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Education is the core of the factors that improved people for a better lifestyle and increases the level of society' development. Quality education is one of the most vital goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to actualizing these factors. Using relational network data envelopment analysis (DEA), which have three interrelated substages, this current paper computes the educational economy efficiency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries bearing in mind the characteristics related to SDGs. The contribution of our study is the use of a novel approach to computing the educational economy efficiency using relational network DEA with GAMS. Even though some interesting differences reveal in the efficiency of the countries, the findings show that countries with high-efficiency scores are clustered around countries like Latvia, Slovenia, and Korea.

Gender effects in large-scale assessments have become an increasingly important research area within and across countries. Yet few studies have linked differences in assessment results of male and female students in higher education to construct-relevant features of the target construct. This paper examines gender effects on students' economic content knowledge with a focus on construct-relevant explanations. Moreover, we compare gender effects cross-nationally between Germany, Japan, and the United States. To assess economic content knowledge of higher education students, we used translated, adapted, and validated versions of the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE, 4th ed.), an instrument that is commonly used internationally. We found gender effects on test scores in all three countries; effects were larger in Germany and the United States than in Japan. Gender effects were generally more pronounced on the numeracy subscale than on the literacy subscale, that is, male students had a greater edge over female students when items required calculations. In our conclusion, we discuss how numeracy and literacy items may tap different abilities.

Increasingly, faculty members are rewarded financially for prestige-maximizing publications. As a result, the balance between publishing and other activities such as teaching or public service may collapse, as argued by Leisyte, Enders, and de Boer (2009). In our paper, we focus on career-related rewards and study their impact on publication productivity to see whether economic incentives do indeed affect faculty behavior, as measured empirically. We compare economic incentives resulting from two different career systems, namely those within the German and the U.S. university systems. We derive three hypotheses regarding expected publication patterns and test them by comparing the lifetime publication patterns of German and U.S. business and economics faculty members. (Contains 5 tables, 1 figure and 28 notes.)

This paper examines the determinants of remittance behavior relying on a dataset of migrants living in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States who remit to Ghana and Nigeria. Controlling for endogeneity of several independent variables, the model measures the effects on the amount sent of the following variables: Home Country (Ghana or Nigeria), Host Country (United States, United Kingdom or Germany), Remittance Fees, Relationship to the Receiver, Purpose of Remittance, Financial Obligations in the Host Country, and Demographics. The results indicate that remittances are primarily influenced by the purpose of the remittance and from where the remittance is sent. It appears that different generations chose to migrate to different countries, creating differences in income, education and age. These differences along with financial obligations in the host country contribute to higher remittance levels. In regards to the development affects, the results of this paper hint that altruistic reasons for remitting may be associated with higher levels of remittances, while more self-interested reasons for remitting are associated with lower levels of remittances. These results indicate that it may be difficult to design policies to encourage the use of remittances for development purposes, as remittances are primarily used for basic needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By contrasting endogenous growth models with facts, one is frequently confronted with the prediction that levels of economic variables, such as R&D expenditures, imply lasting effects on the growth rate of an economy. As stylized facts show, the research intensity in most advanced countries has dramatically increased, mostly more than the GDP. Yet, the growth rates have roughly remained constant or even declined. In this paper we modify the Romer endogenous growth model and test our variant of the model using time series data. We estimate the market version both for the US and Germany for the time period January 1962 to April 1996. Our results demonstrate that the model is compatible with the time series for aggregate data in those countries. All parameters fall into a reasonable range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We define international technological specialisation (ITS) as the technological performance of a country in a specific technology relative to its overall international technological performance. This paper uses patent applications and patent citations at the European Patent Office for five countries (US, UK, Italy, France, Germany) from 1989 to 1994 for 135 technological classes in three industrial sectors (Chemicals, Electronics and Machinery). It shows that ITS is significantly persistent and is affected by the direction of cross-sectoral knowledge spillovers within countries. In addition, the paper shows that the concentration of innovative activities, the emergence of new innovators and technological co-operation positively affect ITS. Some differences across sectors emerge. Keywords: Technological specialization; Knowledge spillover; Market structure [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a patent search strategy for photovoltaics which allows distinguishing patents of the photovoltaic system into sub-trajectories. Identifying and analyzing sub-trajectories is of particular importance for understanding micro patterns of technological change. The proposed search strategy is modular and replicable. It performs similar to benchmark search strategies and allows us to distinguish three cell sub-trajectories and two system components. The identified sub-trajectories allow a more detailed economic analysis previously not possible. Descriptive analyses reveal that