Universitätspublikationen
93 search hits
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Proximities and innovation : evidence from the Indian IT industry in Bangalore
(2004)
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Florian Arun Täube
- Much has been written on the success of the Indian software industry, enumerating systemic factors like first-class higher education and research institutions, both public and private; low labour costs, stimulating (state) policies etc. However, although most studies analyzing the 'Indian' software industry cover essentially the South (and West) Indian clusters, this issue has not been tackled explicitly. This paper supplements the economic geography explanations mentioned above with the additional factor social capital, which is not only important within the region, but also in transnational (ethnic) networks linking Indian software clusters with the Silicon Valley. In other words, spatial proximity is complemented with cultural proximity, thereby, extending the system of innovation. The main hypothesis is that some Indian regions are more apt to economic development and innovation due to their higher affinity to education and learning, as well as, their more general openness, which has been a main finding of my interviews. In addition, the transnational networks of Silicon Valley Indians seem to be dominated by South Indians, thus, corroborating the regional clustering of the Indian software industry. JEL Classifications: O30, R12, Z13, L86
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Multiple modernities : the transnationalisation of cultures
(2004)
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Gisela Welz
- During the past decade, processes associated with what is popularly though perhaps misleadingly known as globalization have come within the purview of anthropology. Migration and mobility ‐ and the footloose or even rootless social groups that they produce ‐ as well as the worldwide diffusion of commodities, media images, political ideas and practices, technologies and scientific knowledge today are on anthropology's research agenda. As a consequence, received notions about the ways in which culture relates to territory have been abandoned. The term transnationalisation captures cultural processes that stream across the borders of nation states. Anthropologists have been forced to revise the notion that transnationalisation would inevitably bring about a culturally homogenized world. Instead, we are witnessing a surge of greatly increasing cultural diversity. New cultural forms grow out of historically situated articulations of the local and the global. Rather than left-over relics from traditional orders, these are decidedly modern, yet far from uniform. The essay engages the idea of the pluralization of modernities, explores its potential for interdisciplinary research agendas, and also inquires into problematic assumptions underlying this new theoretical concept.
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Interest rate reaction functions for the Euro area : evidence from panel data analysis
(2004)
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Karsten Ruth
- As of today, estimating interest rate reaction functions for the Euro Area is hampered by the short time span since the conduct of a single monetary policy. In this paper we circumvent the common use of aggregated data before 1999 by estimating interest rate reaction functions based on a panel including actual EMU Member States. We find that exploiting the cross-section dimen- sion of a multi-country panel and accounting for cross-country heterogeneity in advance of the single monetary policy pays off with regard to the estimated reaction functions' ability to describe actual interest rate dynamics. We retrieve a panel reaction function which is demonstrated to be a valuable tool for evaluating episodes of monetary policy since 1999. JEL - Klassifikation: E43 , E58 , C33
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The longer term refinancing operations of the ECB
(2004)
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Tobias Linzert
Dieter Nautz
Ulrich Bindseil
- This paper employs individual bidding data to analyze the empirical performance of the longer term refinancing operations (LTROs) of the European Central Bank (ECB). We investigate how banks’ bidding behavior is related to a series of exogenous variables such as collateral costs, interest rate expectations, market volatility and to individual bank characteristics like country of origin, size, and experience. Panel regressions reveal that a bank’s bidding depends on bank characteristics. Yet, different bidding behavior generally does not translate into differences concerning bidder success. In contrast to the ECB’s main refinancing operations, we find evidence for the winner’s curse effect in LTROs. Our results indicate that LTROs do neither lead to market distortions nor to unfair auction outcomes. JEL classification: E52, D44
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Practised imagination. Tracing transnational networks in Crete and beyond
(2004)
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Regina Römhild
- The imagination has become a major site for studying transnational cultural flows. Yet it is mainly the mass media that are explored as channels directing the imagination from "the West" towards "the rest". And there is still little empirical "testing" of this field. How do such ‐ and other ‐ imaginary sources work into social practice? And what does such "practised imagination" imply for the practice of transnational anthropology? This article attempts to address these questions from the perspective of fieldwork in progress. In and between Crete and Germany I traced transnational networks based on the reciprocal mobilities of migration, remigration, and tourism. Here, multiple domains of imagination are drawn upon by various audiences, thus effectively contributing to the creation of these relations and the places in which they localise. Anthropological research on tourism and migration has tended to separate the imagination ‐ as being an external impact ‐ from local practice. Yet, transnational ethnography needs to challenge this opposition and is in itself a strategy to do so, in that it perceives the imagination as a practice of transcending physical and cultural distance.
