Jahrbuch für Sozialwissenschaft

PIP: The distinction between family policy and population policy is briefly reviewed. The concepts of the family and the family life cycle are then discussed, and the socioeconomic factors influencing the reproductive behavior of families are examined. Finally, the goals and limits of a national family policy are outlined.

PIP: The increase in immigration from Eastern and southern Europe to Germany since 1985 is reviewed. Economic consequences for the sending and receiving countries are analyzed, and policy options are discussed. (SUMMARY IN ENG)

"The economic theory of population growth applies the opportunity cost approach to the fertility decision. Variations and differentials in fertility are caused by the available resources and relative prices or by the relative production costs of child services. Pure changes in real income raise the demand for children or the total amount spent on children. If relative prices or production costs and real income are affected together the effect on fertility requires separate consideration." (SUMMARY IN ENG) excerpt

PIP: Trends in population and employment in the four northern states of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein) are examined for the period 1960-1981. Topics discussed include the size of the population in relation to the population of the country as a whole, age structure, birth and death rates, age structure of in- and out-migration, and employment structure.

Based on earnings functions estimated for two large samples of male German blue and white collar workers in 1979 and 1985 sector wage differentials are estimated, controlling for human capital, working conditions, firm size, and region. In a second step we test whether these differentials can be explained by short run changes in labor demand or unemployment risks, and whether they are in line with implications from three variants of the efficiency wage theory, i.e. the shirking model, the turnover model, and the fair wage model.

In recent years, discussion in Europe on economic integration (single market of the European Community by the end of 1992) has been featuring large in the mass media. However, economic integration is by no means a monopoly of Western Europe. On January 1, 1989, a free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and Canada came into effect. The roots of this FTA dating back to the 19th century and the major economic perspectives are discussed in this article. The effects on the GDP and other economics variables are also summarized. The FTA encompasses not only goods but also services and capital movements. A number of problems resulting from historical, political and cultural differences between the two countries preceded Canada's acceptance. Advantages and disadvantages of acceptance were debated intensively as Canada was indeed facing one of its most important economic policy decision since World War II. In the meantime, trade talks are now under way aiming at Mexico becoming a third partner in the FTA. Thus, a huge trading bloc in North America can be a countervailing world trading power to the European Community and East Asia.

In this paper we discuss a model of spatial price competition in which the exogenous conjectural variations are replaced by consistent conjectural variations and in which the market results (prices, profits, and welfare effects) are calculated under different market structures. In this contribution the market structure is defined by the number of competitors in the neighbourhood of a firm. The main results are: 1. The higher the number of competitors, the smaller is the consistent conjectural variation coefficient. 2. The profit of a firm rises with an increasing number of competitors in the neighbourhood and with a decreasing number of firms in the whole area. 3. The welfare effects as a sum of producers' surplus and consumers' surplus increase with an increasing number of firms in the whole area.

In this paper an inflationary regime is added to the Metzlerian inventory cycle model. It is shown that for all originally instable parameter values the time paths are stabilized to limit cycle oscillations between the Keynesian and the inflationary regimes. This result is due to the fact that the inflationary regime reacts like an upper limit for economic activity. Therefore one contribution of disequilibrium economics to business cycle theory may be a consistent formulation of the ideas of „ceilings” and „floors”.

This paper advances a macroeconomic analysis of the underground economy within the context of the overall economy. The underground activities are incorporated into a static and simple Keynesian model under the assumptions that the income from these activities is not reported to the tax authorities and that there are no underground financial transactions. Next, a comparative-statics analysis is attempted diagrammatically on the basis of the finding that the IS and LM curves of the overall economy are steeper than those of the underground economy. Finally, some rudimentary dynamics indicate that the overall and the official economy are more stable than is usually contemplated.