inventive activity differs between sub-trajectories and countries. The market dominating silicon wafer cell sub-trajectory shows hardly any patented inventive activity even though it dominates the market. Furthermore, there are shifts in relative patenting activity between sub-trajectories, previously unnoticed at the trajectory level. Country comparison reveals that Asian countries focus on the emerging cell sub-trajectory, fostering their competitive advantage. The USA focuses on the established thin-film sub-trajectory, and inventive activity in Germany focuses on module components. The results have several implications for policy, for example, questioning the effectiveness of demand pull policies for inventive activity, and economic theory. The empirical assessment of sub-trajectories can increase understanding of technological change and uncover dynamics not observable at the trajectory level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermal-based power stations rely on water for cooling purposes. These water sources may be subject to incidents of scarcity, environmental regulations, and competing economic concerns. This paper analyzes the effect of water scarcity and increased river temperatures on German electricity prices from 2002 to 2009. Having controlled for demand effects, the results indicate that the electricity price is significantly impacted by both a change in river temperatures and the relative abundance of river water. An implication is that future climate change will affect electricity prices not only through changes in demand, but also via increased water temperatures and scarcity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the intellectual and structural change that German economics experienced after the Second World War. This development often was described as ‘Americanisation’, since it seemed to rest upon the influences of the American occupation regime. In contrast, the paper applies another meaning of ‘Americanisation’. It is considered a ‘discourse’ that serves to structure the disciplinary procedures to produce progress. As it can be shown by the adoption of Keynesianism and neoclassical microeconomics, the change of the discipline was not primarily driven by direct American influences. Rather, in some respect the German reception took a path of its own. That contradiction can be solved by a theoretical modification of the classical concept of ‘Americanisation’. ‘Americanisation’ there meant a change of the operational procedure of German economics to generate progress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we investigate how label information detailing the performance of the Fair Trade labelling programme with respect to coffee affect consumers' willingness to pay in the US and in Germany. We provide respondents (university students in the US and Germany) information regarding the hypothetical benefits of the Fair Trade coffee programme on its intended beneficiaries on the production side [the revenue gains to participating marginal farmers (scope of the programme)] and, using stated preference conjoint methods, test how this performance criterion relates to the willingness to pay for Fair Trade coffee. Our empirical results identify a ‘threshold’ property of performance-based labels. In effect, the willingness-to-pay for performance-based Fair Trade labelled coffee exhibits an inverted U shape in the sense that the willingness to pay is positively related to the scope of the programme, but only up to a critical level. Thereafter, the willingness to pay declines as the income gains to participating growers increase further. Interestingly, this inverted U property is exhibited by both the US and German respondents with different critical thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how fiscal adjustment comes about when both central and sub-national governments are involved in consolidation. We test sustainability of public debt with a fiscal rule for both federal and regional government. Results for the German Länder show that lower tier governments bear a relatively smaller part of the burden of debt consolidation, if they consolidate at all. Most of the fiscal adjustment occurs via central government debt. In contrast, both the US federal and state levels contribute to consolidation of public finances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests for business cycle symmetry in G7 countries during the post-World War II period using a number of tests, each reflecting alternative definitions of business cycle asymmetry. The tests are applied to monthly coincident economic indicators of business cycles. This found that business cycles in the US are characterized by both longitudinal (deepness) and transversal (steepness and sharpness) asymmetries: further, it is found that asymmetric transition probabilties and time irreversibility are due to nonlinearities. On the contrary, business cycles in Germany exhibits a symmetric behaviour. Between these extremes are the other countries, for which at least one of the tests here considered rejects the null of cyclical symmetry. Particularly, business cycle is characterized by deepness and sharpness in Canada, asymmetry in persistence in France and Japan, and asymmetric transition probabilities in France and United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents information and updates related to the economics profession as of March 1988. The Electoral College on March 18, 1988, chose Gerard Debreu as nominee for President-elect of the American Economic Association in the balloting to be held in the autumn of 1988. Other nominees (chosen by the 1988 Nominating Committee) are; Vice-President (two to be elected) Alan S. Blinder, Andrew F. Brimmer, Christopher A. Sims, and Oliver E. Williamson; for members of the Executive Committee (two to be elected) William A. Darity Jr., Stanley Fischer, John B. Shoven, and Lawrence H. Summers. The Southern Economic Association will hold its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, November 20-22, 1988. The second annual meeting of the European Society for Population Economics will be held at the University of Mannheim, Federal Republic of Germany in June 1988. The Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago has received authorization to grant a Ph.D. in Business Economics. The new doctoral degree program is intended to prepare students for research careers in the business community or research/teaching careers in business colleges. Applicants with or without an MBA degree are welcome to apply. The new program complements the department's existing Ph.D. program which emphasizes public policy analysis.

