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Der Fall des Assad-Regimes: Regionale und internationale Machtverschiebungen
No full textAm 8. Dezember 2024 wurde in Syrien das Assad-Regime durch eine von Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) angeführte Rebellenallianz gestürzt. Dabei haben Veränderungen in den regionalen und internationalen Kräfteverhältnissen den Zusammenbruch der Familiendiktatur erst ermöglicht. Entscheidende Faktoren waren die Unterstützung der Rebellen durch die Türkei, die Schwächung von Iran und Hisbollah durch israelische Militärschläge sowie eine veränderte Prioritätensetzung Russlands im Kontext seines Krieges gegen die Ukraine. Gleichzeitig haben sich mit dem Sturz des Regimes auch die Machtverhältnisse in der Region weiter verschoben. Die Interessen, Prioritäten und Aktivitäten der regionalen und internationalen Akteure werden den Handlungsspielraum der neuen Machthaber in Damaskus abstecken. Die Türkei und Israel haben Gebiete im Norden bzw. Südwesten des Landes militärisch besetzt. Einfluss werden auch die arabischen Golfmonarchien nehmen, die für einen Wiederaufbau Syriens von herausgehobener Bedeutung sind. Die USA sind dort heute noch mit Truppen präsent, ihr künftiges Engagement in Syrien ist jedoch ungeklärt
The role of military directors in holding the CEO accountable for poor firm performance
No full textResearch Summary: Why do some boards of directors dismiss the CEO when a firm performs poorly, while others do not? We argue that military directors—outside directors with military backgrounds—on the board increase the likelihood of CEO dismissal under low‐performance conditions. Military service instills a lifelong system of values and beliefs related to accountability—the obligation to accept responsibility for one's own actions and outcomes—which leads military directors to attribute low performance to the CEO and hold the CEO strictly accountable for such performance. This argument is supported by extensive quantitative data on CEO dismissal in publicly listed firms and qualitative data obtained from interviews with military directors who have served on boards of those firms. Managerial Summary: Military directors—outside directors with military backgrounds—frequently occupy seats on the boards of publicly listed firms in the United States. Military service instills an enduring system of values and beliefs rooted in accountability, which, we argue, makes military directors more inclined to attribute performance shortfalls to the CEO and advocate for more rigorous CEO accountability, resulting in CEO dismissal. Our argument is supported by quantitative data on CEO dismissals within publicly listed firms and qualitative data derived from interviews with military directors who have served on boards of those firms. Our findings underscore that principles ingrained via military service may influence corporate governance, particularly one of its core components: executive accountability
Queueing to learn
No full textI study the efficient design of a queue to dynamically allocate a scarce resource to long-lived agents. Agents can be served multiple times, and their valuations fluctuate over time with some persistence. Each agent privately learns whether his prevailing valuation is high or low only when served. An agent can decide anytime whether to either join a queue of his choice or renege. I show that it is efficient to elicit agents' private information by offering a simple binary menu (i.e., two customer classes): a first-come, first-served queue, to attract low-value agents, and one in random order, to attract high-value agents. When queueing is costly, offering a single queue may be optimal because of the tradeoff between allocative efficiency and the cost of screening
The geopolitical externality of climate policy
No full textThis paper formalizes the geopolitical externality of climate policy and estimates its plausible magnitudes. Specifically, domestic reductions in fossil fuel demand depress global prices, thereby lowering export revenues for resource-rich autocracies - many of which allocate substantial resources to military spending. As a result, climate policy reduces geopolitical and security burdens on Western democracies, offering a potential "peace dividend" as a cobenefit. Exploiting the link between the European Union's oil consumption and the EU's costs of the Russian war in Ukraine as a case study, we highlight the relevance of this externality. We estimate that each euro spent on oil in the EU generates geopolitical costs of 0.37 [0.01 - 4.7] euros related to Russia's war on Ukraine. Based on our central estimate, a carbon price of 62 euros per ton of CO2 would be required to internalize these costs. Even under conservative assumptions, our analysis highlights that the geopolitical externality offers a compelling argument for strong unilateral efforts to reduce fossil fuel demand in the EU
Consumer preferences for sustainably sourced seafood: Implications for fisheries dynamics and management
No full textMany fish consumers reveal a preference for sustainably sourced seafood in their purchasing decisions. We propose a bioeconomic modeling approach and an empirical strategy, based on a discrete choice experiment, to quantify the resulting effects on fishery dynamics and to derive implications for efficient fishery management. We show that a “consumer stock effect” arises, which stabilizes a fishery under open access and which decreases catches under economically efficient management. We quantify these effects for the Western Baltic cod fishery
From framework to industrial implementation: the digital twin in process planning