The empirical relevance of the Heckscher-Ohlin "factor abundance" theorem of international trade has been the subject of many studies, beginning with the pioneering one of Leontief (1953). Accordingly, relative factor endowments should affect observed trade patterns. The principle purpose of this paper is to demonstrate recent theoretical advances applying the factor content of trade to analyze existing relationships between factor prices and factor content as a means of testing the theorem empirically. At the empirical level, however, it is found that the literature on this important subject still offers no generally accepted answer. This may not be as surprising as first glance suggests, given the rising importance of alternative determinants of trade flows other than factor abundancyl.

Aus der vorstehenden Analyse lassen sich folgende Ergebnisse zusammenfassen: 1. Die Regelungen einer Zollunion zwischen Entwicklungsländern können die Nahrungsmittelversorgung und Nahrungssicherheit eines Mitgliedslandes entscheidend beeinflussen. Externe Determinanten der Nahrungssicherheit können somit auch bei Ländern vorliegen, die Schwankungen der Weltmarktpreise auf Nahrungsmittelmärkten gar nicht ausgesetzt sind. 2. Die quantitative Analyse zur Südafrikanischen Zollunion aus der Sicht Botswanas zeigte, daß sich durch die Mitgliedschaft in der Zollunion die Getreideimportpreise über das Weltmarktniveau hinaus erhöhten und deshalb Wohlstandsverluste in diesem Sektor auftraten. Diese Wohlstandsverluste wurden im Zeitablauf stärker. Andererseits wurde durch die Mitgliedschaft die Instabilität der Importpreise für Nahrungsmittel reduziert. Möglicherweise ging hiervon ein wohlstandssteigernder Effekt aus, und die Bewertung der gegenläufigen Effekte ist dann davon abhängig, ob der Entscheidungsträger eine Präferenz für niedrige oder stabile Preise hat. 3. Die Importpreissteigerung, die im Durchschnitt der Periode 1969—84 24 vH betrug, reduzierte die Importe um ebenfalls 24 vH und die Getreideversorgung des Landes um 13 vH gegenüber einer Situation ohne Mitgliedschaft, in der zu Weltmarktbedingungen importiert worden wäre. In diesem Sinn hat die Zollunion die Nahrungsmittelversorgung Botswanas verschlechtert. Daneben hat die Importpreisstabilisierung aber die Importe und den Getreideverbrauch stabilisiert. Zusammenfassend gilt somit, daß durch die Südafrikanische Zollunion die Nahrungsmittelversorgung Botswanas auf niedrigerem Niveau stabilisiert wurde. 4. Eine umfassende Analyse der Auswirkungen einer Mitgliedschaft in der Südafrikanischen Zollunion auf die Nahrungssicherheit im südlichen Afrika würde erfordern, die vorliegende Untersuchung auszuweiten. Neben den direkten Effekten im Nahrungsmittelsektor wären indirekte Effekte auf die Nahrungssicherheit im Rahmen eines gesamtwirtschaftlichen Modells zu berücksichtigen. Längerfristige Auswirkungen der Zollunion auf die Produktion im Nahrungsmittelbereich, die hier ausgeklammert wurden, könnten zusätzlich analysiert werden. Außerdem wären Auswirkungen auf die Nahrungssicherheit auf Mikroebene im Rahmen von Haushaltsquerschnitten zu untersuchen. Überdies könnte die Analyse auf Lesotho und Swasiland ausgedehnt werden. Hier liegen wichtige Aufgaben für die künftige Forschung vor. This article shows that the rules of a customs union may affect food security in a member country. This implies that external determinants of food security may exist even if a developing country is not exposed to world food price instability. The argument is shown theoretically for the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and quantitative results are presented for one member country of SACU, Botswana, in 1969—84. There is a twofold influence on food security: On the one hand, the average level of cereal imports and cereal consumption were lowered as import prices went up due to the membership. On the other hand, import prices, imports and consumption of cereals were stabilized.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz befaßt sich mit der Keynesianischen Dynamik von Leistungsbilanz, Auslandsposition und Zinsfluß. Gegeben sei zum Beispiel ein Defizit in der Leistungsbilanz. Entsprechend wachsen die Auslandsschulen Periode um Periode. Der damit verbundene Zinsabfluß reduziert das Einkommen der Inländer und deren Konsum. Folglich wird die inländische Produktion eingeschränkt. Darüber hinaus vergrößert der Zinsabfluß das Defizit in der Leistungsbilanz. Als Ergebnis erhält man, daß ein langfristiges Gleichgewicht in der Tat existiert. Dieses erweist sich jedoch als instabil.