This article analyses the role of the extensive vis-a-vis the intensive margin of labour adjustment in Germany and in the United States. The contribution is twofold. First, we provide an update of older US studies and confirm the view that the extensive margin (i.e. the adjustment in the number of workers) explains the largest part in the overall variability in aggregate hours. Second, although the German labour market structure is very different from its US counterpart, the quantitative importance of the extensive margin is of similar magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the book "Private Action and the Public Good," edited by Walter W. Powell and Elizabeth S. Clemens. The book describes twenty papers which contribute to an understanding of the nonprofit mission and its performance. These papers discuss the contested nature of the public good; the public good as a social and cultural project; the meaning of altruism; the religious ethic and the spirit of nonprofit entrepreneurship; institutional form and organizational behavior; external influences and the comparative performance of public, for-profit, and private nonprofit organizations; the quality of day care for children in Canada, by auspice; parental perceptions about the quality of day care centers in comparison with actual differentials in the industry by organizational form; nonprofit in the political economy; government nonprofit collaboration in Germany and the U.S.; nonprofit organizations and the welfare state in France.

Presents information related to several articles on economics. Economic growth and productivity in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Germany and Japan in the post war period; Dividend policies of electric utility firms; Relationship between the quantity of materials imported by the United States and the level of industrial production and prices of imports.

In the law systems of Britain and American, unjust enrichment was a old law. However, it is newly-established in China and the items are abstract and simple. The paper researches into the system of German and American in order to develop the Chinese system for the development of the marketing economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wage inequality, investment and skills In flexible labour markets, capital increases the productivity of skilled workers more than that of unskilled workers, and in the US faster investment is associated with wider wage inequality. But labour market institutions that keep unskilled workers’ wages high also imply that firms may find it profitable to invest so as to boost those workers’ productivity. Our empirical analysis based on industry-level data confirms that a higher capital intensity in Germany is associated with smaller wage differentials and with a larger share of unskilled workers in the labour costs. Changes in capital–labour ratios during the 1980s reduced wage differentials by 5–8% in German industries, while in the US capital deepening in such industries as machinery and retail was accompanied by an increase of wage differentials larger than 7%. — Winfried Koeniger and Marco Leonardi [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 20 years the wage-education relationships in the United States and Germany have evolved very differently, while the education compositions of employment have evolved in a parallel fashion. In this paper, we show how these patterns shed light on the nature of recent technological change and highlight the importance of taking into account movements in the ratio of human capital to physical capital when examining changes in the returns to skill. Our analysis indicates that the United States could have prevented the increase in wage inequality observed in the 1980's by a faster accumulation of physical capital. (JEL J3, 03) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Venture capital, the financing concept that has more than a 30-year formal history in some western countries such as the USA, still remains relatively unknown in many countries. The USA and some other countries have a more mature venture capital sector dominated by investments in high technology. However, this is not the case in most other countries. Surprisingly, this is the case in countries with a strong and highly developed economy such as Germany, as well as in smaller countries with a booming high technology sector such as Israel. In both countries, little empirical work has been done to gain insights on how the venture capital industry works. By using the same research methodology as in prior US studies, this paper identifies different investment behaviours of German and Israeli venture capitalists prior to the investment decision and as well as their involvement in the strategy of the portfolio firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of the exchange rate in U.S. external adjustments. The results show that the ex change rate is an important transmission channel of influence on prices, and with longer lags, on income and the trade balance. The effects of the exchange rate and relative prices on the trade balance are not symmetric even in the long run. Exchange rate feedback is insignificant and makes little difference in trade balance adjustment. There are also indications that the response of relative prices to the exchange rate shifted in recent years. Such changes seem to help explain the persistence of the U.S. trade deficit in recent years for multilateral trade, but not bilateral trade, with Japan or Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Preparation for age-related changes has been shown to be beneficial to adjustment in later life. However, an understanding of the factors that influence such preparations is rather limited. This study examines whether perceived control and future-self views (FSV) influence preparations for old age, and if this influence varies across ages, domains of functioning, and cultures. Methods Assessments of perceived control, FSV, and preparations for old age in each of four different life domains (social relationships, finances, work, and health) were obtained from 1,813 adults (ages 35–85) from Germany, Hong Kong, and the United States. Results Future-self views partially mediated the relationship between