Competition between companies tends to be beneficial for the general public, but is this also true for competition between States in a world with global financial markets, low transport costs, and increasing migration? In this book, Sinn provides a solid economic analysis of the competitive forces at work and addresses how we should organize competition between systems so they will enhance the efficiency of these systems, as opposed to acting destructively on them.Provides a thorough economic analysis of the competitive forces at work between nations and governments.Analyzes a wide range of state activities, including taxation, public goods provision, income redistribution, environmental policy, safety standards, and competition policy.Addresses ways to organize competition so it will enhance the efficiency of these systems.

Death comes at the end of every road, he had always said, and now it came for him.

In a land devoid of memory, one man wakes from death only to discover that it's nothing he could have ever imagined.

Within a realm of fear and suffering, demons and angry spirits feed off of the recently deceased. Pain and attachment to the material world torture those that do not understand why they remain earthbound, or why some of them seem to be lucid at all.

Stalked by reapers, hated by the living, and betrayed by those he once loved, one man races against time to discover why he remains upon the earth and what it is that he is supposed to accomplish.

The end approaches. Not just for him, but for everyone.

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held in 1990 on the theme of Exchange Rate Regimes and Currency Unions. The papers are all devoted to theoretical and empirical analyses of systems of fixed and flexible exchange rates, to the role of central bank behaviour and other government policies in such systems, to the prospects, workings and effects of a European monetary system, and to topics of capital mobility and economic integration in general.

Nev Bourne is a hotshot programmer for the latest and greatest tech invention out there: SavePoint, the brain implant that rewinds the seconds of all our most embarrassing moments. She’s been working non-stop on the next rollout, even blowing off her boyfriend, her best friend and her family to make SavePoint 2.0. But when she hits go on the test-run, she wakes up the next day only to discover it's yesterday. She's falling backwards in time, one day at a time. As things spiral out of control, a long-lost friend from college reappears in her life claiming they know how to save her. Airin is charming and mysterious, and somehow knows Nev intimately well. Desperate and intrigued, Nev takes a leap of faith. A friendship born of fear slowly becomes a bond of deepest trust, and possibly love. With time running out, and the whole world of SavePoint users at stake, Nev must learn what it will take to set things right, and what it will cost.

Playing Beyond the Notes: A Pianist's Guide to Musical Interpretation demystifies the vague and complex concept of musical interpretation in Western tonal piano music by boiling it down to basic principles in an accessible writing style. Its intended audience is performing pianists, independent piano teachers, and piano pedagogy students, and the over 200 repertoire excerpts in the book cover the intermediate to advanced piano literature. Rather than dealing with issues pertaining to performance practice, specific composers, or genres, this book focuses solely on musical interpretation. Each chapter tackles a different interpretive principle, explaining clearly, for example, how to play effective ornaments and rubatos or how to understand transitional sections of pieces. The author supplies a helpful checklist of questions at the end of each chapter. The book aims to help pianists understand concrete ways to apply interpretive concepts to their own playing and to give teachers practical ways to teach interpretation to their students. The book is supplemented by a companion website that hosts over 100 audio recordings to enhance the reader's experience.

German Jews and Migration to the United States, 1933-1945 is a collection of first-person accounts, many previously unpublished, that document the flight and exile of German Jews from Nazi Germany to the USA,. The authors of the letters and memoirs included in this collection share two important characteristics: They all had close ties to Munich, the Bavarian capital, and they all emigrated to the USA, though sometimes via detours and/or after stays of varying lengths in other places of refuge. Selected to represent a wide range of exile experiences, these testimonies are carefully edited, extensively annotated, and accompanied by biographical introductions to make them accessible to readers, especially those who are new to the subject. These autobiographical sources reveal the often-traumatic experiences and consequences of forced migration, displacement, resettlement, and new beginnings. In addition, this book demonstrates that migration is not only a process by which groups and individuals relocate from one place to another but also a dynamic of transmigration affected by migrant networks and the complex relationships between national policies and the agency of migrants.

The German state banks - or Landesbanks - are not only some of the largest banks in Germany but are also a dominant force in the international banking sector. These state-owned banks enjoy special privileges and government support which have made them major players in the global arena of banking and finance.Protected by the German taxpayer's seemingly bottomless pockets in the form of state warranties, Landesbanks are able to take part in financing some of the largest projects in the world. They occupy nearly fifty per cent of the top places in both Moody's and Standard and Poor's international rankings. Professor Sinn critically scrutinizes the privileges of the German Landesbanks and questions the justification of government intervention in the banking sector. He predicts that European integration and the introduction of the euro will lead to a fierce take-over battle between Europe's banks. He argues that, given the state warranties, it seems likely that the German Landesbanks will be among the winners in this battle and concludes that the German public banking system has grown far larger than is appropriate for a market economy. This timely book addresses issues of concern for European bankers and policymakers alike. It will also be of interest to students and scholars of financial economics, European integration and money and banking.

