In Apps We Trust? Questioning Ofcom’s findings on Apps

On 29 April Ofcom released its 2014 report on media use and attitudes. LSE PhD candidate Marina Gerner had a thorough look at the report and found it surprising. She questions its findings regarding attitudes towards apps

Job and Worker Turnover in German Establishments

We use a simple regression-based approach to measure the relationship between employment growth, hirings and separations in a large panel of German establishments over the period 1993-2009. Although the average level of hiring and separation is much lower in Germany than in the US, as expected, we find that the relationship between employment growth and worker flows in German establishments is very similar to the behaviour of US establishments described in Davis, Faberman & Haltiwanger (2006, 2011), and quite different to the behaviour of French establishments described in Abowd, Corbel & Kramarz (1999). The relationship is very stable over time, even during the most recent economic crisis, and across different types of establishment.job turnover, worker turnover, hirings and separations

A Timely look at Journalism through Theatre: A Review of the “Enquirer”

As we wait for the results of the Leveson Inquiry, LSE’s Marina Gerner reviews the play Enquirer, which lays bare some of the current ethical and existential dilemmas of modern journalism

There is little legal basis for Wolfgang Schäuble’s claim that debt restructuring is incompatible with euro membership

One of the key legal arguments in relation to the Greek debt crisis is whether a restructuring of Greece’s debt would be compatible with the rules contained in the EU’s treaty framework. Carsten Gerner-Beuerle writes that while several actors, notably the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, have argued that a debt cut is incompatible with membership of the Eurozone, there is no consensus on this principle and the interpretation taken by the European Court of Justice in other cases suggests that debt relief may be covered by the treaties

The determinants of apprenticeship training with particular reference tobusiness expectations

"Whilst in applied empirical research, training in general human capital is mainly explained by structural characteristics of firms, this paper introduces business expectations as an additional explanatory factor. Business expectations are strictly time-variate and firm-specific and reflect both a firm's development in competitive markets and in the business cycle. We assume that a firm's business expectations strongly modify the cost-utility concept for firms' decisions as regards providing apprenticeship places. When controlling for firms' structural characteristics, static econometric models support our assumption that a change in business expectations leads to an asymmetric adjustment process of firms' qualitative decisions regarding apprenticeship training. Concerning the quantitative decision as to how many apprenticeship places a firm provides we found a significant but not asymmetric response to a change in business expectations. A dynamic approach confirms the results obtained in the static models of a symmetric quantitative adjustment process in a short-term perspective. In a longer perspective the dynamic model supports the assumption of an asymmetric quantitative adjustment process. Further on an application shows that an increasing uncertainty regarding business expectations tends to reduce the apprenticeship training at firm level." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information Kurzfassung (deutsch) Executive summary (English)Ausbildungsverhalten - Determinanten, Betrieb, Ausbildungsbetrieb, Unternehmensentwicklung, Personalpolitik, Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse, Ausbildungskosten, betriebliche Berufsausbildung - Nutzen, betriebliche Berufsausbildung, Bildungsökonomie, Bildungsinvestitionen, wirtschaftliche Situation

The pulsation spectrum of VX Hydrae

We present the results of a two-year, multisite observing campaign investigating the high-amplitude delta Scuti star VX Hydrae during the 2006 and 2007 observing seasons. The final data set consists of nearly 8500 V-band observations spanning HJD 2453763.6 to 2454212.7 (2006 January 28 to 2007 April 22). Separate analyses of the two individual seasons of data yield 25 confidently-detected frequencies common to both data sets, of which two are pulsation modes, and the remaining 23 are Fourier harmonics or beat frequencies of these two modes. The 2006 data set had five additional frequencies with amplitudes less than 1.5 mmag, and the 2007 data had one additional frequency. Analysis of the full 2006-2007 data set yields 22 of the 25 frequencies found in the individual seasons of data. There are no significant peaks in the spectrum other than these between 0 and 60 c/d. The frequencies of the two main pulsation modes derived from the 2006 and 2007 observing seasons individually do not differ at the level of 3-sigma, and thus we find no conclusive evidence for period change over the span of these observations. However, the amplitude of f(1) = 5.7898 c/d changed significantly between the two seasons, while the amplitude of f(0) = 4.4765 c/d remained constant; amplitudes of the Fourier harmonics and beat frequencies of f(1) also changed. Similar behavior was seen in the 1950s, and it is clear that VX Hydrae undergoes significant amplitude changes over time.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, v.121, p.1076 (October 2009

Unsicherheit und betriebliche Weiterbildung: eine empirische Analyse der Weiterbildungsaktivität unter Unsicherheit in KMU und Großbetrieben

Uncertainty as to returns plays a crucial role in plant-level investment decision making. The same also holds true for human capital investments such as further training for employees. Exploring this training relationship using plant-level data, we isolate the impact of uncertainty. Surprisingly, our analysis fails to uncover firm-size effects: smaller establishments do not in provide less training in the face of uncertainty. Yet there are differences between West and East Germany.Bei betrieblichen Investitionsentscheidungen spielen Unsicher-heiten bezüglich der Realisierbarkeit der Erträge eine bedeutende Rolle. Dies gilt auch für Investitionen in Form von Weiterbildung in das Humankapital der Mitar-beiter. Auf der Grundlage von Betriebsdaten gehen wir diesem Zusammenhang nach, wobei wir den Einfluss der Unsicherheit bestätigen können. Weitergehende Analysen zeigen, dass kleinere Betriebe überraschenderweise nicht sensibler mit ihrer Weiterbildungsentscheidung auf Unsicherheit hinsichtlich der Ertragsrealisation reagieren. Jedoch zeigen sich Unterschiede zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland