Simulation of the governance of complex systems (SimCo) See

The current paper is positioned at the intersection of computer simulation, governance research, and research on infrastructure systems, such as transportation or energy. It proposes a simulation framework, “Simulation of the governance of complex systems” (SimCo), to study the governability of complex socio-technical systems experimentally by means of agent-based modelling (ABM). SimCo is rooted in a sociological macro-micro-macro model of a socio-technical system, taking into account the in...

Essays on fiscal policy: trade balance deficits, private debt deleveraging, and heterogeneous agents See

This thesis addresses three issues of (optimal) fiscal policy related to recent economic developments. The first essay refers to specific economic problems arising in a monetary union by building on a two-country DSGE model where the two countries belong to a monetary union featuring intra-union trade balance imbalances. It is explored if and how a unilaterally implemented budget-neutral tax shift from direct to indirect taxation (fiscal devaluation) may decrease these imbalances. The fiscal ...

Mandatory sustainability reporting in Germany: does size matter? See

This article studies how German firms evaluate a recent national corporate social responsibility (CSR) law based on a European Union directive and the burden they expect regarding their organizational responsibilities due to mandatory sustainability reporting. One hundred and fifty-one firms of different sizes directly or indirectly affected by the law are included in the survey and their responses empirically analyzed using two-tailed t-tests and simple linear regression. Anchoring the discu...

Vertriebspartnerwahl im Auslandsgeschäft See

Viele Unternehmen sind sich der enormen Bedeutung der internationalen Märkte bewusst. Neue Kommunikations-, Transport- und Handelswege bieten vielfältige Chancen wie poten-zielle Umsatz- und Gewinnsteigerungen, Kosten- und Effizienzvorteile sowie Zugang zu mehr und neuen Ressourcen. Allerdings existieren, insbesondere für kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen (KMU), die in vielen globalen Volkswirtschaften den Motor der Wirtschaft darstellen, große Herausforderungen auf dem Weg zu erfolgrei...

Three essays on In-store information search in a digital world: effects of different Information sources on customers’ path to purchase See

The main focus of this doctoral dissertation is to compare the interaction between customers and frontline employees with the use of online product reviews as the two most frequently consulted information sources at brick-and-mortar stores. Against this contextual background, the presented essays intend to answer relevant questions about the influence of communication channels and information sources in different stages of customers’ decision-making processes. Using a mixed-methods approac...

Essays on rogue traders and collusive rogue trading: Implications of control balance, organizational misbehaviour, and behavioural patterns of group dynamics See

When analysing great financial disasters of our time, rogue trading and related protagonists come into play immediately. Recent history reveals a series of rogue traders, jeopardizing their employers’ assets and reputation. Rogue trading is a reoccurring phenomenon, gaining immense public attention due to the perceived mismatch between large-scale organizations on the one hand and individual employees bringing these organizations into enormous trouble on the other. It furthermore links to the...

Sample size and error containment judgments in non-statistical audit sampling - the sensivity of auditors to a revision of professional standards See

This cumulative dissertation deals with audit sampling theory, the revision of corresponding professional audit sampling standards, and the behavioral impact of the latter on auditors’ decisions over sample size and error containment, as well as the cognitive challenges that auditors are faced with when applying non-statistical sampling procedures. Three conceptual papers review the development of audit sampling techniques and technological demands throughout the profession over the last four...

The distributional implications of business cycles and fiscal policy See

This thesis presents three self-contained essays that emphasize the relevance of household heterogeneity and distributional implications in the analysis of business cycle dynamics and fiscal policy. In Chapter 2, I investigate the impact of redistributive taxation on private borrowing constraints and the cross-sectional distributions of consumption and income. I show that tax policy can have a substantial effect on households’ access to private credit markets in the sense that borrowing const...

Essays in finance: time-frequency decompositions and the impact of surprise See

In the first part of this thesis, we study the informative value of time-frequency decompositions based on wavelets. In chapter 2 we address the challenge of forecasting major stock indices. For the binary classification task, we identify three wavelet filters out of fifteen, namely $D4$, $D6$ and $CF6$, which outperform the naive approach. We exemplify the performance of the forecasting algorithm by simulating a trading application in which the wavelet-based approach outperforms the naive st...

Industry 4.0 - A Path-Dependent Innovation See

Starting point of this paper is the prevailing view in the digitization discourse that there is currently a pronounced technology push with disruptive consequences for work. The article argues, however, that disruptive and structural change is by no means to be found or expected in all economic sectors and working segments. The thesis of this paper is that the digitization of work in the sector of industrial production is tied to a markedly path-dependent process of technological innovation a...

Essays on the effectiveness of KAM disclosure in auditor's reports See

This cumulative dissertation examines the effectiveness of key audit matters (KAMs) in the auditor’s report. The first paper investigates whether KAMs contribute to the audit expectation gap. While standard setters and regulators suggest that the expanded auditor's report will be a lot clearer when KAM disclosure is included, researchers believe that the audit expectation gap is rather an educational gap which exists because financial statement users are not aware of auditor’s responsibilitie...

Demographic change, migration and public pensions - a macroeconomic analysis See

This thesis contains three self-contained papers contributing to the literature on demographic change, migration and public pensions. Chapter 2 introduces the basic framework for analyzing endogenous migration flows in an open economy model where countries exhibit differences in the generosity of public pension systems. Chapter 3 expands the model setting along several dimensions. First of all, I extend the model from chapter 2 to a three-country set-up, in which Germany as the host region re...

Konzeptionelle Perspektiven von Arbeit in der digitaliserten Logistik See

Game theoretical analyses of industrial and societal organization See

Endlich - Wirtschaftsnobelpreis für Paul Romer See

Integration von Risiken in Geschäftsprozessmodelle zur Gestaltung eines betrieblichen Informationssystems See

Die Koordinierung der Wertschöpfungsaktivitäten vieler Unternehmen erfolgt heutzutage in einer geschäftsprozessorientierten Vorgehensweise. Geschäftsprozessmanagementsysteme zur Steuerung der Prozesse haben sich daher als ein Führungsinstrument etabliert. Die Betrachtung von Unsicherheiten in den betrieblichen Abläufen wird von diesen Systemen vernachlässigt. Aus Sicht des Risikomanagements gewinnt die Risikoanalyse auf Geschäftsprozessebene jedoch zunehmend an Bedeutung. Die Dissertation sch...

Vertriebsseitige Herausforderungen bei industriellen Betreibermodellen: eine integrierte Betrachtung der Anbieter- und Nachfragerperspektive See

Industrielle Betreibermodelle sind in den vergangenen Jahren in den Fokus des praktischen und wissenschaftlichen Diskurses gerückt, da mit ihnen umfassende Potenziale für Anbieter und Nachfrager realisiert werden können. Gleichzeitig konnten in übergeordneten Forschungsgebieten bereits vielfältige Erkenntnisse zum Vertrieb komplexer Produkt- Dienstleistungsbündel und industrieller Problemlösungen generiert werden. Allerdings sind industrielle Betreibermodelle hochgradig individuelle Geschäfts...

Asking questions to promote employee participation See

Learning algorithms, and current developments – banking at the crossroads See

Since the 2008 financial crisis much discourse questioned the relevance of the banking industry to society; in particular given sovereign bailouts of failed banks. Such questions provide the context in which this thesis covers four key topics for wholesale banking in the future. Firstly, in relation to efficiency improvements in the wholesale banking model and promotion of market liquidity, ‘Machine Learning’ techniques were applied to predict the behaviour of wholesale customers in addition ...