New Releases by Peter Huber

Der Wandel ist in der heutigen Arbeitswelt allgegenwärtig. Oft wird ihm jedoch mit zu viel Ernst und Verbissenheit begegnet. Dabei schließen sich Leistung und Spaß nicht aus! Dieses Buch von Peter Huber und Georg Karigl richtet sich an alle, die Veränderung aktiv und verträglich gestalten wollen. Dabei kann Humor weiterhelfen: Er fördert den Zusammenhalt, löst Spannungen und stärkt das Team, insbesondere in stressigen Situationen. Humor macht Wandel tragbar. Und ein Perspektivwechsel hilft manchmal, Schweres leichter zu bewältigen. Das Buch bietet 52 humorvolle und inspirierende Impulse zu den Themen Leadership, Change Management und Teamwork. Professionelle Analysen und konkrete Praxisbeispiele aus dem Führungsalltag helfen, die Umsetzung greifbar zu machen. Inhalte: Humor meets Business Leadership, Change Management und Teamwork mit Humor Humor als wesentlicher Teil unseres Mensch-Seins Die Anatomie des Lachens und wann Humor fehl am Platz ist Erfolg hat drei Buchstaben: TUN

Decisions-makers in firms are expected to use perceived rather than actual tax rates and hence their decisions can be substantially biased by misperception. We quantify firms' misperception of their average tax rate (ATR) and marginal tax rate (MTR) and identify drivers of this tax rate misperception. Using survey data on German firms, we find that the share of firms considerably misperceiving their ATR and MTR exceeds 65% and 57% respectively. Further, we illustrate firms' impaired comprehension of the tax schedule reflected by the relation between ATR and MTR. We find sole proprietorships and partnerships on average considerably overestimate their ATR anchoring at the top marginal tax rate. While corporations show no uniform tax misperception patterns for retained profits, they tend to strongly underestimate ATRs and MTRs on distributed profits. Irrespective of the legal form, we find misperception is mainly driven by tax regime complexity, lack of tax knowledge and dissatisfaction with the tax system. Surprisingly, even though many firms report using the ATR instead of the appropriate MTR in their investment and financing decisions, which suggests that they underestimate their tax burden, this bias is partially attenuated by their ATR misperception. Overall, our findings demonstrate that policymakers and researchers can benefit from incorporating firms' tax rate misperception when estimating firms' tax response and evaluating tax policies.

We analyze the long-term impact of the resettlement of the Sudetenland after World War II on residential migration. This event involved expulsion of ethnic Germans and almost complete depopulation of an area of a country and its rapid resettlement by 2 million Czech inhabitants. Results based on nearest neighbor matching and regression discontinuity design show a higher population churn in resettled areas that continues today. The populations in resettled areas and in the remainder of the country share similar values and do not differ statistically in terms of their propensity to give donations, attend social events, and participate in voluntary work. However, we observe that resettled settlements have fewer local club memberships, lower turnout in municipal elections, and less frequently organized social events. This finding indicates substantially lower local social capital in the resettled settlements that is likely to have caused higher residential migration. This explanation is consistent with theoretical models of the impact of social capital on migration decisions.

We study whether the positive effects of homeownership on political participation and social capital, found in developed market economies, extend to post-communist countries. We find that homeownership is strongly related to higher participation in local-level and national elections. In post-communist countries, homeownership is also related to higher social trust. However, the positive association between homeownership and volunteering found in developed market economies does not extend to post-communist countries. Together, our results corroborate that homeownership is associated with positive social benefits. However, these effects are highly heterogeneous and context-dependent.

New medicines in the pipeline can extend lives, save money, and even help prevent disease before symptoms appear – if we don’t discourage their innovators and investors by trying to lower drug prices artificially. Unlocking Precision Medicine explores the environment necessary for creation of these health care game-changers, and explains how the marketplace can effectively make them more affordable to all without killing the golden goose.

We study the reasons for differences in welfare benefit receipt between immigrants and natives in 16 EU countries using Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions of a Heckman model. Differences in welfare benefit receipt diminish or disappear altogether after controlling for differences in characteristics of the two groups. The largest part of this is explained by differences in benefit take-up rather than benefit levels conditional on benefit receipt. The characteristics contributing most to native-immigrant welfare wedges in contributory benefits are differences in age. For non-contributory benefits, differences in household size and composition are most important. Overall results thus suggest a limited capability of selective immigration policies to reduce welfare benefit receipt among immigrants.

Mark Zuckerberg's ‘A Year of Books’ Selection George Orwell’s bleak visions of the future, one in which citizens are monitored through telescreens by an insidious Big Brother, has haunted our imagination long after the publication of 1984. Orwell’s dystopian image of the telescreen as a repressive instrument of state power has profoundly affected our view of technology, posing a stark confrontational question: Who will be master, human or machine? Experience has shown, however, that Orwell’s vision of the future was profoundly and significantly wrong: The conjunction of the new communications technologies has not produced a master-slave relation between person and computer, but rather exciting possibilities for partnership. In an extraordinary demonstration of the emerging supermedium's potential to engender new forms of creativity, Huber’s book boldly reimagines 1984 from the computer's point of view. After first scanning all of Orwell’s writings into his personal computer, Huber used the machine to rewrite the book completely, for the most part using Orwell’s own language. Alternating fiction and non-fiction chapters, Huber advances Orwell’s plot to a surprising new conclusion while seamlessly interpolating his own explanations and arguments. The result is a fascinating utopian work which envisions a world at our fingertips of ever-increasing information, equal opportunity, and freedom of choice.