perceived control and preparation for old age across both domains of functioning and cultures. With one exception, the association between perceived control and preparations increased with advancing age across contexts. Evidence for similar age-related moderation of the indirect effect of control through FSV was more limited. Discussion These results suggest that perceived control that is not necessarily related to aging affect FSV, which in turn influence preparing for old age. Further, our results indicate that such relationships are context- and age-specific, highlighting the importance of considering the salience and diversity of life domains and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender pay gaps likely persist in Western societies because both men and women consider somewhat lower earnings for female employees than for otherwise similar male employees to be fair. Two different theoretical approaches explain "legitimate" wage gaps: same-gender referent theory and reward expectations theory. The first approach states that women compare their lower earnings primarily with that of other underpaid women; the second approach argues that both men and women value gender as a status variable that yields lower expectations about how much each gender should be paid for otherwise equal work. This article is the first to analyze hypotheses contrasting the two theories using an experimental factorial survey design. In 2009, approximately 1,600 German residents rated more than 26,000 descriptions of fictitious employees. The labor market characteristics of each employee and the amount of information given about them were experimentally varied across all descriptions. The results primarily support reward expectations theory. Both men and women produced gender pay gaps in their fairness ratings (with the mean ratio of just female-to-male wages being .92). Respondents framed the just pay ratios by the gender inequalities they experienced in their own occupations, and some evidence of gender-specific evaluation standards emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Importance: Differences in utilization and costs of end-of-life care among developed countries are of considerable policy interest.Objective: To compare site of death, health care utilization, and hospital expenditures in 7 countries: Belgium, Canada, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States.Design, Setting, and Participants: Retrospective cohort study using administrative and registry data from 2010. Participants were decedents older than 65 years who died with cancer. Secondary analyses included decedents of any age, decedents older than 65 years with lung cancer, and decedents older than 65 years in the United States and Germany from 2012.Main Outcomes and Measures: Deaths in acute care hospitals, 3 inpatient measures (hospitalizations in acute care hospitals, admissions to intensive care units, and emergency department visits), 1 outpatient measure (chemotherapy episodes), and hospital expenditures paid by insurers (commercial or governmental) during the 180-day and 30-day periods before death. Expenditures were derived from country-specific methods for costing inpatient services.Results: The United States (cohort of decedents aged >65 years, N = 211,816) and the Netherlands (N = 7216) had the lowest proportion of decedents die in acute care hospitals (22.2.% and 29.4%, respectively). A higher proportion of decedents died in acute care hospitals in Belgium (N = 21,054; 51.2%), Canada (N = 20,818; 52.1%), England (N = 97,099; 41.7%), Germany (N = 24,434; 38.3%), and Norway (N = 6636; 44.7%). In the last 180 days of life, 40.3% of US decedents had an intensive care unit admission compared with less than 18% in other reporting nations. In the last 180 days of life, mean per capita hospital expenditures were higher in Canada (US $21,840), Norway (US $19,783), and the United States (US $18,500), intermediate in Germany (US $16,221) and Belgium (US $15,699), and lower in the Netherlands (US $10,936) and England (US $9342). Secondary analyses showed similar results.Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients older than 65 years who died with cancer in 7 developed countries in 2010, end-of-life care was more hospital-centric in Belgium, Canada, England, Germany, and Norway than in the Netherlands or the United States. Hospital expenditures near the end of life were higher in the United States, Norway, and Canada, intermediate in Germany and Belgium, and lower in the Netherlands and England. However, intensive care unit admissions were more than twice as common in the United States as in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine whether the U.S. and German state governments pursue sustainable fiscal policies taking into account fiscal transfers. Using panel data techniques we investigate whether the debt-to-GDP ratio had a positive influence on the primary surplus ( Bohn model). We show that including/excluding fiscal transfers changes the results. If fiscal transfers are not included in the primary surplus, the test results do not indicate that the U.S. and German state governments pursued sustainable fiscal policies. Our results also suggest that fiscal transfers were positively related to debt. These findings indicate that intergovernmental transfers have implicitly subsidized debts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how institutional differences matter to the quality of a nation’s jobs; job quality is conceived as a dimension of a national economy’s social performance and thus defined in accordance with civic principles. Focus is on the two archetypical varieties of capitalism, the United States and Germany. Using data from a 2009 telephone survey of U.S. and German workers, we find that the overall attainment of civic principles, as perceived by workers, is no different in Germany than in the United States, even though the German institutional environment should be more conducive to them. This is due to higher worker expectations in Germany and a tendency for employer practices to compensate for the weaker (liberal) institutional environment in the United States. Once these are controlled, German workers report substantially more positive outcomes. We find that institutional