In the 1990s, labour productivity growth accelerated in the United States, yet slowed down in other industrialised countries, reversing a three decade long tendency of convergence. The book explores this phenomenon. It first identifies the methodological and statistical problems involved in measuring productivity and making cross-country comparisons in this area. Then the role of factor accumulation for the diverging trends across the OECD world, with a particular focus on the dispersion of information and communication technology (ICT), is reviewed. In-depth studies of single countries provide further insights regarding growth trends in the United States, Japan, Germany, and France. Finally, empirical investigations regarding the determinants of productivity growth at an international level complement the analyses. The results stress that public infrastructure and education, employment rates and working hours, and ICT spending play an important role in explaining the existing differences in levels and changes of productivity. This comprehensive book, on recent research regarding international gaps in productivity growth, will be of great interest to policy advisors and academics, political decision-makers and students of economics, business administration, international business and international policy.

Redesigning the Welfare State argues that the current high level of unemployment in Germany not only creates a major challenge for the German welfare state, but is to a good extent caused by the way the country's welfare system is designed. The authors review the public debate on labour market reforms, which has been ongoing since 2002, and discuss the first set of reforms that have been enacted since then. As the reforms carried out so far fall short of what is actually needed to increase employment and economic growth in the Eurozone's largest economy, the authors introduce a proposal for a more fundamental redesign of the German welfare state. With comparative discussions of important elements of recent labour market reforms in the US, the UK and the rest of Europe, this book will appeal to all labour market researchers, and to those with an interest in applied work and policy advising in Germany. It will also appeal to decision makers and experts at international organisations and think tanks with a specialisation on Europe and Germany.

More than 30 years after the discovery of transition metals and organometal lics as catalysts for olefin polymerization these catalysts did not have lost their fascination. Since 1953 when Karl Ziegler has discovered the catalytic polymerization of ethylene leading to plastically formable polymers which are mechanically stable up to temperatures of about 100 DegreesC, synthetic polymers and rubbers have made their way right into private houses. This discovery has been a main impetus for the fast growing production of plastics. The stereoselective poly merization of propylene and other long-chain a-olefins first detected by Giulio Natta leads to an even broadened field of applications. Another enforcing factor were the developments of Standard Oil of Indiana and Phillipps Petroleum Company who engaged in the polymerization of a-olefins supported molybdenum, cobalt and later on chromium catalysts which clearly indicates the wide variety of suitable systems. This kind of research acknowledged merit when in 1963 the Nobel prize of chemistry was awarded to Ziegler and Natta. Although to a great extent there is a technical application for these catalysts, up to now the nature of the active centres and many reaction mechanisms are not completely known.

Hans Lamm (1913-1985), von 1970 bis zu seinem Tod Prasident der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde in Munchen, hatte seine Geburtsstadt im Jahr 1938 verlassen mussen. Schon 1945 kam er wieder nach Deutschland, ging aber nach seinem Einsatz als Dolmetscher bei den Nurnberger Prozessen und am Wiedergutmachungsgerichtshof zunachst wieder in die USA. Erst 1955 liess er sich dauerhaft in Deutschland nieder. Er war zunachst Kulturdezernent beim Zentralrat der Juden in Dusseldorf und kehrte 1961 in seine Heimatstadt Munchen zuruck, wo er als Abteilungsleiter der Volkshochschule arbeitete. Lamms Grunde fur die Ruckkehr nach Deutschland und seine Rolle in der deutschen Nachkriegsgesellschaft stehen im Mittelpunkt der Studie."

Dieses Buch nimmt eine Standortbestimmung einer jahrzehntelangen Verfolgung der organisierten Kriminalitat (OK) in Deutschland vor. Mit der Studie wird die Inkongruenz zwischen der OK-Definition einerseits und der strafrechtlichen Erfassung der OK andererseits aufgedeckt. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Daten aus dem Bundeslagebild OK nicht mit denen aus der Polizeilichen Kriminalstatistik kompatibel sind, und dass eine an Nutzlichkeiten orientierte OK-Strafverfolgung weitreichende Folgen hat. Mit der Studie wird belegt, dass die Rechtsprechung des Bundesgerichtshofs zur Auslegung der "kriminellen Vereinigung" nicht internationalen Vorgaben entspricht, dass aber eine unionsrechts- bzw. voelkerrechtskonforme Interpretation des 129 StGB ohne Verletzung allgemeiner Rechtsgrundsatze des deutschen Strafrechts moeglich bleibt. Ein Blick in andere Rechtsordnungen (Italien, OEsterreich, Polen und Ungarn) soll zeigen, wie dort die internationalen Vorgaben umgesetzt wurden. Die Arbeit bezieht die jungsten internationalen Forschungsergebnisse zur OK, zur Bildung von Allianzen zwischen OK und Terrorismus (Hybride) und zum illegalen Handel in die Analyse ein. Schliesslich gibt die Untersuchung auch einen Ausblick auf die zukunftigen OK-Entwicklungen und zeigt vor dem Hintergrund bewahrter Praktiken, welche rechtlichen und strategischen sowie sicherheitspolitischen Folgerungen daraus zu ziehen sind.

The contributions are concerned with the theoretical and empirical analyses of fixed and flexible exchange rate systems, the role of central bank and other government policies in such systems, the prospects, workings and effects of a European Monetary System, and capital mobility and economic integration.

The Fundamental Issues Involved Why do we need a theory of uncertainty? It is a fact that almost all man's economic decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty, but this fact alone does not provide a strong enough argument for making the effort necessary to generalize ordinary preference theory designed for a world of perfect certainty. In accordance with Occam's Razor, the mathematician may well welcome a generalization of assumptions even if it does not promise more than a restatement of known results. The economist, however, will only be well disposed towards making the effort if he can expect to achieve new insights and interesting results, for he is interested in the techniques necessary for the generalization only as means to an end, not as ends in themselves. A stronger reason for developing a theory of uncertainty, therefore, seems to be the fact that there are kinds of economic activities to which the non-stochastic preference theory has no access or has access only through highly artificial constructions. Such activities include portfolio decisions of wealth holders, speculation, and insurance. These will be considered in detail in the last chapter of the book. The main purpose of this book, however, is not to apply a theory of uncertainty to concrete economic problems, the purpose rather is to formulate such a theory.

This book offers a critical assessment of the history of the euro, its crisis, and the rescue measures taken by the European Central Bank and the community of states. The euro induced huge capital flows from the northern to the southern countries of the Eurozone that triggered an inflationary credit bubble in the latter, deprived them of their competitiveness, and made them vulnerable to the financial crisis that spilled over from the US in 2007 and 2008. As private capital shied away from the southern countries, the ECB helped out by providing credit from the local money-printing presses. The ECB became heavily exposed to investment risks in the process, and subsequently had to be bailed out by intergovernmental rescue operations that provided replacement credit for the ECB credit, which itself had replaced the dwindling private credit. The interventions stretched the legal structures stipulated by the Maastricht Treaty which, in the absence of a European federal state, had granted the ECB a very limited mandate. These interventions created a path dependency that effectively made parliaments vicarious agents of the ECB's Governing Council. This book describes what the author considers to be a dangerous political process that undermines both the market economy and democracy, without solving southern Europe's competitiveness problem. It argues that the Eurozone has to rethink its rules of conduct by limiting the role of the ECB, exiting the regime of soft budget constraints and writing off public and bank debt to help the crisis countries breathe again. At the same time, the Eurosystem should become more flexible by offering its members the option of exiting and re-entering the euro - something between the dollar and the Bretton Woods system - until it eventually turns into a federation with a strong political power centre and a uniform currency like the dollar.

„Was ist Mathematik?” – auf diese Frage gibt dieses dicke Buch zahllose Antworten. Mathematik ist eben viel mehr als ein Schul- und Studienfach oder Rechnen: Es ist Teil der menschlichen Kultur, ein riesiges aktives Forschungsgebiet und ein nützlicher Werkzeugkasten. „Was ist Mathematik?” – statt einer einzelnen Antwort zeichnen die Autoren ein Panorama, bunt und vielfältig. Da geht es um Philosophie, Beweise, große und kleine Probleme, fundamentale Konzepte, Teilgebiete, Forschungspraxis, Anwendungen der Mathematik. Und um Geschichten aus der Geschichte. Das Buch richtet sich an alle, die wissen und darüber nachdenken wollen, was Mathematik ist, insbesondere auch an Studierende der Mathematik. Es begleitet eine Vorlesung, die an der Freien Universität Berlin jährlich vor allem für Lehramtsstudierende angeboten wird.