Discussions among politicians and farmers about a reform of the EC's Common Agricultural Policy ignored one important aspect: Is there an interdependence between outputlevels and factor productivity? The paper provides an empirical answer to this question by estimating a non-homothetic flexible functional form with four inputs (labour, capital, land, material) for the West-German agricultural sector. As a main result, the traditional measure of the Total Factor Productivity, the Solow-residual, overestimates the isolated technical progress by about 1% because of scale economies. If lower product prices and higher direct payments to the farmers lead to output reductions, this will also induce a less efficient production.

In this article the old idea of a negative income tax is discussed with regard to the present German situation: Will the integration of the German tax and transfer system be an adequate or even a necessary solution to all the existing problems, and will the integration be a good concept for the unified Germany? First the major problems in present-day German tax and social policy are briefly outlined and discussed. Secondly considering these problems, the need for integration is identified, and thirdly the difficulties created by the German unification are analysed. Our conclusion is: The integration of the tax and transfer system will be a good and desirable strategy for Geman policy.

Central problems of theoretical macroeconomics can be analysed with the aid of aggregate demand and supply curves. This approach is necessary if distribution theory is to be seen within a comprehensive framework. The present article deals with the incorporation of modern macroeconomic distribution theories into such a framework. Several models are discussed: neoclassical, Keynesian and bargaining-power in both the product and labour markets. Finally, we synthesise a neoclassical model embodying the different approaches.

Answering to a critical comment of an ealier article this reply concerns two aspects of dismissal protection in European countries. First, the various forms of individual and mass dismissals have to be differentiated, further the potential effects of state regulation by labour law and of bargaining by the actors of industrial relations at the local firm level. Second, the specific features of labour contracts, authority relations and bilateral asymmetric information structures should not be ignored.

The advocates of the „Eurosclerosis”-thesis called for comprehensive reforms of the contractual labour relations in Europe. A prominent example referred to the deregulation of the general dismissal protection by the labor law. The labour-economic analysis of employment and efficiency effects leads to theoretical approaches with ambiguous consequences, persistent long term unemployment in European countries versus productive human resource policy environment of internal labour market strategies. The following empirical parts try to review the dismissal regulation in several european countries and to judge the possible effects of some deregulation measures in relation to the „employment at will”-tradition of US labour markets. The employment effects of the several deregulations effects in Europe are seemingly very small, the transaction costs of further reforms would be higher than in USA.

In a recently published article Hardes (University of Trier) examines theoretical and empirical aspects of dismissal protection under European labour law. The theoretical arguments are in his eyes ambiguous; the empirical data show only minimal effects of recent deregulation policies in Europe. In this comment, these results are called into question. Hardes' arguments in favour of regulation are not based on carefully analysed market failure situations and he neglects possible effects on product markets. The deregulation policies in the European Communiy seem too weak to judge their empirical effects.

The German law of collective agreement in the labour market covers the opportunity to generalize the tariff for the whole branch through governmental invention. The essay investigates different justifications, for example the secondary importance of this regulation, and the aspect of cut-throat competition. All arguments are untenable in critical view. In contrast, the general tariff regulation effects some problems: obstruction of free market entry, raising rivals' costs, rent seeking activities and external costs for third parties.

