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From an economic point of view, there is a consensus that sufficient consumer protection cannot be achieved solely through effective competition policy aimed at limiting the abuse of market power to the detriment of consumers. However, the economic justification for an explicit policy of consumer protection is far less uniform. In the past, the standard approach to explain consumer behavior and to justify government consumer protection derived from information economics. However, the fact that consumer protection based solely on information economics has been repeatedly criticized in recent years points to the need for a broader theoretical foundation of consumer protection policy. Against this background, the article aims at broadening the perspective of an economically based consumer policy by resorting to institutional economic as well as behavioral economic considerations, which will be contrasted with each other in their respective insights.

Within the local fiscal equalization system of North Rhine-Westphalia, anticipated financial needs of municipalities are estimated by the use of regression analysis. In the recent past the previously exercised regression approach shows unexpected results concerning the main parameters determining intra-system allocation of general grants. Against this background the paper analyses the reasons for these parameter variations in order to identify an alternative approach to achieve regression results with higher accuracy and time stability both of which are of particular importance from a fiscal equalization policy perspective. It will be shown that the so-called robust regression is such an alternative method which leads – in case of its implementation – to divergent distributional effects compared to the status quo.

Um die individuelle Akzeptanz und gesellschaftliche Verbreitung technologischer Neuerungen wie der Elektromobilität angemessen einschätzen zu können, muss die Perspektive eines potenziellen Nutzers und seines Entscheidungsverhaltens berücksichtigt werden. In Anbetracht dessen liefert der Beitrag einen Einblick in die vorliegenden Erkenntnisse zu den Bestimmungsfaktoren der subjektiven Substitutionsbereitschaft zwischen konventionellen Antriebssystemen und Elektrofahrzeugen im Bereich des motorisierten Individualverkehrs bezogen auf die damit einhergehenden Opportunitätskosten und verhaltenspsychologischen Effekte. Davon werden einige sich daraus ergebende Implikationen für den Verkehrsbereich, die Umwelt sowie die mögliche Verbreitung von Elektrofahrzeugen im urbanen und ländlichen Raum abgeleitet.

Als Herausforderung des traditionellen (neoklassisch geprägten) Ansatzes individuellen Verhaltens erfährt die Verhaltensökonomik seit geraumer Zeit wachsende Aufmerksamkeit. Dabei gewinnen die Ergebnisse von Studien zu individuellen Wahrnehmungsverzerrungen und Entscheidungsirrtümern sowie der Kontextgebundenheit des Verhaltens von Akteuren auch in der Finanzwissenschaft zunehmend an Bedeutung. Dies zeigt sich etwa in Untersuchung zur Merklichkeit von Besteuerung und Verschuldung, zu Steuermoral und Steuerhinterziehung oder auch zu Fragen der Steuergerechtigkeit. Vergleichbare Analysen zu den öffentlichen Ausgaben sind demgegenüber weit weniger bekannt. Vor diesem Hintergrund liefert der Beitrag einen Überblick zu bisherigen Untersuchungsergebnissen der Verhaltensökonomik zur staatlichen Ausgabenpolitik. As a challenge of the traditional (neoclassical) approach of human behavior, Behavioral Economics have obtained increasing acceptance for some time. This is also true for economic research in the field of Public Finance, whereat, however, the results of given works in economic psychology on cognitive heuristics, illusions and biases with respect to human information processing, judgment und choice were primarily applied so far to the analysis of tax and debt salience, tax compliance, tax evasion or tax equity. In contrast, comparable examinations of public expenditures are not very common up to now. Against this background, the paper gives a review regarding the existing behavioral economic research on public expenditure policy.

In Germany, state and local authorities are repeatedly in conflict with each other regarding the funding of municipal households. Concerning this matter a sufficient fiscal endowment of local public authorities does not only depend on a deemed-to-satisfy provision of state grants but also requires an adequate exhaustion of existing sources of revenues at the local government level. Against this background, the paper analyses local tax policy in order to assess whether the involved potential of budget finance is exploited sufficiently. Taking Rhineland-Palatinate as a case study the degree of tax exploitation (local business tax, local property tax) is empirically estimated for the time period 2007 – 2013.

