L'abolition des monopoles d'assurances immobilières en Allemagne: Leçons pour la Suisse

We study, what Switzerland can learn from the disappearance of the property insurance monopolies in Germany. We show that the German insurance monopolies did not fight hard enough to defend their interests. a) Most of them knew that they would be bought up by another public insurance company. The monopoly was not for them a question of survival. b) The German monopolies did not have their own interest group. They were defended by the Association of Public Insurers. This association has much wider interests to defend than just the monopolies in the property insurance market. c) For the small customer the disappearance of the state monopolies was a painful event. Within five years their premium rates rose by about 50%, and the contributions paid by the insurance companies for fire prevention fell massively. It is well known, however, that consumers do not constitute a powerful pressure group

Bases économiques pour une loi sur la protection des locataires

Le droit suisse du logement ne fait pas la différence entre les taux d'intérêt nominaux et les taux d'intérêt réels. Il en résulte une forte sur-indexation des loyers en périodes de taux d'inflation élevés. En raison de cette lacune conceptuelle de la loi sur la protection des locataires, ces derniers ont payé environ 9 milliards de francs de loyers en trop durant la période 1990-1996. Le moyen le plus simple de résoudre ce problème serait de détacher les loyers du taux d'intérêt hypothécaire, et permettre une indexation intégrale des loyers. Pour des raisons macro-économiques, il serait souhaitable d'échelonner cette indexation sur plusieurs années

Überlegungen zur Gewinnausschüttung der Schweizerischen Nationalbank

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) currently holds reserves of more than 40 billion CHF. In the future she wishes to increase her reserves by about 1 billion CHF per year. The new law on the SNB must be used to make the SNB behave according to the same standards as other national banks. Her reserves should be limited to 30 billion CHF, which would still make her the richest central bank in the world. Almost all her future profits should be distributed. To improve her incentives to pursue a responsible investment strategy, her profits should be calculated using only her flow income and expenditures. She should cover capital losses from her reserves

La proposition du Conseil fédéral pour le nouveau droit du bail à loyer: une analyse économique

This paper critically analyses the proposed law for regulating the rental housing market. The swiss tenants have made mostly negative experiences with the rate of return regulation practiced in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, the new law does not address these problems. If the new proposed law were to be enacted, it would probably lead to a significant rise in real rents in the near future. The shortcomings of the proposal are such that it has to be completely revised. We advocate a laissez-faire solution for the contracting of new leases combined with indexation on the CPI for on-going leases. Such a measure would permit a market evolution satisfying both landlords and tenants

Der Bericht der Expertengruppe: "Reform der Währungsordnung". Eine kritische Würdigung

The proposed new law for the Swiss National Bank attempts to establish the SNB as an entity, which is practically uncontrolled by the democratic institutions of our country. The proposal has to be fundamentally remodelled, taking into account the following principles: The more independence the SNB has, the stricter should be the rules on transparency and accountability. Decisions having a direct effect on the tax burden of the citizen cannot be left to the discretion of the SNB. The SNB's excess reserves should be reduced by a one shot transfer of ca. 20 billion francs. In future the SNB should distribute most of its profits (roughly 4 billion francs per year), rather than increase its already excessive stock of foreign exchange reserves

The benefits of introducing a mandatory state hurricane insurance scheme in Florida

As a result of its hurricane exposure, Florida is probably the part of the industrialised world most prone to natural catastrophes. Over the last 20 years the Florida legislator has tried to maintain a situation, where the private insurance sector plays a major role in providing hurricane-insurance. Its attempts to keep such insurance affordable have, however, led to a situation, where the public sector still ends up bearing a large part of the risk. Drawing on the experience of various European countries with mandatory state run catastrophe insurance schemes, we argue that the cost of hurricane insurance for the population could be substantially reduced, if Florida created a similar institution. The massive reduction in sales costs, loss adjustment costs and general administrative costs would allow such a system to work with premiums that are on average 25% lower. The problems of adverse selection which plague the current situation would of course (by definition) be eliminated