This article shows that the legal framework of EC's food aid policy has changed since the beginning in 1968. EC's food aid has altered from an instrument of surplus disposal to an independent part of EC's development policy. It consists of several instruments of aid like: emergency food aid, triangular transactions, substitution operations, storage programmes, early warning systems, and cofinancing of seeds. Moreover, objectives and allocation criteria were declared late in 1982 and the constitution of a Committee for Food Aid was established which reduces the rights of the Council of Ministers concerning food-aid actions. Simultaneously, the existence of this committee should lead to a faster provision of food-aid deliveries than in the past. The official allocation criteria are: fundamental food requirements, per-capita income, and the balance-of-payments situation. For the period 1983—85, regression analysis was applied to test in a cross-country analysis whether these allocation criteria determine the international distribution of EC's food aid in cereals. The computations confirm that per-capita income and the balance-of-payments situation are crucial in the allocation process, whereas the fundamental food requirements were found to have no influence on the EC cereal food aid deliveries. The estimations suggest that other allocation criteria besides the official ones must determine the amount of food aid the developing country receives from the EC. The elaboration of these additional allocation criteria is one part of future research.

In dieser Arbeit wurde gezeigt, daß die Kombination von verteilungs- und allokationspolitischen Aufgaben der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung nicht notwendigerweise zu einer ineffizienten Allokation führen muß. Die richtige Kombination der Systemelemente — marginaler Beitrags- und Transfersatz, Bemessungsgrundlage des Transfers und Gestaltung des Familienlastenausgleichs — ist vielmehr die Voraussetzung für eine Pareto-überlegene Ausgestaltung der Krankenversicherung. Mit Hilfe der komparativ-statischen Analyse konnte gezeigt werden, daß mit dieser Neuorganisation auch eine „Kostendämpfung” erwartet werden kann. It is usually assumed that superimposing redistributional objectives with insurance aspects in the public health care system leads to a loss of efficiency. This paper demonstrates that efficiency worsening does not necessarily obtain under the dual objective. By fixing policy variables of the system — marginal rates of premiums and transfers, statutory upper income levels as well as provision for family allowances in the right fashion — a pareto-superior solution can be achieved. Furthermore, by reshuffling the public health insurance system in a way compatible with incentives, greater cost-effectiveness and a reduction of overall health care expenditures are likely.

A microeconomic model which combines efficiency wage theory and profit sharing is presented where the effects of effort on wages are emphasized. It is assumed that risk adverse employees maximize their expected utility and that they are compensated for uncertain income. Under realistic assumptions it can be derived that there exists a positive relation between the degree of uncertainty and wages. This is in accord with empirical results based on the German Socio-Economic Panel. Furthermore it can be shown that the compensation for uncertain income of employees in high positions is not so important than for others who are more risk adverse. The data also confirm a positive correlation between wage rate and effort where the latter is measured by instrumental variables. The model is concentrated on labour supply. However, it can be extended by incorporating labour demand. This is done by following Svejnar's principle, a generalized Nash solution. Besides other special cases one of them is the Solow condition of the efficiency wage theory.

Today, unemployment is one of the main worldwide challenges for economic policymakers. To solve the problems concerned, accurate definition and measurement are necessary. In this paper, unemployment is regarded as „an insufficient use of labor as a means of production”. It consists, on the one hand, of persons who are unemployed although they are able and willing to work (type-A-unemployment) and, on the other hand, employed persons whose labor-force is used inefficiently in the production process (type-B-unemployment). The latter type of unemployment has received little attention in economic discussion and this paper is therefore concerned only with the definition and measurement of type-B-unemployment. A theoretical measure based on a modified non-parametric frontier-production-function-approach is suggested. Using this approach and a data set of German water-supplying enterprises it is provided that a considerable amount of type-B-unemployment exists. The calculated results provide some evidence with regard to the causes of this kind of unemployment. This knowledge is a vital factor in the struggle to eliminate this „insufficient use of labor as a means of production”.