Mit seiner Bewertung des Versailler Vertrages wurde John Maynard Keynes zu einem der bekanntesten Ökonomen seiner Zeit. Als Mitglied der britischen Verhandlungsdelegation und damit Teilnehmer an den Pariser Friedensverhandlungen kritisierte er schon unmittelbar nach Beendigung der Konferenz den Versailler Vertrag als fehlerhafte Grundlage für eine stabile Nachkriegsordnung. Den Grund hierfür sah Keynes vor allem in den kognitiven Fehlleistungen der verhandelnden Akteure. Daran anknüpfend wird die Logik der Analyse von Keynes aus Sicht der Verhaltensökonomik rekonstruiert. Dabei zeigt sich, dass seine Perspektive in vielfacher Hinsicht im Einklang steht mit den Ergebnissen aktueller verhaltensökonomischer Studien zu den Wahrnehmungsverzerrungen, den Entscheidungsirrtümern sowie der Kontextgebundenheit des Verhaltens von Akteuren in komplexen Handlungssituationen.

In Germany there exists a political consensus that the economic and fiscal burden of the German reunification should be shared by all three jurisdictional levels of the federal system. According to existing law the burden sharing between the state and local authorities has to be confined to the excess burden which follows from the financing of the German Unity Fund as well as the integration of the eastern German states into the fiscal equalisation system. Thereby, state and local authorities are in conflict with each other regarding an appropriate economic estimation of the excess burden to be caused by the fiscal equalization system. Against this background the paper explains and illustrates the economic concept of burden in terms of opportunity costs. Taking North Rhine-Westphalia as a case study the quantity of the excess burden is empirically estimated for the time period 1995 - 2009 by applying a multivariate data analysis.

The level, as well as the structure of private consumption, is influenced by the age structure of the population. This is shown for Austria in the first part of the paper. Age-specific saving rates and consumption patterns on national and regional levels are identified through an analysis of household data of the Austrian consumer budget survey. In a second step, the gained data is used to simulate the future development of the private saving rate and consumption structure in Austria, based on the population projections up to 2050. According to the simulation results, an increase in the private saving rate is to be expected on a national, as well as on a regional level, due to the changing shares of age groups. Furthermore, consumption goods and services in the field of transport will lose significance in favour of expenditures for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, food and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as health products and services.

In Germany there is a discussion on the design of regional policy, whether cohesion is still appropriate or should be replaced by a regional growth policy for efficiency reasons. This discussion is most notably founded with theoretical arguments from the new growth theory as well as the (empirical) insight that despite an extensive redistribution of wealth regional differences still exist. Crucial for the effectiveness of cohesion measures is the development of regions in the long run, whether regions converge or diverge. From German convergence studies it follows that there is a tendency for convergence. Our empirical analysis gives empirical evidence that the Commontask “Improvement of Regional Economic Structure” has an influence on the convergence process.

Most German states changed their local constitutions during the 1990s in order to become more citizen-friendly. To reach that goal, many local constitutions now allow for the direct election of mayors, initiatives and referenda, and vote-aggregation as well as vote-splitting. Simultaneously, the five-percent threshold was abolished lowering entry barriers. This contribution asks whether these reforms had any effects on local fiscal policies. Based on the reforms that took place in Schleswig-Holstein, Bavaria and Hesse and drawing on a structural break test it is shown that the direct election of mayors has led to lower government spending. The introduction of direct democratic elements, on the other hand, has led to higher expenditures. The empirical results concerning direct democracy substantially deviate from the findings regarding both Switzerland and the U.S.. It is argued that the difference might be due to the lack of fiscal referenda in Germany.

