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Measuring income inequality in social networks
No full textWe present a new index for measuring income inequality in networks. The index is based on income comparisons made by the members of a network who are linked with each other by direct social connections. To model the comparisons, we compose a measure of relative deprivation for networks. We base our new index on this measure. The index takes the form of a ratio: the network’s aggregate level of relative deprivation divided by the aggregate level of the relative deprivation of a hypothetical network in which one member of the network receives all the income, and it is with this member that the other members of the network compare their incomes. We discuss the merits of this representation. We inquire how changes in the composition of a network affect the index. In addition, we show how the index accommodates specific network characteristics
Innovationsmotor Start-ups: Herausforderungen und politische Unterstützung
No full textBeim Überführen neuer Ideen und neuen Wissens in marktfähige Produkte spielen Start-ups eine zentrale Rolle. Zwar verfügt Deutschland mit einer starken Forschungslandschaft und einer soliden industriellen Basis über gute Voraussetzungen für Start-ups, allerdings bestehen erhebliche Hindernisse, die verhindern, dass die Potenziale für Start-ups ausgeschöpft werden. Dazu gehören Hemmnisse bei der Finanzierung sowie bei der Etablierung am Markt und der Skalierung. Akademischen Spin-offs und Spin-outs aus bestehenden Unternehmen sind zudem speziellen Hemmnissen ausgesetzt. Die neue Bundesregierung ist gefordert, die Rahmenbedingungen für Start-ups zügig und mit Nachdruck zu verbessern
Legislation, regulation, and litigation: Demand for US legal services in historical perspective
Get PDFThe employment share of legal services in the US more than doubled during 1970-1990. At the same time, the relative wages of lawyers and law firm partners increased by 60 percent. This demand shift was driven by important legislative and regulatory events. These increased the scope of the law, uncertainty, sensitivity to effort, and potential for rents. 40 percent of expenditures on legal services are excessive, about USD 75 billion in 2024 alone
Can U.S. venture capital contracts be transplanted into Europe? Systematic evidence from Germany and Italy
No full textA vast literature has examined the contractual technology that venture capital (VC) funds and entrepreneurs deploy in the U.S. to define an agency cost-minimising structure of their relationship, leading many to conclude that U.S. VC contracts are the best real-world solution to the challenges bedeviling the financing of high-tech innovative startups and a model for VC transactional practice worldwide. Yet, whether VC funds and entrepreneurs can replicate the allocation of cash-flow and control rights resulting from U.S. VC contracts in non-U.S. jurisdictions has long been open to discussion. Research by financial economists and legal scholars have reached diverging conclusions. The existing literature exhibits three limitations, though. First, it has generally investigated at most only how a subset of the individual components of U.S. VC contracts fare under non-U.S. corporate laws. Second, it has typically considered the law on the books as opposed to the law in action. Third, it has relied on a loose definition of what qualifies as an effective substitute. This article examines how U.S. VC contracts fare under the corporate law regimes in force in two important European jurisdictions: Germany and Italy. It does so by taking a new approach to the matter. First, it considers the entire set of arrangements included in U.S. VC contracts rather than a sample. Second, it assesses the legality of those arrangements in the light of the applicable corporate law in action rather than the law on the books. Third, in assessing arrangements that deviate from U.S. private ordering solutions due to restrictive corporate law, it focuses on contract functionality rather than contract design. The results of the inquiry are straightforward: German and Italian corporate laws literally crash contracting parties' ambition to transplant U.S. VC contracts into their own jurisdictions and only allow for alternative arrangements that, if available at all, are costlier and/or less functional
Europäischer Tarifbericht des WSI - 2024/2025: Gewerkschaften streiken erfolgreich für reale Tariferhöhungen
No full textIm Jahr 2024 haben die Gewerkschaften in Europa erstmals seit Beginn des Preisauftriebs wieder auf breiter Front reale Tariferhöhungen durchgesetzt. Um gegen Kaufkraftverluste vorzugehen, griffen sie dabei vermehrt zu Arbeitskampfmaßnahmen. Die beiden vergangenen Jahre waren deshalb in vielen Ländern von Streiks geprägt - und zwar auch dort, wo diese sonst eher die Ausnahme sind. Trotzdem gibt es in den meisten Ländern der Europäischen Union weiterhin Aufholbedarf. Dies gilt auch für Deutschland, wo das reale Tarifniveau im vergangenen Jahr noch deutlich unterhalb des Vorkrisenniveaus lag
The Green Transformation and the Costs of Market Fundamentalism
No full textThe structural theory of green transformation acknowledges the complexity of the transformation process and suggests a state-led approach with green industrial policy at its core. In contrast, the market-fundamentalist approach to the transformation problem relies on carbon pricing and the assumption of smooth adjustment to rising market prices. We argue that the recent energy crisis in Germany provides a test of market fundamentalism. We show that the behavior of key macroeconomic variables contradicts the market-fundamentalist theory of green transformation. We also detail how mainstream economists and the policy establishment held on to their belief in self-regulating markets despite the empirical failure of market fundamentalism, which led to policy mistakes with large economic and political costs. Policy making based on market fundamentalism caused substantial damage to Germany's economy and helped the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) double its political support
Accounting for Spatial Autocorrelation in Algorithm-Driven Hedonic Models: A Spatial Cross-Validation Approach
Get PDFData-driven machine learning algorithms have initiated a paradigm shift in hedonic house price and rent modeling through their ability to capture highly complex and non-monotonic relationships. Their superior accuracy compared to parametric model alternatives has been demonstrated repeatedly in the literature. However, the statistical independence of the data implicitly assumed by resampling-based error estimates is unlikely to hold in a real estate context as price-formation processes in property markets are inherently spatial, which leads to spatial dependence structures in the data. When performing conventional cross-validation techniques for model selection and model assessment, spatial dependence between training and test data may lead to undetected overfitting and overoptimistic perception of predictive power. This study sheds light on the bias in cross-validation errors of tree-based algorithms induced by spatial autocorrelation and proposes a bias-reduced spatial cross-validation strategy. The findings confirm that error estimates from non-spatial resampling methods are overly optimistic, whereas spatially conscious techniques are more dependable and can increase generalizability. As accurate and unbiased error estimates are crucial to automated valuation methods, our results prove helpful for applications including, but not limited to, mass appraisal, credit risk management, portfolio allocation and investment decision making
Sicherheit, Risiko und Resilienz – Bedeutung für Festivals
Get PDFSafety and Security, risk and resilience represent important factors for a successful festival. The paper describes the role of safety and the challenges which are derived from it. The role and responsibilies of the different stakeholders are briefly described before discussing risk and its components. Explicitely it will be distinguished between the risk itself and the result of the situation, when a risk caused an unwanted effect with a possible danger for the visitors. The opportunities to cope with it include the importance of resilience of people and societies. The paper ends with a summary which shows the linkage of the dimensions risk, safety and resilience