This shorter paper is a reply to an earlier article by Harald Sander who intended to summarize the neostructuralist critique of IMF adjustment programs. The authors argue that Sander did not carefully distinguish between the „old structuralism” and the two main streams of the „neostructuralism”. They also find Sanders view of the IMF's role in developing countries as well as his interpretation of a standard neostructuralist model misled in several aspects.

The main differences of the two modes of old age insurance, namely funding and pay-as-you-go-scheme, are delineated and the respective economic effects are compared with each other. It is particularly dealt with the aspect of stability and the effects on capital accumulation. A precarious, the population disconcerting institutional chance, it is shown, is either necessary nor practical.

Until the end of the eighties the German iron and steel industry belonged to those manufacturing sectors in which companies had not yet sufficiently adjusted their productive capacity to the structural downturn in the market. Using the framework of an industrial case study, it is the object of this paper to analyse on the one hand sectoral structural change and from that the resulting structural crisis and adjustment process in the iron and steel industry, and on the other hand different solutions (market selection, market regulation) to cut back lasting excess capacity. The analysis of structural change and structural adaption in the iron and steel industry is carried out on the basis of a market study that includes the basic conditions of the market (growth of supply and demand and its alteration in time, technical and economic peculiarities of production) and its elements of structure, conduct and performance. The development of the demand and supply side, especially since 1975, has resulted in lasting excess capacity on the market for steel products. The structure and conduct of the market are mainly characterized by a tendency towards horizontal and vertical business concentration, facilitating collusion, and collective market bahaviour, in particular cartelization. Concerning the selection through the market as a strategy of capacity cutback the importance of technical indivisibilities and the cost structure (a high share of fixed costs to overall costs) are elaborated, resulting in a propensity to cutthroat competition, that is intensified by barriers to exit, as the irreversibility of costs. Next the capacity cutback by market regulation is dealt with, both the institutional framework of the Common Market for Coal and Steel with its instruments of indirect and direct interventions in the economy, and the crisis solutions of the European Community (production quotas, minimum prices, import quotas). These crisis measures abolished prices and quantities as competitive elements in the steel market. After the expiration of the crisis plan of the EC-Commission the steel market was liberalized step by step to ease the adjustment of companies to alterations in the market and in technology. The basic conclusions are the following: The steel crisis described by a rise and delay in reduction of lasting excess capacity, is the result both of market failures and the thus induced crisis measures of the EC and the national steel policies. The fundamental criticism of the policy of the EC points at the fact that it has not prevented the increase of national subsidies (especially in France and Italy), so allowing competitive distortions among the companies.

Space R & D-expenditures are declared as a ‚ticket for the future’, Politics and administration claim a source of economic arguments (technological progress, competition ability, innovations, spin-offs, science etc.). Actually, this is the mainstream of German industrial policy. But the analysis shows, non of the arguments, except government spendings for space science, is acceptable. The interventionistic comprehension of technological progress leads to dangerous and false conclusions. False, because the variety of different paths of self-organizing technological evolution is artificially reduced. Dangerous, because, the missing success of a wrong diagnosis must be covered with more and more drugs (taxpayers money). So the reality of space programs shows the growing evidence of the political economy in Germany.

The analysis shows that, in a monetary union, expansionary fiscal policy in one member country induces negative externalities on other member countries. An examination of these externalities shows that the absence of a cooperative determination of fiscal deficits causes higher aggregate deficits as well as higher interest and inflation rates. Cooperative choice of fiscal deficits internalizes external effects and is thus welfare improving. The results imply that unanimous decisions on monetary policy does not constitute a sufficient condition for price stability in monetary union. Hence, a harmonization of fiscal deficits appears to be necessary.

In this paper we intend to show the determinants which are responsible for regional differences in unionization. For this purpose we develop first of all a theoretical framework based on the usual demand-supply-relation. Then we run some OLS-regressions with pooled cross section and time series data for Germany. Our empirical study shows that the regional differences in unionization can be essentially explained by economic variables, i.e. socio-political approaches contribute hardly to the explanation of variations in regional union density.

