Konflikte. Unerwartet und plötzlich war der Bruch und die Herauslösung aus dem Staatenbund Jugoslawiens am 25. Juni 1991 nicht. Die Gründung und der Niedergang eines Staates sind schwierig zu erklärende und komplexe Phänomene. Die Triebkräfte der auflösenden gesellschaftlichen Prozesse im Jugoslawien der 1980er Jahre ausschließlich auf die Nationalitätenfrage zu reduzieren, bewertet Weißenbacher als eine zu enge Fokussierung der Darstellung und Begründung auf die ethnischen Spannungen innerhalb des Vielvölkerstaates. Er argumentiert: „Die Wurzeln der Desintegration des sozialistischen Jugoslawiens in alten ethnischen Feindseligkeiten zu suchen, hieße die ökonomischen, sozialen und politischen Prozesse zu ignorieren….“ Die zunehmenden regionalen Inkompatibilitäten Jugoslawiens in den 1980er Jahren verdeutlichen in Betrachtung des spezifischen Entwicklungspfads der Teilrepublik Slowenien, dass die politisch-gesellschaftlichen, kulturellen und die sozioökonomischen Strukturen letztendlich nicht dauerhaft mit den Strukturen anderer jugoslawischer Teilrepubliken vereinbar waren. Die politische und wirtschaftliche Instabilität Jugoslawiens und der frühzeitige Wandel innerhalb der slowenischen Gesellschaft und der Kommunistischen Partei in den 1980er Jahren führten durch politischen Reformdruck und makroökonomische Ungleichgewichte zum Kollaps des jugoslawischen Staatenbundes. Mencinger betont, dass die tiefe Krise Jugoslawiens letzten Endes ohne einen radikalen Systembruch und Sturkurwandel von politischer und ökonomischer Machtverteilung nicht zu überwinden gewesen wäre. Der vorliegende Beitrag greift die Rahmenbedingungen, Entwicklungen, Konflikte und Ziele auf und zeichnet die wesentlichen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Geschehnisse nach, denen sich die slowenische Bevölkerung und Politik in den Jahren vor der Loslösung gegenübersahen und die zur Gründung des unabhängigen Staates geführt haben.
Im Normalfall, in dem Vorstand und Aufsichtsrat den Jahresabschluß feststellen (vgl. § 172 AktG), können sie einen Teil des Jahresüberschusses, höchstens jedoch die Hälfte, in „andere Gewinnrücklagen“1 einstellen (§ 58 Abs. 2 S. 1 AktG). Die Satzung kann Vorstand und Aufsichtsrat zur Einstellung eines größeren oder kleineren Teils des Jahresüberschusses ermächtigen; allerdings darf die Verwaltung aufgrund einer solchen Satzungsbestimmung keine Beträge in andere Gewinnrücklagen einstellen, wenn die anderen Gewinnrücklagen die Hälfte des Grundkapitals übersteigen oder soweit sie nach der Einstellung die Hälfte übersteigen würden (§ 58 Abs. 2 S. 2, 3 AktG). Nach § 58 Abs. 3 AktG kann die Hauptversammlung sodann in ihrem Beschluß über die Verwendung des Bilanzgewinns (vgl. § 174 AktG) weitere Beträge in Gewinnrücklagen einstellen oder als Gewinn vortragen. Im Folgenden werden nach einer Sichtung wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Erwägungen zu Thesaurierung und Ausschüttung (unten II.) die Pflichten und die Kontrolle der Entscheidungen über die Gewinnverwendung von Vorstand und Aufsichtsrat einerseits (unten III.) und der Hauptversammlung andererseits (unten IV.) erörtert. V. faßt die Ergebnisse zusammen. Die besonderen Rechtsfragen, die sich bei Rücklagenbildung in abhängigen Gesellschaften ergeben, werden nicht behandelt.
Risk transfer with CDOs
(2008)
Modern bank management comprises both classical lending business and transfer of asset risk to capital markets through securitization. Sound knowledge of the risks involved in securitization transactions is a prerequisite for solid risk management. This paper aims to resolve a part of the opaqueness surrounding credit-risk allocation to tranches that represent claims of different seniority on a reference portfolio. In particular, this paper analyzes the allocation of credit risk to different tranches of a CDO transaction when the underlying asset returns are driven by a common macro factor and an idiosyncratic component. Junior and senior tranches are found to be nearly orthogonal, motivating a search for the whereabout of systematic risk in CDO transactions. We propose a metric for capturing the allocation of systematic risk to tranches. First, in contrast to a widely-held claim, we show that (extreme) tail risk in standard CDO transactions is held by all tranches. While junior tranches take on all types of systematic risk, senior tranches take on almost no non-tail risk. This is in stark contrast to an untranched bond portfolio of the same rating quality, which on average suffers substantial losses for all realizations of the macro factor. Second, given tranching, a shock to the risk of the underlying asset portfolio (e.g. a rise in asset correlation or in mean portfolio loss) has the strongest impact, in relative terms, on the exposure of senior tranche CDO-investors. Our findings can be used to explain major stylized facts observed in credit markets.