Dieses Handbuch beleuchtet den Internetversandhandel mit illegalen Arzneimitteln uber illegale Online-"Apotheken", der sich zu einem auffalligen Wachstumsmarkt entwickelt hat. Durch die hohen Gewinnmargen und das niedrige Entdeckungsrisiko ist der Handel mit gefalschten Arzneimitteln mittlerweile weitaus attraktiver geworden als der Handel mit Betaubungsmitteln und bietet Potential als Geschaftsfeld der organisierten Kriminalitat.Diesem Szenario entsprechend verfolgt das Handbuch bei der Untersuchung internetgestutzter Arzneimittelkriminalitat einen ganzheitlichen Ansatz, indem eine empirische Aufarbeitung der Tater- und Tatstrukturen in diesem Kriminalitatsbereich ebenso vorgenommen wird wie die Zeichnung des Lagebildes fur die Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Im Hauptteil wird die Rechtslage zur Arzneimittelkriminalitat in allen 28 EU-Mitgliedstaaten mit schwerpunktmassiger Berucksichtigung der Aspekte des materiellen Straf- und Prozessrechts rechtsvergleichend aufbereitet, und es werden die einschlagigen internationalen Vorgaben im Bereich der Arzneimittelkriminalitat beleuchtet. Ausserdem werden zivil- und oeffentlich-rechtliche Interventions- und Praventionsalternativen vorgestellt. Nicht zuletzt wird auch eine fur die Ermittlungsarbeit entwickelte technische Loesung zur Verfolgung von Arzneimittelstraftaten im Internet vorgestellt. Einschlagige case-studies und eine Szenarioanalyse zur prognostischen Entwicklung der Arzneimittelkriminalitat runden die Darstellung ab.Abschliessend werden sowohl der Reformbedarf erhoben als auch konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen ausgesprochen, um Konzepte der Verfolgung internetgestutzter Arzneimittelkriminalitat in Deutschland und Europa zu verbessern und eine breite Datenbasis fur den Gesetzgeber zur effektiveren Gesetzgebung zu schaffen.

Competition between companies tends to be beneficial for the general public, but is this also true for competition between States in a world with global financial markets, low transport costs, and increasing migration? In this book, Sinn provides a solid economic analysis of the competitive forces at work and addresses how we should organize competition between systems so they will enhance the efficiency of these systems, as opposed to acting destructively on them.Provides a thorough economic analysis of the competitive forces at work between nations and governments.Analyzes a wide range of state activities, including taxation, public goods provision, income redistribution, environmental policy, safety standards, and competition policy.Addresses ways to organize competition so it will enhance the efficiency of these systems.

Das Handbuch eroertert die Verstandigungsvorschriften in Abhangigkeit zum Verfahrensstand fur die Hauptakteure der am Strafverfahren beteiligten Personen. Muster von Schriftsatzen, Protokollen und Formulierungsvorschlagen fur eine Verstandigung im Urteil sollen der Praxis als Wegweisungen dienen, eine rechtmassige Verstandigung treffen zu koennen. Wahrend in der Praxis der Deal oder die Absprache schon immer zum Tagesgeschaft gehoerten, wurde die Strafrechtswissenschaft erst in der Mitte der 1980er Jahre darauf wirklich aufmerksam (gemacht). Erst in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten fand eine wissenschaftliche Durchdringung der Materie statt. Die Praxis konnte sich den Systemwiderspruchen auch nicht langer verschliessen und reagierte zunachst mit Hinweisen, spater mit klaren Leitlinien und schliesslich mit einem Ruf an den Gesetzgeber, die Verstandigungspraxis in Normen zu giessen, um eine Kontrollierbarkeit herzustellen. Aber auch ein Gesetz hat an der Verstandigungspraxis nicht viel andern koennen, was auch mit der Regelungsdichte und Aufwendigkeit der Einhaltung der Verstandigungsvorschriften begrundet wird. Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat in seiner Entscheidung zu den Verstandigungsvorschriften Sanktionsmechanismen entwickelt, die in der Praxis mit Verwunderung zur Kenntnis genommen wurden. Heute lasst sich ein Zustand konstatieren, der von Ratlosigkeit, Resignation und Verwirrung gekennzeichnet ist.

Target balances are the largest single item in some of the balance sheets of the Eurosystem's national central banks (NCBs), and yet very little is known about them by the general public and even by economists. This book shows that Target balances measure overdraft credits between the NCBs that resemble ordinary fiscal credit and which have grown disproportionately, exceeding one billion euros. There is, however, no parliamentary legitimation for the Target balances. The book sheds light on the economic significance of the balances, questions their limitlessness, and addresses controversial views that have been expressed regarding them. It uses the Target statistics to analyze the course of the euro crisis and the ECB's policy reactions from the time of the Lehman bankruptcy up to the outbreak of the Corona crisis. It analyses the credit risks involved for the Eurosystem and concludes with a reform proposal. This book will be of interest to non-specialist economists and policy makers.