Management der oberen Atemwege beim spontan atmenden Kind: Eine Herausforderung für den Anästhesisten

Zusammenfassung: Partielle und totale Atemwegsobstruktionen treten bei spontan atmenden, bewusstlosen oder anästhesierten Kindern häufig auf und können eine adäquate Sauerstoffversorgung gefährden. Das Offenhalten der oberen Atemwege ist daher die wichtigste und effektivste Maßnahme in dieser Situation: Kinn hochheben ("chin lift"), Unterkiefer nach vorne verschieben ("jaw thrust", Esmarch-Handgriff) und kontinuierlich positiver Atemwegsdruck ("continuous positive airway pressure", CPAP) öffnen nachgewiesenermaßen den Atemweg. Neben diesen einfachen Atemwegsmanövern führen auch verschiedene Lagerungstechniken (Seitenlage oder Rückenlage unter Einnahme der "Schnüffelposition") zu einer besseren Öffnung und Stabilität des oberen Atemweg

Leniency Programs in a Multimarket Setting: Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus

We examine the effect of Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus on firms' initial selfreporting decision, in one market, by altering their whistle-blowing incentives in another market. Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus are proactive US strategies which aim at triggering multiple confessions by increasing the incentives of already convicted firms to report in a second market where they collude. Predictably, conditional on the conviction of one cartel, Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus strengthen firms' incentives to report the remaining cartel. However, Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus have an ambiguous impact on firms' incentives to apply for amnesty in the first place: On the one hand, Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus may help to sustain a cartel, otherwise reported under the EC Leniency Program. On the other hand, Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus may induce immediate reporting of both cartels whereas only one of them would have been reported under the EC Leniency Program

Risk Selection in Natural Disaster Insurance -The Case of France

It is widely recognized that "market failure" prevents efficient risk sharing in natural disaster insurance. As a consequence, many countries adopted institutional frameworks presenting public sector participation, often praised as public-private partnerships. We define risk selection as a situation where private companies pass insurance of high risk agents on to the public "partner", arguing that this is a potentially important issue in such situations. In order to illustrate our concerns we look at the case of France. We build a simple model that incorporates the main features of the system, such as the uniform premium rate in both high and low risk regions and the existence of a state reinsurer. We show that in our model, risk selection is likely to be present at equilibrium and discuss the policy options available. When comparing with the actual situation in France we find that the "stylized facts" of the system correspond to our results. Additionally, the policies implemented by the government correspond to policies characterized to reduce the potential of risk selection

Impact of depth of propofol anaesthesia on functional residual capacity and ventilation distribution in healthy preschool children

Background Propofol is commonly used in children undergoing diagnostic interventions under anaesthesia or deep sedation. Because hypoxaemia is the most common cause of critical deterioration during anaesthesia and sedation, improved understanding of the effects of anaesthetics on pulmonary function is essential. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of different levels of propofol anaesthesia on functional residual capacity (FRC) and ventilation distribution. Methods In 20 children without cardiopulmonary disease mean age (sd) 49.75 (13.3) months and mean weight (sd) 17.5 (3.9)kg, anaesthesia was induced by a bolus of i.v. propofol 2mgkg−1 followed by an infusion of propofol 120µgkg−1min−1 (level I). Then, a bolus of propofol 1mgkg−1 was given followed by a propofol infusion at 240µgkg−1min−1 (level II). FRC and lung clearance index (LCI) were calculated at each level of anaesthesia using multibreath analysis. Results The FRC mean (sd) decreased from 20.7 (3.3)mlkg−1 at anaesthesia level I to 17.7 (3.9)mlkg−1 at level II (P < 0.0001). At the same time, mean (sd) LCI increased from 10.4 (1.1) to 11.9 (2.2) (P = 0.0038), whereas bispectral index score values decreased from mean (sd) 57.5 (7.2) to 35.5 (5.9) (P < 0.0001). Conclusions Propofol elicited a deeper level of anaesthesia that led to a significant decrease of the FRC whereas at the same time the LCI, an index for ventilation distribution, increased indicating an increased vulnerability to hypoxaemi