Four critical remarks to Prof. Rahmeyer's paper (1992) on adaption problems of the steel industry are presented. First it is shown that steel demand fluctuates much stronger than GDP and this causes severe forecasting problems for the steel companies. Second, these forecasting problems are normally by far more responsible for the creation of overcapacity than market phase (product cycle) considerations. The third point of criticism is on neglecting market structure consequences of the rise of steel mini mills. Fourth, Rahmeyer seems to overrate the influence of cartelisation on steel prices for the steel companies.

It has to be explained why the expenditures of the state for social activities are growing fast in highly developed democratic countries. Two questions are asked: (1) Have allocative and distributional market failures in the sector of social politics been the causes for this development? (2) Are deficiencies in the process of political coordination in democratic states the reason for the often inefficient activities of the state in the field of social politics? The analysis shows that allocative market failures aren't sound, distributional market failures are unimportant, and the desire in highly developed economies to a more just distribution of income and wealth diminishes. The reason why social expenditures of the state are too high and often inefficient primary lies in inefficient democratic mechanisms of modern states.

This paper evaluates approaches designed to estimate the benefits people enjoy from publicly provided goods. The travel cost, the averting cost, and the migration approach, the hedonic technique, the median voter model and the analysis of referenda (all indirect methods departing from observed behaviour) are discussed as well as the contingent valuation method and the budget game approach (both aiming at a direct preference revelation). The paper also focuses on the comparative advantage of these approaches for specific types of goods.

Besides making transactions to private firms, the Treuhandanstalt also sells to states (Länder), the counties and communities. Treuhandanstalt enters thereby the horizontal as well as vertical competition (bargaining) among the public regional administrative bodies. The sale to communities has the characteristics of vertical competition. The results are one or multistage bilateral monopolies. In the case of further horizontal competition, the result will also be one or multistage monopolies where the power of the supplier is restricted by a limited number of buyers. In order to demonstrate these competitive relations various models are being constructed. By model 1 the sale of property to a community is being described which then uses these assets in order to establish its own local public enterprise. Model 2 shows the sale of property to a community which then sells this property to a profit maximizing private firm. Whereas Model 3 shows the sale of property to a community which passes on the property to a private firm, which will coordinate its policies with the community as well as with the Treuhandanstalt. By help of these models one can derive at conclusions about levels of utility, sales price, labour input, capital input, etc. General solutions of these models and simulations demonstrate that the bargaining position of the community is quite favourable because it can meet the economic and fiscal aims of the Treuhandanstalt more easily when establishing its own public enterprise. Even if we consider horizontal competition on the level of communities their bargaining position remains promising. Horizontal competition on the second stage hardly changes their competitive position.

In this paper a dynamic symmetric two-country model of an exchange rate union is discussed. The model assumes sluggish price adjustment, a joint exchange rate which is floating against the rest of the world and perfect foresight with respect to the rate of change of the exchange rate and the price level. The short-run and long-run effects of anticipated expansions of the growth rate of money supply and the level of public expenditures are analysed. It is shown that the anticipation of future fiscal expansion in one country of the exchange rate union immediately leads to a reduction of national income in both countries. At the end of the paper the case of a large currency union is also discussed.

The fact that in quite a few economic sectors and professions the number of trainees and apprentices considerably exceeds the number of people who are actually employed in these sectors after completion of their vocational training is one of the characteristics features of the dual vocational system in the Federal Republic of Germany. This „oversupply” of trained manpower is accompanied by low costs, insufficient training standards and a lack of employment opportunities causing vocationally qualified people to accept jobs with a high risk of unemployment, unfavourably working conditions or a low income. The phenomena under review can be theoretically explained by a two-sector model which is founded on the human capital approach. This model is even more suitable if the neoclassical assumption of perfect commodity and labour markets is abandoned and if demographically motivated imbalances of the employment market for apprentices and trainess are given due consideration.