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Travellerscapes : tourism research and transnational anthropology
(2004)
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Jana Binder
- Even though tourism has been recognised as an important field for transnational research today, there are few attempts to place tourism in the context of transnational theories or to think about transnationalism from the perspective of tourists. I argue that in researching tourist practices one can add important aspects to transnational approaches. The prerequisites of mobility and interaction for example are the features chosen by backpackers to describe what their Round-The-World-Trip is about. A form of tourism is adopted, or created, that itself confronts many aspects of globalisation: First of all there is the immense dynamic that is involved. Backpackers try to cover as many places and experiences as possible, travelling at high speed. They adopt all kinds of touristic experiences ranging from beach to adventure to culture tourism. They don't focus on a specific area or country but travel the world. They cross national borders perpetually. Additionally they form a transnational network in which they interact with strangers of similar backgrounds (other backpackers, tourist professionals). This network helps them interacting with people from different backgrounds (the socalled hosts or locals). Considering my research Backpackers forge a certain identity from these transnational practices which I want to name globedentity. Globedentity expresses a type of identity construction that not only refers to the individual (I) but reflects the world (globe) in this identity. This globedentity is not fixed but is perpetually re-created and re-defined. It also embraces the increasing popular awareness of globalisation which backpackers, coming from highly educated middle class backgrounds, in particular have identified with. Due to the constant awareness of the latest global social, cultural and economic developments in these educated milieus they know exactly which tools to use to become successful parts of their societies.
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Modalitäten und Effekte von Zuzahlungen im Gesundheitswesen
(2004)
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Jens Holst
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Gesundheitswesen und Gesundheitspolitik in Brasilien (Januar 2004)
(2004)
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Ligia Giovanella
Marcelo Firpo de Souza Porto
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Zwischen Hyperdemokratie und "Minderheitstyrannei" : die USA zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts
(2004)
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Jochen Hils
- Am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts wird der Zustand der US-Demokratie kontrovers diskutiert. Während manche Beobachter eine zu hohe Responsivität des politischen Systems gegenüber den Ansprüchen seiner Bürger entdeckt haben wollen und deshalb von demosclerosis und einer Hyperdemokratie sprechen, in welcher der Volkswille in einen unantastbaren, göttlichen Rang erhoben worden sei, kommen andere zu dem Schluss, dass die Gründerväter im Hinblick auf ihre handlungsanleitende Furcht vor einer »Tyrannei der Mehrheit« ganze Arbeit geleistet und ein nahezu unüberwindbares System von Vetopositionen geschaffen hätten, das Partikularinteressen strukturell bevorzuge und deshalb nur in Ausnahmesituationen die Mehrheitspräferenzen der Bürger in Politik umsetze. Kurzum: Die Furcht der Federalists vor einer »Mehrheitstyrannei« habe einer »Minderheitstyrannei« Tür und Tor geöffnet. Der Artikel versucht die Vereinigten Staaten in diesem Spannungsbogen zu verorten. Ziel ist es, die Qualität der amerikanischen Demokratie am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts zu problematisieren. Dabei werden auch die Entwicklungen nach dem 11. September berücksichtigt.
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"Still liberal welfare states?" : Umverteilung, Armut und die Reform der Wohlfahrtsstaaten in den USA und Kanada im internationalen Vergleich
(2004)
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Christian Lammert
- In der vorliegenden Studie werden die sozialpolitischen Reformen in den USA und Kanada während der 1990er Jahren in einer vergleichenden Perspektive analysiert. Dabei wird insbesondere die Rolle steuerpolitischer Instrumentarien in den Reformen thematisiert und der Frage nachgegangen, ob sich hier ein neuer Typ von Wohlfahrtsstaat herausbildet. Im ersten Teil des Papiers wird das in der vergleichenden Wohlfahrtsstaatsforschung etablierte Modell des liberalen Wohlfahrtsstaats skizziert, um vor diesem Hintergrund die Reformen in den USA und Kanada zu untersuchen und zu vergleichen. Anschließend wird in einer breiteren vergleichenden Perspektive die out-put-Leistung der beiden Wohlfahrtsstaaten analysiert. Al normative Kriterien hierbei gilt in erster Linie die Umverteilungsfunktion sozialpolitischer Instrumentarien, hier in erster Linie verstanden als Einkommensumverteilung.
