Technological Innovations and the Allocation of Decision-Making Authorities in Swiss Firms

Since several decades, information and communication technologies (ICT)� as well as new organizational designs change the working life in firms.� Using nationally representative Swiss firm-level panel data, the present paper analyzes the relationship between these developments and examines, whether ICT is associated with centralization or decentralization tendencies. The results suggest a positive� impact of ICT� on the degree of delegation. Furthermore, the diffusion of ICT use within� the workforce� and the intensity� of ICT investments are essential for the decentralization� effect of ICT. Thus, reduced agency costs owing to ICT use result in decentralized decision-making authorities in Swiss firms. The results are robust to potential endogeneity� biases like reversed causality and unobserved firm characteristics.

The European Central Bank and the eurosystem: An analysis of the missing central monetary institution in European Monetary Union

The Eurosystem is the fifth decentralized system in the history of central banks. It consists of the European Central Bank (ECB) and twelve National Central Banks (NCBs) forming the European Monetary Union (EMU). The stark decentrality of this System is so little known that ubiquitous statements by high level Euro experts on its supposed similarity with other decentralized systems, like the former Bundesbank System and the existing Federal Reserve System, are met with no protest. A closer look on European documents and the balance sheet of the ECB reveals, however, that the ECB – far from being the monopoly supplier of central bank money – cannot set the refinancing conditions to credit institutions in EMU. The latter are determined by the Council of Governors of the Eurosystem, while the main refinancing operations are executed by the NCBs leaving to the ECB the role of vicarious agent. The ECB can neither control all types of securities accepted for the NCBs’ credit operations nor is it able to act as lender of last resort. Yet, every possible manoeuvre to make the ECB look like a central bank of the NCBs is relentlessly employed, most obviously in the design of the Euro banknotes which are issued by the NCBs but carry only the imprint of the ECB, as well as by the ECB’s balance sheet as at 31 December 2002. The latter contains for the first time the item “banknotes in circulation” that are, however, issued by the NCBs and only allocated to the ECB. --

Research Trends & Emerging Technologies for Genealogists

This study examines current research methods utilized by genealogists, and seeks to discover the impact of emerging tools and technologies on their information seeking needs and behaviors. When it became clear that there is a shortage of scholarly studies identifying the use of newer technologies (i.e. blogs, social media, and apps), an original survey for genealogists was created. Over four hundred genealogists were surveyed regarding their use of both traditional research methods (methods that have existed for many decades) and Internet/electronic resources, in order to demonstrate which new trends are emerging. The data from the survey might lessen the gap in current scholarly research. Technology is constantly changing, and the findings show which trends are currently being utilized the most by genealogists. The results indicate that genealogists are definitely using more technology to research their family trees. In fact, they adapt fairly quickly to new methods, relying heavily on technology and the Internet to conduct research and share information. Due to the ease of using technology, fewer and fewer genealogists rely on in-house visits to repositories to access original documents. The research concludes with a discussion on where the use of technology for genealogical research is headed, and what genealogists hope to accomplish by using new tools and technologies