Risk transfer with CDOs
(2008)
Modern bank management comprises both classical lending business and transfer of asset risk to capital markets through securitization. Sound knowledge of the risks involved in securitization transactions is a prerequisite for solid risk management. This paper aims to resolve a part of the opaqueness surrounding credit-risk allocation to tranches that represent claims of different seniority on a reference portfolio. In particular, this paper analyzes the allocation of credit risk to different tranches of a CDO transaction when the underlying asset returns are driven by a common macro factor and an idiosyncratic component. Junior and senior tranches are found to be nearly orthogonal, motivating a search for the where about of systematic risk in CDO transactions. We propose a metric for capturing the allocation of systematic risk to tranches. First, in contrast to a widely-held claim, we show that (extreme) tail risk in standard CDO transactions is held by all tranches. While junior tranches take on all types of systematic risk, senior tranches take on almost no non-tail risk. This is in stark contrast to an untranched bond portfolio of the same rating quality, which on average suffers substantial losses for all realizations of the macro factor. Second, given tranching, a shock to the risk of the underlying asset portfolio (e.g. a rise in asset correlation or in mean portfolio loss) has the strongest impact, in relative terms, on the exposure of senior tranche CDO-investors. Our findings can be used to explain major stylized facts observed in credit markets.
Motivated by the prominent role of electronic limit order book (LOB) markets in today’s stock market environment, this paper provides the basis for understanding, reconstructing and adopting Hollifield, Miller, Sandas, and Slive’s (2006) (henceforth HMSS) methodology for estimating the gains from trade to the Xetra LOB market at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE) in order to evaluate its performance in this respect. Therefore this paper looks deeply into HMSS’s base model and provides a structured recipe for the planned implementation with Xetra LOB data. The contribution of this paper lies in the modification of HMSS’s methodology with respect to the particularities of the Xetra trading system that are not yet considered in HMSS’s base model. The necessary modifications, as expressed in terms of empirical caveats, are substantial to derive unbiased market efficiency measures for Xetra in the end.
Purim and parodies
(2008)
We find and describe four futures markets where the bid-ask spread is bid down to the fixed price tick size practically all the time, and which match counterparties using a pro-rata rule. These four markets´ offered depths at the quotes on average exceed mean market order size by two orders of magnitude, and their order cancellation rates (the probability of any given offered lot being cancelled) are significantly over 96 per cent. We develop a simple theoretical model to ex- plain these facts, where strategic complementarities in the choice of limit order size cause traders to risk overtrading by submitting over-sized limit orders, most of which they expect to cancel.
Bayesian learning provides the core concept of processing noisy information. In standard Bayesian frameworks, assessing the price impact of information requires perfect knowledge of news’ precision. In practice, however, precision is rarely dis- closed. Therefore, we extend standard Bayesian learning, suggesting traders infer news’ precision from magnitudes of surprises and from external sources. We show that interactions of the different precision signals may result in highly nonlinear price responses. Empirical tests based on intra-day T-bond futures price reactions to employment releases confirm the model’s predictions and show that the effects are statistically and economically significant.
Die politische Steuerung des Krankenhaussektors hat sich in den vergangenen anderthalb Jahrzehnten nachhaltig verändert. Das Gesundheitsstrukturgesetz von 1992 markiert einen gesundheitspolitischen Paradigmenwechsel, mit dem verstärkt wettbewerbliche Steuerungsinstrumente in das Gesundheitswesen eingeführt wurden. Auch im stationären Sektor ersetzen bzw. ergänzen wettbewerbliche Instrumente korporatistische Arrangements. Die Gegenüberstellung der politischen Steuerung des Krankenhaussektors vor 1992 mit der Situation nach der Gesundheitsreform 2007 verdeutlicht, dass auf den Feldern Leistungserbringung, Vergütung und Qualitätssicherung sukzessive ein neues Steuerungsmodell entstanden ist. Dieses zeichnet sich durch eine gewachsene Komplexität, eine Zunahme von Steuerungsaktivitäten und eine Neujustierung des Verhältnisses staatlicher bzw. korporatistischer Steuerung einerseits und wettbewerblicher Steuerung andererseits aus. Dort, wo es um allokative Entscheidungen geht, werden korporatistische Elemente durch wettbewerbliche ersetzt. Auf anderen Regulierungsfelder bleibt der Korporatismus dagegen erhalten. Der Staat als „architect of political order“ (Anderson) hat diese Transformation herbeigeführt, sieht sich allerdings zunehmend mit dem Widerspruch zwischen einer bedarfsorientierten Krankenhausplanung und Investitionsfinanzierung auf Landesebene und einer Leistungsverteilung über den Wettbewerb konfrontiert.
Many older US households have done little or no planning for retirement, and there is a substantial population that seems to undersave for retirement. Of particular concern is the relative position of older women, who are more vulnerable to old-age poverty due to their longer longevity. This paper uses data from a special module we devised on planning and financial literacy in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study. It shows that women display much lower levels of financial literacy than the older population as a whole. In addition, women who are less financially literate are also less likely to plan for retirement and be successful planners. These findings have important implications for policy and for programs aimed at fostering financial security at older ages.