Economic theory typically assumes that people are only interested in their own material wealth. Experimentalists have recently discovered that this assumption is not true under all circumstances. Especially in regular face to face interactions, not only the personal well-being but also the well-being of other people is important for individual decisions. These findings are particularly important for the design of incentive systems to control the behaviour of managers of decentralized organizational units since managers and entities repeatedly interact in order to achieve the superordinate enterprise goals. In this context social preferences such as jealousy, spitefulness and reciprocity can influence managerial behaviour on the vertical as well as the horizontal organizational layer. The appropriate design of incentive compatible wage compensation systems has to take into account that people are behaviourally different and consequently respond differently to incentives. The main goal of the paper is to analyze how the principal should react to the different behavioural traits of his agents in order to guarantee the achievement of the superordinate enterprise goals. Of particular interest is the impact of jealousy and spitefulness between horizontally aligned agents on the weighting and combination of performance measures. The cases stochastical independence/dependence as well as technological independence/dependence are differentiated throughout the analysis.

This paper looks at markets characterized by the fact that the demand side is insured. In these markets a consumer purchases a good to compensate consequen¬ces of unfavorable events, such as an accident or an illness. Insurance policies in most lines of insurance base indemnity on the insured’s actual expenses, i.e., the insured would be partially or completely reimbursed when purchasing certain goods. In this setting we discuss the interaction between insurance and repair markets by focusing, on the one hand, upon the development of prices and the structure of markets with insured consumers, and, on the other hand, the resulting backlash on optimal insurance contracting. We show that even in the absence of ex post moral hazard the extension of insurance coverage will lead to an increase in prices as well as to a socially undesirable increase in the number of repair service suppliers, if repair markets are imperfect.

We analyze the duration of the patent examination process at the European Patent Office (EPO). Our data contain information related to the patent’s economic and technical relevance, EPO capacity and workload as well as novel citation measures which are derived from the EPO’s search reports. In our multivariate analysis we estimate competing risk specifications in order to characterize differences in the processes leading to a withdrawal of the application by the applicant, a refusal of the patent grant by the examiner or an actual patent grant. Highly cited applications are approved faster by the EPO than less important ones, but they are also withdrawn less quickly by the applicant. The process duration increases for all outcomes with the application’s complexity, originality, number of references (backward citations) in the search report and with the EPO’s workload at the filing date. Endogenous applicant behavior becomes apparent in other results: more controversial claims lead to slower grants, but faster withdrawals, while relatively well-documented applications (identified by a high share of applicant references appearing in the search report) are approved faster and take longer to be withdrawn.

As mixture regression models increasingly receive attention from both theory and practice, the question of selecting the correct number of segments gains urgency. A misspecification can lead to an under- or oversegmentation, thus resulting in flawed management decisions on customer targeting or product positioning. This paper presents the results of an extensive simulation study that examines the performance of commonly used information criteria in a mixture regression context with normal data. Unlike with previous studies, the performance is evaluated at a broad range of sample/segment size combinations being the most critical factors for the effectiveness of the criteria from both a theoretical and practical point of view. In order to assess the absolute performance of each criterion with respect to chance, the performance is reviewed against so called chance criteria, derived from discriminant analysis. The results induce recommendations on criterion selection when a certain sample size is given and help to judge what sample size is needed in order to guarantee an accurate decision based on a certain criterion respectively.

This paper analyzes the causality between inventor productivity and inventor mobility. The results show that the level of education has no influence on inventor productivity. Making use of external sources of knowledge, on the contrary, has a significant effect on productivity. Finally, firm size has a positive impact on productivity. Firm size also influences inventor mobility, although negatively. Whereas existing research implicitly assumes causality to point in one direction, this study ex-ante allows for a simultaneous relationship. To deal with the expected endogeneity problem, instrumental variables techniques will be employed. Results show that mobile inventors are more than four times as productive as non-movers. Whereas mobility increases productivity, an increase in productivity decreases the number of moves.

Based on a survey of the inventors of 9,017 European patented inventions, this paper provides new information about the characteristics of European inventors, the sources of their knowledge, the importance of formal and informal collaborations, the motivations to invent, and the actual use and economic value of the patents.

Germany is one of few countries in which the monetary compensation for inventors is not only determined by negotiations between employer and employee-inventor, but also by relatively precise legal provisions. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of the German Employees’ Inventions Act (GEIA) and discuss which incentives it creates. We rely on responses from a recent survey of 3,350 German inventors to test hypotheses regarding this institution. We conclude from our data that the law creates substantial monetary rewards for productive inventors. The qualitative responses from our survey confirm this view, but also point to a number of dysfunctional effects.

Among the most prominent theoretical frameworks dealing with the economic underlyings of firms’ make-or-buy decisions are Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the Resourced Based View (RBV). Relying on panel data covering 107 European firms over eight years I test predictions from both TCE and RBV with regard to the outsourcing of patent related services simultaneously. Modelling the share of outsourced patent applications in a Negative Binomial Panel Regression Model I find joint explanatory power of both approaches. My findings support previous literature arguing for an integration of TCE and RBV to a comprehensive theoretical framework of firms make-or-buy decisions.

Bei der Bewertung von Unternehmen ist es üblich, die erwarteten Überschussverteilungen mit Kapitalkosten zu diskontieren, welche aus dem Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) abgeleitet werden. In diesem Zusammenhang hat Richter unter der Prämisse eines Binomialmodells für die Entwicklung der Cashflows und der Marktrendite unlängst Bedingungen formuliert, die eine Anwendung von konstanten Kapitalkosten erlauben. Die vorliegende Arbeit erweitert die Überlegungen von Richter dahingehend, dass neben dem Erwartungswert der Wachstumsrate der Cashflows auch deren Varianz für die Modellierung des Binomialprozesses verwendet wird. Dadurch kann sowohl für intertemporal abhängige als auch für unabhängige Überschussverteilungen gezeigt werden, dass sich die Kapitalkosten auf Basis der unterstellten Verteilungsparameter der Wachstumsraten und der Marktrendite sowie dem risikolosen Zins ermitteln lassen; auf die Spezifikation von subjektiven Wahrscheinlichkeiten kann dagegen verzichtet werden. Darüber hinaus wird nachgewiesen, dass das Binomialmodell auf die Überlegungen von Fama zur mehrperiodigen Anwendung des CAPM übertragen werden kann. Ein numerisches Beispiel auf Basis der in der Praxis beliebten Szenarioanalyse verdeutlicht den unmittelbaren Praxisbezug des Kalküls.

In jüngerer Zeit verwenden Teile der Literatur das auf Brennan zurückgehende Nachsteuer- CAPM, um Unternehmenswerte nach (differenzierten) persönlichen Steuern zu bestimmen. In diesem Beitrag wird das Modell auf drei unterschiedliche Steuersätze erweitert. Gezeigt wird, dass das Nachsteuer-CAPM nicht zur Diskontierung von Nettocashflows verwendet werden darf, da es Bruttorenditen erzeugt. Daneben sprechen ein prohibitiver Datenbeschaffungsaufwand sowie methodische Probleme bei der Formulierung von Bewertungsgleichungen gegen die Verwendung des Modells für die Unternehmensbewertung. Zuletzt wird ein Überblick über empirische Studien gegeben, die nicht zweifelsfrei belegen können, dass das Nachsteuer-CAPM die Realität gut beschreibt.

Picot, Arnold (1994): Technik als Wegweiser für künftige Qualifikationen. In: Information Management, Vol. 9, Nr. 2: pp. 66-68.