In Germany, the current situation of local government finance is still worrying. Up to now, all political attempts to reform the German local tax system fundamentally led to no satisfying result. For this reason, new reform initiatives gain particular attention in scientific and political discussion. Against this background, the paper examines the proposal for reform of the existing local tax system presented by Stiftung Marktwirtschaft. By highlighting public finance characteristics of economically reasonable local government finances as well as public choice characteristics of a politically successful reform, it will be shown that within some small but important modifications the proposal of Stiftung Marktwirtschaft is in a position to solve local government finance problems in a durable manner. This result is consecuted by an empirical simulation of the fiscal effects for all German local authorities. The fiscal simulation demonstrates that more then ninety percent of German cities and municipalities will gain from a political implementation of the proposal for reform.

Mittels intrazellulärer Ableitungen wurde bei adulten Kartoffelkäfern (Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say 1824) die spektrale Empfindlichkeit untersucht, indem die Reaktion von Photorezeptoren auf Lichtblitze im Bereich von 300 bis 650 nm in 10 nm-Schritten abgeleitet wurde. Sensitivitätsmaxima wurden bei 530 nm (grün), 450 nm (blau) und 370 nm (UV) beobachtet. Zusätzliche extrazelluläre Ableitungen ergaben eine Sensitivitätskurve mit einem Maximum bei 500 nm. Anschließend wurde geprüft, ob der Kartoffelkäfer dazu in der Lage ist, Wirtspflanzen anhand ihrer Farbe zu erkennen. Hierzu wurden Blattspektren von Wirtspflanzen (Solanum tuberosum Linnaeus 1753, Lycopersicum esculentum Miller 1768 und Solanum ochranthum Humboldt & Bonpland ex Dunal 1816) und von 35 Nicht-Wirtspflanzenarten in den Farbraum der Kartoffelkäfer eingetragen, der durch die experimentell erhaltenen Sensitivitätsfunktionen bestimmt wurde. Zu einem großen Teil überlappten die Farbbereiche der Blätter der Wirts- und Nicht-Wirtspflanzenarten, d. h im Farbsechseck lagen mehr als die Hälfte der Farbpunkte der Wirtspflanzen innerhalb der Fläche, die von den Nicht-Wirtspflanzen aufgespannt wurde. Daraus wird gefolgert, daß der gefundene Satz an Photorezeptoren des Kartoffelkäfers nicht für eine farbliche Unterscheidung von Wirts- und Nicht-Wirtspflanzen präadaptiert ist. Dies schließt jedoch nicht aus, daß die Blattfarbe von Kartoffelkäfern bei der Wirtspflanzensuche genutzt wird, um ein Auffinden geeigneter Pflanzen zu erleichtern.

The aphid-vectored Potato virus Y(PVY) is currently seen as an important limiting factor in the production of potatoes in many countries. Using a content-analysis approach, we investigated the German extension literature for recommendations regarding the control of PVY. Media included articles from periodicals addressing farmers and agricultural textbooks published in the last five decades (1955–2004). In the current literature (1995–2004), the clearly dominating strategy was found to be insecticidal control, although this strategy has been subject to some criticism in the scientific literature. Over the last five decades we also found a strongly increasing representation of insecticidal strategies. Furthermore, over this period of time, information diversity, measured as the number of different strategies proposed per article or per textbook, decreased consistently.

In den zurückliegenden 40 Jahren wurde die finanzwissenschaftliche Analyse der räumlichen Aspekte von Föderalismus und Finanzausgleich weitgehend durch allokations- und verteilungspolitische Fragen bestimmt. Die Erkenntnisse der Neuen Wachstumstheorie sowie ergänzender Ansätze haben hier zu einem Perspektivenwechsel beigetragen. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht der Beitrag, welche Konsequenzen sich daraus für die Ausgestaltung des Finanzausgleichssystems ableiten lassen. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse können wie folgt zusammengefasst werden: (1) Die Existenz einer räumlich differenzierenden Wachstumsdynamik rechtfertigt eine Dezentralisierung politischer Kompetenzen. (2) Um den wirtschaftlichen Verflechtungsbeziehungen einer Region besser Rechnung zu tragen, sollten insbesondere die lokalen Gebietskörperschaften stärker als bislang kooperieren. (3) Aus Sicht des Wachstumsziels sollten horizontale Transferzahlungen zwischen nachgeordneten Gebietskörperschaften auf einen geringen Umfang begrenzt werden.

