Business Case Development for Inter-Organizational ES Implementations

This paper describes my PhD research on the development of business case guidelines that can be used for complex information system implementations, such as inter-organizational enterprise systems (ES). I identify problems and solutions related to the issue of estimating the costs and benefits of such complex implementations. Next to describing the research method used in my PhD project, I discuss what my research adds to the body of research and why this work is of interest for both the research community and practitioners

Costs, Benefits and Value Distribution – Ingredients for Successful Cross-Organizational ES Business Cases

This paper introduces my PhD research project on developing guidelines for creating successful business cases for Enterprise System implementations in network settings. Three important aspects that were found to be important in such business cases are: the costs, benefits and the value distribution within a network. Each of the three aspects is addressed in this paper and the relationships between them are pointed out. A research model is presented showing how all three aspects contribute to the main goal of defining successful business case guidelines

The Determinants of Smoking Initiation - Empirical Evidence for Germany

This paper aims at analyzing the determinants of the decision to start smoking using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The data used is a combination of retrospective information on the age individuals started smoking and,by tracing back these individuals within the panel structure up to the point they started smoking, information on characteristics at the age of smoking initiation. In contrast to other papers, it is possible to control for the environment at the time of smoking onset that might have influenced the decision to start. Moreover, never-smokers can be distinguished from ex-smokers. I estimate discrete, but also continuous time hazard models. Results indicate that young higher educated individuals are less likely to start, whereas the hazard of starting among older individuals is not affected by education. Furthermore, parental smoking during the whole childhood significantly increases the probability to start. Almost no significant effects are found regarding parental education, labor market status and living in a large city. Price effects could not be identified, because in Germany prices did not vary during the last decades up to 2002.GSOEP, youths, discrete time hazard model, log-logistic duration analysis

Who Smokes and How Much? - Empirical Evidence for Germany

Smoking is associated with high economic costs, because it increases the risk and incidence of several illnesses. A promising instrument to reduce these costs is to decrease tobacco consumption by developing target group-oriented non-smoking campaigns. However, this purpose requires knowledge about the characteristics of the target group. Utilizing data from three waves of the Mikrozensus, this paper portrays the smoking population in Germany to ascertain the socio-demographic characteristics which are associated with (i) smoking prevalence and (ii) the conditional demand for cigarettes. The empirical results indicate that a target group-oriented non-smoking campaign should focus primarily on individuals with a lower level of education and income, singles, divorced or widowed individuals and unemployed, because these sub-groups of the population exhibit the highest smoking prevalence. Moreover, individuals with a lower level of education as well as singles, divorced or widowed individuals also tend to smoke more.Smoking, socio-demographic characteristics, Mikrozensus

Who are the outsiders and what do they want? Welfare state preferences in dualized societies

This paper makes three contributions. First, it presents a new conceptualization and measurement of outsider-status, which is based on social class and which takes into account that the category of outsiders is composed differently in different countries, depending on labor markets and welfare states. Second, it argues theoretically and shows empirically that the class-based measure of insider-and outsider status has a stronger explanatory power with regard to individual-level welfare preferences than the measure based on labor market status. And third, it demonstrates empirically that dualization, combined with skill-levels, shapes people’s preferences with regard to different welfare policies: Outsiders have stronger preferences for redistribution and for social investment than insiders. The analyses are based on micro-level ISSP data.labour contract; political economy; social policy; unemployment; welfare state

The Educational and Professional Background of Central Bankers and its Effect on Inflation – An Empirical Analysis

We assume that central banks can control inflation so that inflation rates reflect the preferences of the central bank council.The hypothesis to be tested is that these preferences depend on the central bankers’ educational and/or professional background. In a panel data analysis for the euro area and eleven countries since 1973,we explain inflation first by the weights which the various educational and professional characteristics occupy in the central bank council and second by the education or profession of the median central bank council member. Our results indicate that, with regard to professional background, former members of the central bank staff as well as former bankers and businessmen have the strongest inflation aversion and that former trade unionists and politicians seem to have the highest inflation preference.As for the education of the council members, our results are less robust. However, if the median member of the central bank council has studied business, the inflation rate is significantly lower than if she has studied economics.Central Bank, Monetary policy, Interest groups

Smoking in Germany: Stylized Facts, Behavioral Models, and Health Policy

It is well known that smoking causes severe adverse health effects, and it seems evident that governments are justified or even obliged to implement measures of tobacco control to mitigate these effects.Yet, as this paper argues with a distinct focus on Germany, the three most important and still largely open questions in the design and implementation of economic and health policy are, whether government action is justified at all, what behavioral patterns this policy should try to alter, and whether the policy measures chosen indeed exert any substantial effects on the targeted outcomes.We conclude that the case for control measures aiming at the prevention of smoking initiation among adolescents is indeed strong, but also that their proper design would benefit from a better understanding of behavioral issues and that their empirical evaluation requires (non-experimental) study designs that facilitate the identification of causal effects.Tobacco, tobacco control, rational addiction