differences also matter in how various employer practices are adopted and hence have indirect as well as direct implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This work investigates the impact of globalization on the political economy of the Northern and Southern hemispheres, with Nigeria, Brazil, Germany and the US as case studies. It argues that though the disadvantaged position of the countries of the Southern hemisphere is obvious, the advanced economies of the North are not without their share of the frustrations and undesirable impacts of globalization on their political economy. It also argues that until the South stops perceiving globalization as a threat rather than an opportunity, no appreciable progress will be made in reducing the North/South economic dichotomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the differences between the education and training systems in the liberal and coordinated market economies have increased. It is not possible to understand such different developments by focusing exclusively on the internal dynamics of vocational and general education systems. Vocational education and training (VET), and particularly apprenticeship systems rather than school-based VET, are deeply embedded in the different national production, labour market, industrial relations and status systems. In order to contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of VET, we examine recent developments in general and vocational training and its links to the labour and product market in five contrasting countries, namely, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Korea and the USA. In particular, differences in industrial relations, welfare states, income distribution and product markets are the main reason for the persistent high level of diversity in vocational training systems. The difference can perhaps be summarized as follows: in the coordinated market economies, the modernisation of vocational training is seen as a contribution to innovation in the economy, while in liberal market economies, it is seen as a siding into which weaker pupils can conveniently be shunted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the relationship between functional income distribution and economic growth in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA from 1960 until 2005. The analysis is based on a demand-driven distribution and growth model for an open economy inspired by Bhaduri and Marglin, which allows for either profit- or wage-led growth. We find that growth in France, Germany, the UK and the USA has been wage-led, whereas Austria and the Netherlands have been profit-led. In the case of Austria a domestically wage-led economy changes to profit-led when including the effect of distribution on external trade. The Netherlands, however, are already profit-led without external trade. Our results so far only partially confirm Bhaduri and Marglin's theoretical conclusion that wage-led growth becomes less feasible when the effects of distribution on foreign trade are taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes variation in International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionality. Conditions attached to IMF loans vary qualitatively and quantitatively across time and space, contrary to the allegations of inflexibility and insensitivity. This study theorizes that despite the IMF's official rules to determine conditionality by economic criteria, variation arises because the strategic interests of the five biggest contributors to the IMF (the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and France) interfere with IMF policy, which potentially compromises the effectiveness of its programs. This theory is tested empirically against 398 conditionality agreements contracted between 1983 and 1997 using an event-count method based on the Poisson distribution to obtain statistical results supportive of the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world dominated by oil, each country has to design its own energy policy to cope with increasingly scarce stocks of this fossil fuel. Particularly, the United States, France and Germany engaged into significantly different paths coping with challenging constraints such as ensuring economic growth, security of energy supply, and respect of the environment. The impact of these energy policies on the development of renewable energies has been assessed by analyzing each national policy from the economic, political, and technological standpoints. The results of this study provides some explanations of tactical moves made by these energy hungry economies to cope with the increasing pressure put on the oil supply market and to prepare for a future where green energies are bound to play an increasingly important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption that technological innovation constitutes an inevitable facet of something called ‘globalisation’ is called into question by comparative historical investigation. In the areas of biotechnology and genome research, for instance, the United States and Germany - two advanced industrial states - have demonstrated remarkably different historical trajectories. While the US was a driving force behind the explosion of biotechnology as an industrial sector, Germany was unable to muster much effort until the late 1990s. Explaining this difference, this article utilizes historical political economy to characterize these states and their relationship to capitalism. The lag in German efforts is understood as a function of the pre-capitalist vestiges of the state and their peculiar effects on capitalist social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To develop a user-friendly tool for managing the transfer of economic evaluation results.Methods: Factors that may influence the transfer of health economic study results were systematically identified and the way they impact on transferability was investigated. A transferability decision chart was developed that includes: knock-out criteria; a checklist based on the transferability factors; and methods for improving transferability and for assessing the uncertainty of transferred results. This approach was tested on various international cost-effectiveness studies in the areas of