Since the 1970s many industrial countries constantly accumulated public debt. This was a new phenomenon that had not been observed in the years before. Scientists tried to find explanations and analysed the development mainly from a public choice perspective. In the meantime signs occurred showing that the trend has reversed. Again, it was looked for explanations. Some authors tried to explain the observed shift towards a strategy of budget consolidation with changes in political ideologies and institutions. Others explained the phenomenon with the fiscal constraints which can be a long term consequence of high levels of public debt. However, some important questions remained open. This paper pursues the question whether the change in the public-debt-policy of politicians can be embedded into a broader framework. This broader framework should not only allow to analyze the development of public debt as a result of the debt-related policy of politicians in a narrow sense, but as a result of political decisions relating to government spending and taxation in general, i.e. from a public budget perspective in total.

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag gibt einen Überblick zum aktuellen Stand von Entwicklung und Anwendung von Nachhaltigkeitsindikatorensystemen auf kommunaler und regionaler Ebene in Deutschland. Zu diesem Zweck wurden 44 Indikatorensysteme anhand einer Reihe von Merkmalen ausgewertet. Für 25 dieser Systeme wurde zudem eine Analyse der verwendeten Indikatoren durchgeführt. Während in grundlegenden Fragen, etwa dem zugrunde gelegten Verständnis von Nachhaltigkeit, hohe Übereinstimmung zwischen den Systemen besteht, unterscheiden sich diese in den behandelten Themenbereichen und insbesondere hinsichtlich der ausgewählten Indikatoren. Ferner wird aufgezeigt, dass der derzeitige Einsatz von Nachhaltigkeitsindikatorensystemen auf der kommunalen Ebene weit hinter dem Anspruch der Systeme und ihren prinzipiellen Möglichkeiten zurückbleibt. Dies betrifft vor allem den interkommunalen Vergleich bei der Messung lokaler Nachhaltigkeit sowie die Verwendung lokaler Daten im Rahmen nationaler Systeme der Nachhaltigkeitsmessung. Dies gilt aber auch für die nur teilweise Erfüllung der intendierten politischen Zielsetzungen, wobei vor allem die erhoffte politische Steuerungsfunktion fast vollständig unerfüllt bleibt. Die hierfür verantwortlichen Ursachen werden diskutiert und Handlungsempfehlungen für die Weiterentwicklung von Indikatorensystemen skizziert.AbstractThe paper provides a survey of the current status of development and application of indicator systems for measuring sustainable development at the local and regional level in Germany. For this purpose, 44 indicator systems have been analyzed on the basis of different criteria. Additionally, the indicators used in 25 of these systems have been examined. While the systems correspond regarding to basic questions, such as the underlying philosophy of sustainable development, they differ in the issues they address, especially concerning the indicators they use. Beyond that, it will be shown that the present use of sustainability indicator systems on a local level in practice remains far behind the potentials claimed for them in principle. Here mainly the possibilities for a benchmarking of sustainability in different local communities and for the use of local data measuring sustainability on a federal level are focused. Also the political objectives of local sustainability indicator systems are not yet reached completely. After all the systems are almost never used for supporting, monitoring and controlling political decisions and actions. The paper discusses the reasons for this situation and concludes with proposals for the further development of sustainability indicator systems.

In their paper Thomas Döring and Bernd Hansjürgens refer to the reform discussion of local public finance in Germany. Against the background of rising expenditures and lower revenues a fiscal reform on the local level is absolutely necessary. Such a reform should focus on both the expenditure and the revenue side of the local budget. With respect to expenditures a new division of functions between the upper governmental levels and the local level should be taken into account. With respect to revenues reforms are needed that facilitate communities’ ability to raise revenues from own sources. It becomes apparent that the current political discussion which focuses on the centralisation of the costs of unemployment and on the reform of the local business tax is much too narrow to solve the fiscal crisis on the local level.