Get PDFIn today’s fast-paced market, companies are challenged to meet increasing customer demands and shorter product life cycles. To successfully respond to these demands, companies must produce a wide variety of different products. This requires the determination of necessary processes and resources for each product, which can be difficult for process engineers due to the high manual effort and expertise involved. The current state of research has not yet provided explicit definitions of the necessary knowledge and has not fully achieved complete process planning automation. To address this challenge, a digital twin is a valuable tool for automating and understanding process planning. This paper presents a digital twin concept for process planning. It automatically analyzes the product, determines production processes, and selects appropriate resources by linking information about products, resources, and processes. The effectiveness of the digital twin concept is demonstrated through verified and validated use cases, including the production of a compressor element
Discipline Reform, School Culture, and Student Achievement
Get PDFDoes relaxing strict school discipline improve student achievement, or lead to classroom disorder? We study a 2012 reform in New York City public middle schools that eliminated suspensions for non-violent, disorderly behavior. Math scores of students in more-affected schools rose by 0.05 standard deviations over three years relative to other schools. Reading scores rose by 0.03 standard deviations. Only a small portion of these aggregate benefits can be explained by the direct impact of eliminating suspensions on students who would have been suspended under the old policy. Instead, test score gains are associated with improvements in school culture, as measured by the quality of student-teacher relationships and perceptions of safety at school. We find no evidence of trade-offs between students, with students benefiting even if they were unlikely to be suspended themselves
The antecedents of MNC political risk and uncertainty under right-wing populist governments
Get PDFRight-wing populist parties who obtain governmental power rely on ethno-nationalist mobilization for domestic legitimacy. They may therefore adopt policies that explicitly seek to disadvantage foreign multinational corporations (MNCs). Understanding what factors increase a foreign MNC's exposure to adverse action by right-wing populists is an understudied question in the field of international business policy. We investigate this question in post-socialist member states of the European Union, which constitute extreme cases of right-wing populist government power. As such, they constitute a fertile ground to further our theoretical understanding of the distinction between calculable political risk and incalculable political uncertainty. Through a case study-based theory-building approach, which draws on existing literature and interview data, we derive a series of propositions and develop a research agenda. We identify factors at the country-, sector-, and firm-level that influence exposure to adverse policy action by host-country governments. We explore when political risk may turn into political uncertainty and provide suggestions to foreign MNCs operating in right-wing populist contexts on how to reduce this uncertainty. Our study provides insights for policy makers too, who should be aware of the impact political shifts towards right-wing populist governments have on political uncertainty for foreign companies.Rechtspopulistische Parteien, die an die Regierung kommen, stützen sich auf eine ethno-nationalistische Mobilisierung, um sich im Inland zu legitimieren. Sie können daher politische Maßnahmen ergreifen, die ausdrücklich darauf abzielen, ausländische multinationale Unternehmen (MNU) zu benachteiligen. Welche Faktoren das Risiko für ausländische MNU erhöhen, von Rechtspopulisten benachteiligt zu werden, ist im Bereich der internationalen Unternehmenspolitik noch nicht ausreichend erforscht. Wir untersuchen diese Frage in den postsozialistischen Mitgliedsstaaten der Europäischen Union, die extreme Fälle von rechtspopulistischer Regierungsmacht darstellen. Als solche bilden sie einen fruchtbaren Boden, um unser theoretisches Verständnis der Unterscheidung zwischen berechenbarem politischem Risiko und unberechenbarer politischer Unsicherheit zu vertiefen. Mithilfe eines auf Fallstudien basierenden Ansatzes zur Theoriebildung, der sich auf vorhandene Literatur und Interviewdaten stützt, leiten wir eine Reihe von Thesen ab und entwickeln eine Forschungsagenda. Wir identifizieren Faktoren auf Länder-, Branchen- und Unternehmensebene, die das Risiko von negativen politischen Maßnahmen der Regierungen der Gastländer beeinflussen. Wir untersuchen, wann ein politisches Risiko in politische Unsicherheit umschlagen kann, und geben ausländischen MNU, die in rechtspopulistischen Kontexten tätig sind, Empfehlungen, wie sie diese Unsicherheit verringern können. Unsere Studie liefert auch Erkenntnisse für politische Entscheidungsträger, die sich der Auswirkungen politischer Verschiebungen hin zu rechtspopulistischen Regierungen auf die politische Unsicherheit für ausländische Unternehmen bewusst sein sollten
Investment in risky assets and participation in the financial market: does financial literacy matter?
No full textOur study contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between financial literacy and households' investments in risky assets. We estimate a structural equation model with data from the Panel on Household Finances of the German central bank. Our results show that although households' net wealth is the dominant driver of investments in risky assets, financial literacy plays a remarkable role. Financial literacy has an indirectly positive influence on participation in the financial market. The higher the financial literacy, the lower is the risk aversion. The lower the risk aversion, the higher is the participation in the financial market
