Vienna University of Economics and Business
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Trend inflation meets macro-finance: the puzzling behavior of price dispersion
Get PDFMotivated by recent empirical findings that emphasize low-frequency movements in inflation as a key determinant of term structure, we introduce trend inflation into the workhorse macro-finance model. We show that this compromises the earlier model success and delivers implausible business cycle and bond price dynamics. We document that this result applies more generally to non-linearly solved models with Calvo pricing and trend inflation and is driven by the behavior of price dispersion, which is i) counterfactually high and ii) highly inaccurately approximated. We highlight the channels behind the undesired performance under trend inflation and propose several remedies.Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Serie
Public managers' role in creating workplace social capital (WSC) and its effect on employees' well-being and health: a protocol of a longitudinal cohort study (PUMA-WSC)
Get PDFWorkplace social capital (WSC) has been shown to affect employees' well-being and health, yet it is not clear how public managers can create WSC and which forms of WSC are most important. This study is the first prospective cohort study to examine the relationship between management behaviour, WSC, well-being and sickness absence. It uses a validated and detailed scale on WSC, which can distinguish between bonding, bridging, linking and organisational WSC over time. The study thereby provides rich data giving a much-needed detailed image of how WSC impacts on public employees' well-being and health. Additionally, the study pays special attention to the fact that these relationships can be different for different types of employees and therefore tests a set of relevant employee and context-related variables.
Project preparations in terms of agreements and data preparation of existing data started in 2019. This prospective cohort study considers and collects organisational data from 2016 to 2025. Annual employee surveys of more than 8000 employees (in a large Danish municipality) will be combined with register data in all years. This generates a unique cohort of public employees in different professions that are traceable over several years. The annual surveys include information on the management behaviour, WSC and employee outcomes. Fine-grained information on sickness absences will be matched for all employees and years under study. Moreover, confounders and the nested nature of the data will be considered
Valuing Prior Learning: Designing an ICT Artifact to Assess Professional Competences Through Text Mining
Get PDFPurpose: This paper introduces an ICT artifact that uses text mining to support the
innovative and standardized assessment of professional competences within the
validation of prior learning. By assessing, we mean comparing identified and
documented professional competences against a standard or reference point. We
evaluate the designed artifact by matching a set of curriculum vitae (CV) scraped from LinkedIn against a comprehensive model of professional competence.
Design/Methodology/Approach: A design science approach informed the
development and evaluation of the ICT artifact presented in this paper.
Findings: A proof of concept shows that the ICT artifact can support assessors within the validation of prior learning procedure. Rather the output of such an ICT artifact can be used to structure documentation in the validation process.
Research limitations/implications: Evaluating the artifact shows that ICT support
to assess documented learning outcomes is a promising endeavor but remains a
challenge. Further research should work on standardized ways to document professional competences, ICT artifacts that capture the semantic content of documents, and refine ontologies of theoretical models of professional competences.
Practical implications: Text mining methods to assess professional competences rely on large bodies of textual data - thus a thoroughly built and large portfolio is necessary as input for this ICT artifact.
Originality/value: Following the recent call of European policy makers to develop
standardized and ICT-based approaches for the assessment of professional competences, we designed and evaluated an ICT artifact that supports the automatized assessment of professional competences within the validation of prior learning
Taxation of cross-border distribution of profits in Albania: Does it approach the scope of the EU Parent-Subsidiary Directive?
Get PDFAlbania journey towards EU membership is governed by the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), signed on June 12th, 2006. This article rises above Albania's obligations for the alignment of its tax legislation with EU standards and acquis, clearly defined in Title VI of the SAA. Unlike any prior analysis of legal and political character published, it aims to analyze the extent to which the Albanian tax legislation comply with one of the most important legislative acts of the EU law, the Parent-Subsidiary Directive, which aims to eliminate double taxation in the distribution of cross-border dividends. Three main conclusions have been drawn: First, Albania seeks to eliminate double taxation arising from cross-border distribution of profits mainly through double tax treaties. Second, in case of inbound dividends, as the State of Residence of the parent company, unless the State of source has a double tax treaty with Albania, Albania’s tax legislation does not exempt or gives a credit for the foreign income tax already levied on the distributed profits. If the State of source has a DTT signed with Albania, Albania tax system follows an asymmetric approach, applying simultaneously the exemption method for the domestic intercompany dividends, but it provides no more than indirect credit for inbound cross-border intercompany dividends. Third, also for outbound dividends, as the State of source, Albania levies a withholding tax only for dividends and distributions of profits paid to non-residents, while it reduces or exempts the withholding tax only if Albania has signed a DTT with the other State. Although, cross-border double taxation is taken into account by Albanian tax legislation, seen in the context of the approximation of Albanian legislation with the EU law on direct taxation, Albania does not comply sufficiently with the objective scope of the Parent-Subsidiary Directive yet. Therefore, future changes in Albania direct tax legislation would line it up with EU objective on the free movement of capital and goods and the removal of obstacles for the internal market.Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Serie
