Trends of Developments in the Information Systems of the Soviet Union and the Comecon Countries

published or submitted for publicatio

Why Run a Million Regressions? Endogenous Policy and Cross-Country Growth Empirics

This paper analyses the link between growth and public policy when the latter depends on economically important fundamentals. When policy is endogenous the measured effects of policy on growth will generally be biased. Using a widely quoted theoretical model, the signs of the biases are derived. It is shown that the usually reported effects on growth of tax rate variables related to GDP, the ratio of public investment to total investment and the ratio of redistributive transfers to GDP are generally biased downwards. Based on these signed biases the paper discusses some empirical results that seem puzzling from a theoretical viewpoint.

On the politicization of intergovernmental fiscal relations in Germany after unification

A recent decision of the German Constitutional Court requires political decision makers to revise the system of intergovernmental transfers in order to limit free bargaining among state and federal government officials. The present paper provides empirical support for the thesis that political discretion has become increasingly important in the transfer negotiations after Unification. We attempt to show why political influences gained weight relative to economic considerations in the determination of net gains. This politicization of the fiscal transfer system appears to be a consequence of the inability of policy makers to agree on a fundamental reform in the early 1990's.

Simulation based evaluation of time-variant loadings acting on tunnel linings during mechanized tunnel construction

In the design of machine driven tunnels, the loadings acting on the segmental lining are often adopted according to simplified assumptions, which improperly reflect the actual loading on the linings developing during the construction of a bored tunnel. A coupled 3D Finite Element model of the tunnel advancement process including the ring-wise installation of the lining and the hardening process of the grouting material serves as the basis for the analysis of the actual spatiotemporal evolution of the loading on the lining during tunnel construction. The distribution of the loadings in the different construction phases is calculated using a modified surface-to-surface contact condition imposed between the solidifying grouting material in the tail gap and the lining elements. An extensive parametric study investigates the influence of the initial grouting pressure, the pressure gradient, the temporal stiffness evolution, the soil permeability as well as the interface conditions between the grouting material and the tunnel shell on the temporal evolution of the loading on linings

Aplanochytrium kerguelensis gen. nov. spec. nov., a new phycomycete from subantarctic marine waters

A new monocentric marine fungus, Aplanochytrium kerguelensis gen. nov. spec. nov., was recovered from water samples taken in the vicinity of the Kerguelen Islands in the South Indian Ocean during a cruise of the research vessel USNS “Eltanin”. Aplanochytrium is very similar to Thraustochytrium Sparrow (1936) in having a chytrid-like thallus and in being able to utilize pine pollen as a substrate to which it establishes contact by well-developed rhizoids. At maturity, however, only aplanospores are formed, as in Dermocystidium sensu Goldstein and Moriber (1966).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46151/1/203_2004_Article_BF00715023.pd

WaVPeak: picking NMR peaks through wavelet-based smoothing and volume-based filtering

Motivation: Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has been widely used as a powerful tool to determine the 3D structures of proteins in vivo. However, the post-spectra processing stage of NMR structure determination usually involves a tremendous amount of time and expert knowledge, which includes peak picking, chemical shift assignment and structure calculation steps. Detecting accurate peaks from the NMR spectra is a prerequisite for all following steps, and thus remains a key problem in automatic NMR structure determination

How Preussag became TUI : kissing too many toads can make you a toad

In the period 1997-2004, Preussag, a diversified German conglomerate of old economy businesses, changed itself into TUI, a company focused almost entirely on tourism and logistics. This paper analyzes how this strategy was executed and how it contributed to Preussag’s underperformance of the stock market. We collect 417 announcements of acquisitions, financial disclosures and other news and disentangle the impact of different parts of the company’s strategy. We find that only the divestitures created value, that the strategy to invest in tourism destroyed value, and that the acquisition premiums Preussag paid were mostly unjustified. Bad luck like the events of September 11, 2001 cannot account for the poor performance of the stock. Poor management resulted from poor governance, combining a state-owned bank as the largest shareholder, board interlocks, and insufficient managerial incentives. The case shows how divestiture programs increase the liquid resources available to management beyond free operating cash flows and casts doubt on the positive governance role of institutional blockholders