The new generation of international trade models, born in the eighties, is reviewed with reference to the trade policy debate on free trade versus trade interventions. The neoclassical theory of trade policy is used as the reference model which is challenged by new trade theories of imperfectly competitive world markets. International trade policies in a world with monopolistic market structures, monopolistic or oligopolistic competition are shown to have different welfare implications. While models of monopolistic competition confirm the optimality of free trade, the most serious attack on free trade policy comes from oligopoly models of strategic trade policies. By comparing the four trade policy cases — strategic export promotion, strategic export restraint, strategic import restriction and export promotion by means of import restriction — it is demonstrated that this attack is weakened by the nonexistence of a stable rule of optimal intervention and by strategic interdependencies of welfare-oriented national trade policies. Therefore, the new theories of international trade have not shaped a new trade policy paradigm, but they have contributed to better understand the causes of protectionism.

Has the history of labor been dim, will the future of labor be bright? Part 1 is devoted to labor's role during Great Britain's and Germany's history of industrialization. Historians' discussion of deteriorating conditions of work in factories and of the poor development of wages and living standards is found to be in concordance with the English classical economists' theory of the natural wage rate, which allows workers to reproduce themselves, but not to participate in increases of wealth. Part 2 is on labor's present und future chances in highly developed economies characterized by information and communication techniques. Changes in the quality of labor demanded are illustrated by results of industry-sociologic research. Problems of tracing the effects of the new techniques on employment are mentioned with reference to the German META-study. Information technology as the basic innovation of a fifth Kondratieff cycle is discussed in its prospects of promoting decentralization and individualization of labor. Aspects of scarcity of labor, of flexible labor time, of workers' preferences toward remuneration, risk and corporate identity are brought into the positive picture of future labor. All in all, the question posed in the headline of the essay and at the beginning of the summary is, with some restrictions, answered by „yes”.

It is argued in this article that the possibility of enhancing wage flexibility by an increase of the outsider-competition of firms and employees by means of opening clauses is questioned by the jurisdictiary. On the contrary, the position with respect to the declaration of collective agreements as generally binding is unequivocal. There, the weight attached to job protection is greater than that for a possibly positive employment effect. Labour ecenomists doubt the existence of employment effects due to unrestricted wage competition, too. From simple neoclassical labour market models it may be deducted that wage cuts will increase employment. But, this wage-employment nexus does not exist within disequilibrium, efficiency wage and insider-outsider models.

Modern trade pessimism claims that the old industrialized nations will be unable to face import competition by newly industrializing countries. It is argued that structural change has speeded up, due to new developments in world trade and production, while the adjustment capacity of the „advanced welfare states” has diminished. These hypotheses are examined in this paper. It is concluded that there is convincing evidence for both to hold true as fas as the experience in the 70s and 80s is concerned. It remains an open question, however, whether western societies will be able to revitalize their economies sufficiently in order to prevent a major disruption of the international economic system.

The merger between Daimler-Benz AG and Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm GmbH has been the most prominent merger control case in Germany so far. It added about ten percent to Daimler-Benz's size, creating an entity with revenues of 80 billion DM and 380000 employees. The article reviews the economic and political arguments which have been relevant in this case. It shows that economic arguments — beyond government's fiscal perspective — did not play an adequate role in decision making. In part this is due to a lack of knowledge on the role of strategic restructuring in world markets in which competition by innovation dominates. However, this type of antitrust case will become increasingly more important with the integration of Europe and the extension of free market principles to large parts of the world. Therefore, research on the impact of mergers on synergy effects and the innovation process has to be reinforced in order to evaluate future mergers on empirically more solid foundations. Some elements of such research activities are outlined in the article.