interventional cardiology, vaccination and screening.Results: The transfer of study results is possible pending the outcomes of the transferability check and necessary adjustments. Transferability factors can be grouped into areas of methodological, healthcare system and population characteristics. Different levels of effort are required for analysis of factors, ranging from very low (e.g. discount rate) to very high (e.g. practice variation). The impact of differences of most transferability factors can be estimated via the key health economic determinants: capacity utilisation, effectiveness, productivity loss and returns to scale. Depending on the outcomes of the transferability check a correction of the study results for inflation and for differences related to currencies or purchasing power might be sufficient. Otherwise, modelling-based adjustments might be necessary, requiring the (re-)building and sometimes structural modification of the study model. For determination of the most essential adjustments, a univariate sensitivity analysis seems appropriate. If not all relevant study parameters can be substituted with country-specific ones, multivariate or probabilistic sensitivity analysis seems to be a promising way to quantify the uncertainty associated with a transfer. If study results cannot be transferred, the transfer of study models or designs should be investigated as this can significantly save time when conducting a new study.Conclusions: Our transferability decision chart is a transparent and user-friendly tool for assessing and improving the transferability of economic evaluation results. A state of the art description of the methodology in a study, providing detailed components for calculation, is not only essential for determining its transferability but also for improving it via modelling adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explain the decline in economic growth after the beginning of the 1970s, several authors have reverted to the theory of the 40- to 60-year-long Kondratieff cycle. This article concentrates on the empirical foundations of this cycle. After a critical survey of the important investigations by Kondratieff, Imbert and Van Duyn, the thesis of the long wave is subjected to a new test on the basis of time series of indicators of real economic growth in Great Britain, France, (West-) Germany, and the United States. The results of this investigation are clearly negative with respect to the existence of a long wave in real variables in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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At the level of aggregate expenditures, variables explaining consumption functions are usually deflated by price indices on the plausible assumption that consumers are influenced by variables in "real" rather than monetary terms[1]. This procedure may be appropriate for permanent income and life cycle theory approaches as developed by Friedman and Modigliani because, in the long run, consumers strive for the standard of living that can be reached by people of their education and income level, the standard of living being measured in terms of real estate and car ownership, ownership of household durables and so forth. But "evidence continues to accumulate that the assumption of consumers being influenced by variables in real terms rather than in monetary terms is contrary to fact and that consumers are subject to the money illusion"[2]. Branson and Klevorick, in an attempt to investigate the money illusion in the aggregate consumption function, come to the conclusion that, "in the short run, the price level has an independent effect on real consumption"[3]. Their conclusion is at least plausible for a period of "creeping" inflation. As long as the rise in nominal income is not matched by a compensating rise in the price level, consumers may not worry too much about rising prices. They are cognisant of their growing standard of living and may even be inclined to justify rising prices on the grounds that they are purchasing better quality products and services. This mentality of consumers may be expected to change in periods of lower increases in nominal income and growing rates of inflation. If the rate of inflation has been exceeding the long-run average for a number of years and if the economic outlook does not suggest a change for the... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a cross-cultural evidence on the effects of resources in relation to the choice of a distribution principle in the U.S., Sweden and Germany. Three rules of allocation which have been the topics of theoretical discussion and research are to each one according to their contribution, to each one according to their need, and to each one equally. Social psychologists have been concerned with discovering factors which contribute to the adoption of one rule over the other two. The dependent variable, which was the choice of allocation rule, was operationalized in two ways, such as that subjects in three of these studies were asked to indicate their preferences for rules, while in the other three the rules were evaluated in terms of their justice. Preferences were investigated for distribution rules in two populations, namely undergraduate students at Temple University and members of Rotary Club, an organization of business people. Among the latter there was a tendency to prefer the criterion of contribution over equality, no matter which resource was allocated. Among students this preference was limited to distribution of money and status or prestige. With regard to information, students preferred distribution by the need principle.

We introduce and summarize the results of nine empirical studies that make up this special issue on agricultural economics. The research includes studies applied to the US, Bangladesh, Northern Ireland, Germany, Poland, Taiwan, Tunisia and Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The credit ratings of US states, German Lander and Russian oblasty are evaluated in the light of different institutional settings and rating principles. The implicit weight given to these principles varies widely depending on the particular institutional framework and socialvalues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]