Die Kompetenzverteilung zwischen den verschiedenen Gebietskörperschaftsebenen eines föderativen Staates kann sich erheblich auf das Wirtschaftswachstum auswirken, da es insbesondere die Regionen eines Landes sind, die zu seiner gesamten wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung beitragen. Dies legt einen regionalen Zuschnitt der staatlichen Wirtschaftspolitik nahe. Aus ökonomischer Sicht wird in der theoretischen Diskussion hingegen vornehmlich auf die Effizienzaspekte einer dezentralen Bereitstellung und die Finanzierung öffentlicher Leistungen abgehoben. Selten findet sich das Argument, dass Dezentralität oder Föderalismus – vermittelt über eine höhere Innovationsund Reformfähigkeit des politischen Systems – zu einer Steigerung des Wachstums führen. Nach einer Diskussion der theoretischen Überlegungen zu Föderalismus und Wachstum wenden wir uns in diesem Beitrag der empirischen Frage zu, welche Bedeutung die Zuordnung von Entscheidungskompetenzen und die institutionelle Ausgestaltung des fiskalischen Föderalismus für die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung eines Landes haben. Auf Basis der bisher existierenden theoretischen und empirischen Studien zu Wirtschaftswachstum und Föderalismus werden offene Fragen und mögliche Ansätze zu ihrer Beantwortung formuliert.

Public debt is one of the controversial and therefore most exciting subjects in the field of public finance. Since the 1970s many industrial countries constantly accumulated public dept, and this development was explained mainly from a public choice perspective. In the meantime the trend has reversed. Therefore the paper pursues the question whether this change in the borrowing behavior of government can also be explained from a public choice view. For this purpose and with special focus on Germany, first, the fading away of fiscal illusion is considered, induced by the learning processes which the citizens have undergone in the meantime. In addition, changes in political ideologies and institutions are analyzed as well as the fiscal constraints which result from a permanent high governmental debt. It is argued that the sum of these factors is responsible for the fact that politicians do not pursue their previous fiscal behavior any longer and instead revert to a strategy of budget consolidation.

Das Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts vom 11. November 1999 hat den Gesetzgeber dazu verpflichtet, innerhalb enger Fristen die bisherigen Strukturen des Länderfinanzausgleichs zu überprüfen. Sollen Effizienz und Autonomie wieder ein größeres Gewicht gegenüber Ausgleich und Einheitlichkeit bekommen, ist es aus ökonomischer Sicht jedoch erforderlich, darüber hinaus auch komplementär wirkende institutionelle Reformen im Bereich der vertikalen Zuordnung von Aufgaben, Ausgaben und Einnahmen zwischen Bund, Ländern und Kommunen vorzunehmen. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden im vorliegenden Beitrag Entwicklungsstand und Reformbedarf der föderativen Aufgaben —, Ausgaben- und Steuerverteilung näher untersucht. Es wird dabei gezeigt, dass bereits Reformen im Rahmen der bestehenden Strukturen zu mehr Effizienz und Wettbewerb im deutschen Finanzföderalismus führen können.

Since the fiscal equalization system among states in Germany was repeatedly the subject of controversial political discussions, there exist many proposals in economics for far-reaching reforms. However, these proposals are deficient because they do not take into account the necessity of political consensus as well as the fact of path dependencies of institutional change. The paper is aiming at a better foundation of scientific advice by “reconstructing” the actor’s incentives in terms of collective dilemmata. This institutional economics approach explains, with respect to the fiscal equalization system among the German states, which type of proposal has greater chances to be politically adopted.

•A variable pricing strategy allows prosumers with a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to participate in the following ancillary services: voltage regulation, congestion relief, demand response, energy arbitrage, frequency regulation (Frequency Containment Reserve) and peak shaving•Participating in ancillary services can be done while also increasing the self-consumption of the prosumer•Participating in ancillary services can increase the economic benefit of prosumers with a BESS•BESSs are still too expensive to result in an economically viable situation

