The Origins of the German Corporation – Finance, Ownership and Control

The ownership of German corporations is quite different today from that of Anglo-American firms. How did this come about? To what extent is it attributable to regulation? A specially constructed data set on financing and ownership of German corporations from the end of the 19th century reveals that, as in the UK, there was a high degree of activity on German stock markets with firms issuing equity in preference to borrowing from banks, and insider and family ownership declining rapidly. However, unlike in the UK, other companies and banks emerged as the main holders of equity, with banks holding shares primarily as custodians of other investors rather than on their own account. The changing pattern of ownership concentration was therefore very different from that of the UK with regulation reinforcing the control that banks exercised on behalf of other investors

Dynamic Time-Dependent Route Planning in Road Networks with User Preferences

There has been tremendous progress in algorithmic methods for computing driving directions on road networks. Most of that work focuses on time-independent route planning, where it is assumed that the cost on each arc is constant per query. In practice, the current traffic situation significantly influences the travel time on large parts of the road network, and it changes over the day. One can distinguish between traffic congestion that can be predicted using historical traffic data, and congestion due to unpredictable events, e.g., accidents. In this work, we study the \emph{dynamic and time-dependent} route planning problem, which takes both prediction (based on historical data) and live traffic into account. To this end, we propose a practical algorithm that, while robust to user preferences, is able to integrate global changes of the time-dependent metric~(e.g., due to traffic updates or user restrictions) faster than previous approaches, while allowing subsequent queries that enable interactive applications

The Origins of the German Corporation – Finance, Ownership and Control

The ownership of German corporations is quite different today from that of Anglo-American firms. How did this come about? To what extent is it attributable to regulation? A specially constructed data set on financing and ownership of German corporations from the end of the 19th century reveals that, as in the UK, there was a high degree of activity on German stock markets with firms issuing equity in preference to borrowing from banks, and insider and family ownership declining rapidly. However, unlike in the UK, other companies and banks emerged as the main holders of equity, with banks holding shares primarily as custodians of other investors rather than on their own account. The changing pattern of ownership concentration was therefore very different from that of the UK with regulation reinforcing the control that banks exercised on behalf of other investors.Evolution of ownership; German stock markets; financial regulation

Bargaining behavior in insurance markets

We rationalize a special type of sharing information which can typically be found in markets for occupational disability insurances. There, firms share information about acceptances and rejections of an applicant. We set up a multiple-step signalling model with uninformed agents and endogenize competing principals' decisions to acquire information on risk types. We formalize the idea that information exchange also serves as a tool to signal an applicant's switching type. This may lessen competition and increase industry profits or result in a higher share of uninsured applicants as compared to a market without information sharing. In any case, consumer welfare is reduced. Our model also helps to understand why access to the system is not made dependent on the provision of own data. In addition, we rationalize the existence of anonymous prequalification tests that allow consumers to gain information about their risk type without risking to enter a system entry

Altered Placental Expression of PAPPA2 Does Not Affect Birth Weight in Mice

Background: Pregnancy-associated plasma protein A2 (PAPPA2) is an insulin-like growth factor binding protein (IGFBP)protease expressed in the placenta and upregulated in pregnancies complicated by pre-eclampsia. The mechanismlinking PAPPA2 expression and pre-eclampsia and the consequences of altered PAPPA2 expression remain unknown.We previously identified PAPPA2 as a candidate gene for a quantitative trait locus (QTL) affecting growth in mice and inthe present study examined whether this QTL affects placental PAPPA2 expression and, in turn, placental or embryonicgrowth.Methods: Using a line of mice that are genetically homogenous apart from a 1 megabase QTL region containing thePAPPA2 gene, we bred mice homozygous for alternate QTL genotypes and collected and weighed placentae andembryos at E12.5. We used quantitative RT-PCR to measure the mRNA levels of PAPPA2, as well as mRNA levels ofIGFBP-5 (PAPPA2\u27s substrate), and PAPPA (a closely related IGFBP protease) to examine potential feedback andcompensation effects. Western blotting was used to quantify PAPPA2 protein. Birth weight was measured inpregnancies allowed to proceed to parturition.Results: PAPPA2 mRNA and protein expression levels in the placenta differed by a factor of 2.5 between genotypes, butwe did not find a significant difference between genotypes in embryonic PAPPA2 mRNA levels. Placental IGFBP-5 andPAPPA mRNA expression levels were not altered in response to PAPPA2 levels, and we could not detect IGFBP-5 proteinin the placenta by Western blotting. The observed difference in placental PAPPA2 expression had no significant effecton placental or embryonic mass at mid-gestation, birth weight or litter size.Conclusions: Despite a significant difference between genotypes in placental PAPPA2 expression similar in magnitudeto the difference between pre-eclamptic and normal placentae previously reported, we observed no difference inembryonic, placental or birth weight. Our results suggest that elevated PAPPA2 levels are a consequence, rather than acause, of pregnancy complications