Transnational economic governance

What role do contract enforcement institutions provided by the state play for economic development? This question has often been addressed. However, empirical research in this field looks predominantly at transactions that are conducted domestically. Less research exists regarding the enforceability of contracts in cross-border transactions. In other words, research that addresses the institutional foundations of international exchange processes is still in its infancy. The following case study investigates the contract enforcement institutions that enable German customers to purchase software in Asian and East European Countries. This paper`s main argument is that nation states are not capable of providing a workable legal infrastructure for cross-border transactions. Instead, economic actors create their own informal mechanisms in order to enforce their contracts. Particularly important are relational contracts and reputational networks. Furthermore, the empirical evidence shows that German enterprises comprehensively use the opportunities offered by new developments in information and communication technology, when it comes to the initiation and control of their foreign business relations. Due to such technical innovation, it therefore seems that both reputational networks and relational contracts gain more and more efficiency compared to state private law. --

Cross-border cooperation: the meaning of cognitive and normative expectations for the emergence of Global research and development cooperation

Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems, we analyse the importance of different styles of expectation (cognitive and normative) for global research and development. In our study, we find that contrary to Luhmann's prediction in 1971, the normative expectation style still plays a vital role for the cooperative deals under examination. The second result of our study is that non-state mechanismus such as reputation, resource-dependency and trust are highly important for the stabilization of normative expectations in global business transactions. The role of the state-based legal system is reduced to stabilizing few, albeit crucial, normative expectations. --

Transnational economic governance

What role do contract enforcement institutions provided by the state play for economic development? This question has often been addressed. However, empirical research in this field looks predominantly at transactions that are conducted domestically. Less research exists regarding the enforceability of contracts in cross-border transactions. In other words, research that addresses the institutional foundations of international exchange processes is still in its infancy. The following case study investigates the contract enforcement institutions that enable German customers to purchase software in Asian and East European Countries. This paper’s main argument is that nation states are not capable of providing a workable legal infrastructure for cross-border transactions. Instead, economic actors create their own informal mechanisms in order to enforce their contracts. Particularly important are relational contracts and reputational networks. Furthermore, the empirical evidence shows that German enterprises comprehensively use the opportunities offered by new developments in information and communication technology, when it comes to the initiation and control of their foreign business relations. Due to such technical innovation, it therefore seems that both reputational networks and relational contracts gain more and more efficiency compared to state private law

Braucht der Kunde seinen Meister? Zur Deregulierung des Handwerks

Die Monopolkommission und die von der Bundesregierung eingesetzte Deregulierungskommission haben schon vor Jahren eine grundlegende Reform der Handwerksordnung gefordert. Inwieweit haben sich diese Forderungen in politischen Maßnahmen niedergeschlagen? Wie stellt sich die rot/grüne Bundesregierung zu diesem Thema? --

MS

thesisIt has been shown by Edwards et al., Magnusson, Takeya, and others that delayed skin reactions engendered in guinea pigs are a valuable means of differentiating mycobacterial species and types. In the studies here reported the close relationship of avian and Battey bacilli in confirmed. Nevertheless, skin sensitivity of guinea pigs inoculated with various strains of GroupII-avian complex, clearly segregate these bacteria into 3 subgroups: (1) M avium strains, which regularly give a significantly greater reaction to aviin; (2) soil and water strains which sensitize to a minimal degree if at all; and (3) the Battey strains which sensitize about equally to aviin and batteyin. It appears highly improbable that the strains from soil or water, here tested, could be the source of so-called Battey disease or a batteyin skin sensitivity in man. The same is true of some strains from healthy people. But some strains from each of these sources, including people, Australian swine, and Japanese dogs yielded bacteria of the same sensitizing capacity as strains from patients. Twelve pigmented strains became segregated by our studies into 3 subgroups: (1) strongly, (2) weakly, and (3) nonsensitizing to scotochromin, the PPD prepared from a lymph node strain. Only the first subgroup, the strongly sensitizing, was related to disease. Biochemical properties of the mycobacteria investigated proved variable and failed to provide a basis for further subdivisions. However, urease activity may be helpful as Group II scotochromogens isolated from disease were urease-negative

The retention effect of training - portability, visibility, and credibility

This paper analyses the effect of training participation on employees’ retention in the training company. It for the first time empirically combines the human capital and the monopsony theory by jointly controlling for the portability, visibility, and credibility of training. Based on an extensive German linked-employer-employee data set with detailed information on training history (WeLL-ADIAB), we show that training increases employees’ retention. We compare the probability to stay at the same employer between training participants and accidental training non-participants (those who could not participate in planned training on the basis of exogeneous reasons). Higher portability of general human capital contents and visibility of training induced by training certificates however reduce the retention effect of training. Retention is further reduced when training is credibly provided and certified by external institutions, the full training effect on retention is still positive, however. We are careful to control for endogeneity of training participation in retention equations, unobserved time-invariant effects, and extensive individual and employer characteristics including wage increases and general job satisfaction

Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries to Understand Human Drivers of Environmental Threats

A wide range of ecological studies affirms the cumulative damage to ecosystem capital and services around the globe. They also point to the overwhelming role that anthropogenic or human drivers play in global ecological damage. The MAHB is intended to combine what we know about human drivers of environmental threats with what the social sciences know about changing human behavior and institutions. A variety of social sciences have taken up the first task of identifying the key human activities—at both the local, cumulative level and at the systemic level—most responsible for global environmental change. Considerable progress has been made in our understanding of land use and land cover change, of vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation, of the governance of common pool resources, and of demographic and economic factors. Each of these advances is the result of integrating ecological principals and findings into disciplined social science research. This presentation highlights one of these integrating approaches, the STIRPAT approach, that adds social and political variables and statistical sophistication from the social sciences to the widely adopted IPAT formula.
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Extending Static Synchronization Beyond SIMD and VLIW

A key advantage of SIMD (Single Instruction stream, Multiple Data stream) architectures is that synchronization is effected statically at compile-time, hence the execution-time cost of synchronization between “processes” is essentially zero. VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) machines are successful in large part because they preserve this property while providing more flexibility in terms of what kinds of operations can be parallelized. In this paper, we propose a new kind of architecture —- the “static barrier MIMD” or SBM — which can be viewed as a further generalization of the parallel execution abilities of static synchronization machines. Barrier MIMDs are asynchronous Multiple Instruction stream Multiple Data stream architectures capable of parallel execution of loops, subprogram calls, and variable execution- time instructions; however, little or no run-time synchronization is needed. When a group of processors within a barrier MIMD has just encountered a barrier, any conceptual synchronizations between the processors are statically accomplished with zero cost — as in a SIMD or VLIW and using similar compiler technology. Unlike these machines, however, as execution continues the relative timing of processors may become less precisely knowable as a static, compile-time, quantity. Where this imprecision becomes too large, the compiler simply inserts a synchronization barrier to insure that timing imprecision at that point is zero, and again employs purely static, implicit, synchronization. Both the architecture and the supporting compiler technology are discussed in detail