The methods and apparatus were the same as described in a previous paper [Kirchner et al 2005]. In short, monochromatic light flashes of 0.5 s duration and of different wavelengths and light intensities were produced with a Xenon arc lamp and colour and grey filters and were applied to the compound eye after 30 min dark adaptation. The summed response from light sensitive cells in the compound eye was recorded with a tungsten electrode inserted into the eye with a micromanipulator, while an indifferent electrode rested in the abdomen of the animal. The signal was amplifed and displayed on an oscilloscope. Recordings were done in 10 nm steps from 320 to 610 nm at varied light intensities to elicit a predefined criterion response. Sensitivity was calculated as the reciprocal of the number of photons required to elicit the criterion response, and then normalised to maximal sensitivity. The ERG response to single light flashes was similar to that observed in the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer 1776) [Kirchner et al 2005], with a hyperpolarising response shortly after the onset of the flash and a smaller depolarising off-effect.

30S ribosomal subunits, 70S ribosomes or polysomes from E. coli were subjected to mild ultraviolet irradiation, and the 3'-terminal region of the 16S RNA was excised by ‘addressed cleavage’ using ribonuclease H in the presence of suitable complementary oligodeoxynucleotides. RNA fragments from this region containing intra-RNA cross-links were separated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and the cross-link sites identified by our standard procedures. Five new cross-links were found in the 30S subunit, which were localized at positions 1393–1401 linked to 1531–1532, 1393–1401 linked to 1506, 1393–1401 to1502–1504, 1402–1403 to1498–1501, and 1432 to 1465–69, respectively. In 70S ribosomes or polysomes the first four of these were absent, but instead two cross-links between the 1400-region and tRNA were observed. These results are discussed in the context of the tertiary folding of the 3'-terminal region of the 16S RNA and its known functional significance as part of the ribosomal decoding centre.

The naturally occurring nucleotide 3-{3-amino-3- carboxy-propyl)uridine (acp3U) at position 47 of tRNAPhe from Escherichia coll was modified with a diazlrlne derivative and bound to ribosomes In the presence of suitable mRNA analogues under conditions specific for the rfbosomal A, P or E sites. After photo-activation at 350 nm the cross-links to ribosomal proteins and RNA were identified by our standard procedures. In the 30S subunit protein S19 (and weakly S9 and S13) was the target of cross-linking from tRNA at the A site, S7, S9 and S13 from the P site and S7 from the E site. Similarly, in the 50S subunit L16 and L27 were cross-linked from the A site, L1, L5, L16, L27 and L33 from the P site and L1 and L33 from the E site. Corresponding cross-links to rRNA were localized by RNase H digestion to the following areas: in 16S rRNA between positions 687 and 727 from the P and E sites, positions 1318 and 1350 (P site) and 1350 and 1387 (E site); in the 23S rRNA between positions 865 and 910 from the A site, 1845 and 1892 (P site), 1892 and 1945 (A site), 2282 and 2358 (P site), 2242 and 2461 (P and E sites), 2461 and 2488 (A site), 2488 and 2539 (all three sites) and 2572 and 2603 (A and P sites). In most (but not all) cases, more precise localizations of the cross-link sites could be made by primer extension analysis.

Intact 50S ribosomal subunits from E.coli were cross-linked with the symmetrical bifunctlonai reagent bis(2-chloroethyl)-methylam ne. After deproteinization, selected regions of the 23S RNA were excised by treatment with ribonuclease H in the presence of appropriate complementary decadeoxynucleotides, and screened for the presence of intra-RNA cross-links by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Individual isolated cross-linked RNA fragments were analysed by our established procedures. Sixteen intra-RNA cross-links were identified, three of which corresponded to those previously published. The thirteen ‘new’ cross-links were localized in the 23S RNA at positions 774–78 linked to 792–94, 876–79 linked to 899–900, 979–81 or 983–84 to 2029, 1715 to 1743–46, 1911–21 to 1964, 1933 to 1966, 2032 to 2054–55, 2112 to 2169–71, 2116–17 to 2163–67, 2128–32 to 2156–59, 2392–93 to 2422–23, 2737–38 to 2763–66, and 2791 to 2890. These results are discussed in the context of three-dimensional model-building studies with the 23S RNA, with particular reference to the environment of the ‘active centre’ of the 50S subunit.