The article provides an overview of the criticism of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union. It will first be pointed out that — from the historical and legal point of view — the introduction of a monetary union without simultaneously introducing a political union is a risky experiment. A detailed analysis of the treaty shows that the convergence criteria for the beginning of the third stage of the economic and monetary union are not obligatory. Furthermore, they are not rigid enough. As they are geared to a fixed timetable, the future monetary union will probably fail to create an optimum currency area. This leads the author to the conclusion that the possible risks of the Masstricht Treaty are far greater than the expected benefits. He proposes to modify the treaty and to apply the mechanism of the existing European Monetary System strictly.

The concepts discussed in this paper provide the theoretical background of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). The CAPM rests on a set of unrealistic assumptions. However, simplifications of reality are often necessary to develop useful models. The true test of the model lies in the power and validity of the model's prescription. According to the CAPM, expected rates of return on financial securities are refected by their riskiness. The model uses a coefficient „beta” to compare the riskiness of a security with the riskiness of the market as a whole. Thus, beta is a shorthand for relative volatility. Furthermore, the relevant measure of the security's riskiness is its market-related risk. This is called systematic or nondiversifiable risk. On the other hand, the unsystematic risk component is diversified away and is therefore irrelevant for the determination of the security's expected return. A security with a beta of one is just as risky as the market; one with a beta of 0,5 is less risky. Because investors need to earn more on riskier investments, security prices will reflect the requirement for higher-than-average returns on higher-beta securities. Although it was originally developed for security markets, the CAPM also provides important insight into capital budgeting decisions of firms.

Der Beitrag untersucht, in welcher Weise die Aufgabe der in Lehrbuchdarstellungen traditionell verwendeten Symmetrie-Annahme hinsichtlich der Kostenstruktur der beteiligten Firmen Existenz und Struktur der Nash-Gleichgewichte im Oligopol-Modell von Bertrand beeinflußt. Als hauptsächliches Resultat wird die Aussage abgeleitet, daß ein Nash-Gleichgewicht genau dann existiert, wenn der Monopolpreis des Produzenten mit den niedrigsten Grenzkosten nicht höher ausfällt als die Grenzkosten einer Firma, die unter allen übrigen Firmen am günstigsten produzieren kann. Falls jedoch eine Firma, welche die zuletzt genannte Eigenschaft aufweist, den Monopolpreis der Firma mit den geringsten Grenzkosten unterbieten kann, ohne gleichzeitig einen negativen Gewinn in Kauf nehmen zu müssen, existiert kein Gleichgewicht. Damit impliziert die Möglichkeit eines echten Preiswettbewerbs zwischen den rivalisierenden Firmen die Abwesenheit eines Nash-Gleichgewichts im einfachen asymmetrischen Oligopol-Modell von Bertrand.

Dieser Beitrag basiert auf einem Dyopolmodell für differenzierte Güter, das die Auswirkungen von Lerneffekten untersucht. Es kann gezeigt werden, daß Lerneffekte eine Eintrittsbarriere darstellen, wobei Produktdifferenzierung zum Schutze des kleineren Unternehmens wirkt. Das große Unternehmen bevorzugt in der Regel Homogenität, kann jedoch unter bestimmten, interpretierbaren Umständen darunter leiden. Das komplizierte Zusammenspiel von Informationsstruktur, Stärke des Lerneffektes, Spezifität des Lernens, Heterogenität der Produkte und Asymmetrie der Unternehmen wird in geschlossener Form dargestellt werden.

The bivariate nonlinear time series model, presented in this paper, offers the possibility to estimate dynamic asymmetric economic relationships depending on threshold parameters and time lags. The application of this model to German import demand for automobiles depending on relative prices shows, that only changes in relative prices of less than 0,12% lead to a statistical significant dynamic relation. The simulation results indicate the stability of the model and show that a unique shock of domestic prices has an influence on the imports, but the adjustment is fulfilled after one year and the model follows a long-term growth trend.

There are many opportunities to solve the problem of asymmetrical information by different allocations of property rights. Opportunism and externalities could be avoided through an increase in information, by risk-sharing systems, a segmentation of markets and through vertical integration. The disadvantages of governmental regulation are pointed out and the author requires a free competition of institutional choice.