Irgendwo. Irgendwo, versteckt auf dieser Welt. Beispielsweise im Obergeschoß einer florentinischen Bar. Ein Gewitter, das schießt und sich zischend ergießt auf den Platz davor. Ich blicke hinab auf hastende Regenschirmkuppeln.

Promovieren - lohnt sich das? Wie läßt sich eine Dissertation finanzieren? Wer betreut sie und wie fängt man eine wissenschaftliche Arbeit überhaupt an? Wer den Doktortitel erwerben will, findet in diesem Leitfaden einen Begleiter auf einem oftmals schwierigen Weg. Themen sind unter anderem: Der Wissenschaftsbetrieb, Zeitmanagement, Kreativitätstechniken, wissenschaftliches Schreiben und Publizieren, Umgang mit Selbstzweifeln. Die zweite, vollständig überarbeitete und aktualisierte Auflage wurde ergänzt um ein Kapitel über Wissenschaftstheorie, ein Kapitel über Frauen an der Hochschule, Hinweise zur Gestaltung von Doktorandenseminaren und den Abschnitt "Häufig gestellte Fragen". Im Anhang findet sich ein kommentiertes Literaturverzeichnis, ein unfangreiches, erläutertes Verzeichnis relevanter Internetadressen und Arbeitsbögen zu den Themen der Kapitel.

I analyze the skill and age structure of commuters in 14 EU countries. Theory implies that commuters can be either more or less able than stayers, but are always less able than migrants and that they are also always older than migrants but younger than stayers. Empirically all types of commuters are younger and have higher education than non-commuters. Internal commuters are better educated and younger than cross-border commuters, education decreases while age increases with distance commuted and recent migrants are younger but also more highly educated than commuters.

"... there is a lack of a clear and simple exposition of the CISG for students and practitioners. That is the role of the current book, which it fills admirably. All of the issues that have been raised in the cases and the literature are considered, but without excessive detail. This is a book that will do much to make the CISG an easily understandable text for all users, student and pracitioner alike." Preface by Professor Eric E. Bergsten

"The author analyzes regional labor market disparities in transition by presenting some data and summarizing existing literature. He finds that large and persistent regional labor market disparities developed in virtually all transition countries and that there is some evidence of polarization. Differences in starting conditions and market access seem to be the major reasons for regional divergence in transition. Furthermore, regional wages are only slightly more flexible than in many European Union labor markets, interregional migration is low, and capital seems to move toward high wage and low unemployment urban centers rather than to the most backward regions. Policy should thus take a long-run perspective on the existing regional disparities, focus on removing barriers to mobility, review existing institutions for implementing regional policy, and aim at a close coordination of regional and labor market policy instruments. "--World Bank web site.

English summary: The author deals with the question of whether the seller of defective goods can avoid a contract under the law of error or misrepresentation or whether he is limited to his rights under the law pertaining to sales. He bases his study on German law, but also covers recent international efforts to harmonize contract law, such as the CISG, the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts and the Principles of European Contract Law. German description: Peter Huber durchdenkt ein altbekanntes, aber bisher nicht befriedigend gelostes Problem des burgerlichen Rechts vor dem Hintergrund moderner Reform- und Vereinheitlichungsbestrebungen neu: die Frage, ob der Kaufer einer mangelhaften Sache neben den Gewahrleistungsanspruchen auch auf die Irrtumsanfechtung zuruckgreifen darf. Im deutschen Recht nimmt man bisher ganz uberwiegend an, dass dem Kaufer nur die Sachmangelanspruche zur Verfugung stehen. In auslandischen Rechtsordnungen wird diese Frage dagegen anders behandelt. Bemerkenswert ist, dass weder im deutschen noch im auslandischen Recht Einigkeit uber die theoretischen Grundlagen der Ausschlusswirkung erzielt wurde.Aktualitat gewinnt die Frage dadurch, dass das Vertragsrecht sowohl international als auch national vor einem Wandel steht. Auf internationaler Ebene gibt es verschiedene Ansatze zur Vereinheitlichung des Vertragsrechts, z. B. im UN-Kaufrecht, in den UNIDROIT-Principles of International Commercial Contracts, in den Principles of European Contract Law und in der EG-Richtlinie uber den Verbrauchsguterkauf. In Deutschland ist die Diskussion uber die grosse Schuldrechtsreform in vollem Gang.Peter Huber arbeitet die Grundlagen des Konkurrenzverhaltnisses beider Rechtsinstitute heraus und wendet sie anschliessend auf die deutsche lex lata und die neuen Regelwerke, einschliesslich des Kommissionsentwurfs zur Schuldrechtsreform, an. Er kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass das entscheidende Kriterium zur Beantwortung der Konkurrenzfrage den neuen Regelwerken entnommen werden kann.