Embedding Social Innovation and Service Learning in Higher Education's Third Sector Policy Developments in Austria
Get PDFSocial innovation in Austrian HEIs is discussed under the headline of their “Third Mission.” The HE sector is pressured to have more and more impact on society. Internationally speaking, many countries benefit from national policies and networks in the Third Sector, but policies in Austria were initiated only recently, in 2017, on a national level. Interestingly, the service learning approach as an innovative and socially responsible teaching methodology stands out in Austrian HE. This article classifies the developments of the Third Sector in Austria in the form of a policy brief. Austria has a growing community of practice in social innovation and service learning. The article gives insight into the strategic developments in Austria and is underpinned with recommendable action to be transferred to others
Live longer, retire later? Developments of healthy life expectancies and working life expectancies between age 50–59 and age 60–69 in Europe
Get PDFEurope’s population is ageing. Statutory retirement ages are commonly raised to account for continuous increases in life expectancy. In order to estimate the potential to increase statutory and consequently effective retirement ages further, in this study, we investigate the relationship between partial working life expectancy (WLE) and three health expectancies that represent health aspects important for work ability and employability between ages 50 and 59 as well as 60 and 69 for women and men in Europe. We also explore the association between these four indicators and the highest level of educational attainment. We apply Sullivan’s method to estimate WLE and three selected measures that capture general, physical, and cognitive health status of older adults for 26 European countries since 2004. Over time, WLEs increased significantly in the younger age group for women and in the older age group for both sexes. The expected number of years in good physical health have continuously been higher than any of the other three indicators, while the expected number of years in good cognitive health have shown a noticeable increase over time. The investigation of the relationship between education and each life expectancy confirms the well-established positive correlation between education and economic activity as well as good health. Our results indicate potential to extend working lives beyond current levels. However, significant differences in the expected number of years in good health between persons with different levels of education require policies that account for this heterogeneity
Zur Wichtigkeit von Zusatzangeboten in der Sterbegeldversicherung aus Kundensicht - Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie (243 Probanden/-innen) einschließlich aller Datensätze / On the Importance of Additional Options in Funeral Expense Insurance from the Customer’s Perspective - Results of an Empirical Study (243 Respondents) Including the Complete Database / Nr. 16 der „Wiener Beiträge zur Betriebswirtschaftlichen Versicherungswissenschaft“ (WrBtrgBwVersWiss)
Get PDFThe Good and the Bad. An Evaluation of Project-based Learning with Peer Assessment in a Large Class Context
Get PDFTo overcome the negative consequences associated with large class sizes and to support students in developing the necessary competences (e.g., critical thinking, problem-solving) a marketing course has been redesigned by implementing, as a voluntary course part, project-based learning with peer assessment (PBL&PA). This study aims to evaluate students’ perception towards PBL&PA using an online-questionnaire and students’ learning achievement using final grades. Among the 260 students who filled out the questionnaire, 47% participated in PBL&PA. Although students’ participation was initially extrinsically motivated, students mainly experienced learning and social benefits. Parts of the technical implementation, however, were judged negatively and team aspects generated mixed feelings. Examining students’ grades at the final exam uncovered that students who did not participate in any of the offered active learning tasks performed poorest while students who used all activities (clicker and PBL&PA) were best. In conclusion, goals of the implementation were met and usage is recommended
End-user Empowerment: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
Get PDFIn virtue of fast spreading emerging technologies, considering end-user empowerment (or human empowerment) while developing or adapting technologies gains importance. Even though many different approaches to end-user empowerment have been proposed, it is hardly clear what "end-user (human) empowerment" is and how it is possible to develop "end-user empowering systems". This paper offers an interdisciplinary perspective on how it can be possible to arrive at a synthesized concept of end-user empowerment, in particular regarding the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The provided interdisciplinary perspective includes concepts from Computer Science, Information Systems, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Sociology, Science-Technology-Society, Design, System Science and Philosophy. Based on an interdisciplinary literature review, and from an enactivist, pluralist, and constructivist perspective, we argue that the individual end-users and their needs and values, as well as the environment (including socioeconomical contexts, other actors, etc.) and technologies they interact with, continuously co-create the conception of end-user empowerment. Moreover, we propose that perceiving technological development as co-creation, and considering technologies as value-bearers could provide the first steps in the development of conceptual frameworks required for the development of end-user empowering systems
End-user Empowerment in the Digital Age
Get PDFEnd-user empowerment (or human empowerment) may be seen as an important aspect of a human-centric approach towards the digital economy. Despite the role of end-users has been recognized as a key element in information systems and end-user computing, empowering end-users may be seen as a next evolutionary step. This minitrack aims at advancing the understanding of what end-user empowerment really is, what the main challenges to develop end-user empowering systems are, and how end-user empowerment may be achieved in specific domains