Along with the economic globalization, economics must decode a more complex reality, to which classical answers are no longer helpful. Due to excessive abstraction and mathematical representation, the economic and social phenomena are partially analyzed and understood - after the delimitation...

In the last decade, the internet has evolved in an amazing tool having a major impact on all life aspects. The possibility to make online transactions, without being necessary to leave the house, was something new, an idea which changed from that moment the way business were made and perceived....

This paper provides a critical analysis of the strategic trade policy, in terms of limitations and difficulties involved in its implementation. Even there are many arguments used by its supporters for justifying the importance of this type of measures, it is impossible for the state to formulate...

The unintelligibility of the social and economic phenomena is due to isolation from the various backgrounds that has driven and maintained them. The conspiratorial reasoning insists over those backgrounds and focuses on identifying the intentionality in the primary cause. Throughout history,...

In explaining economic phenomena, economic analysis concentrates on selected influences and fixes the host of other factors under a ceteris paribus clause. This view, which goes back to Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), is developed in the first part of the book. Aggregation is viewed as a particular...

Life annuities provide a guaranteed income for the remainder of the recipient’s lifetime, and therefore, annuitization presents an important option when choosing an adequate investment strategy for the retirement ages. While there are numerous research articles studying annuities from a...

Even 50 years after Modigliani/Miller’s irrelevance theorem, the basic question of how firms choose their capital structure remains unclear. This survey paper aims at summarizing and discussing corresponding recent developments in empirical capital structure research, which, in our view, are...

There has been a wide-spread misconception based on the imprecise wording of Art. 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) that the protection of business methods by patents is prohibited in Europe. This paper investigates the legal framework set by patent laws with respect to the...

Ein Großteil der Neugründungen in Deutschland ist auf staatliche Förderung von Existenzgründern zurückzuführen. Dieser Anteil hat sich nach Einführung des als „Ich-AG“ bekannten Existenzgründungszuschusses Anfang 2003 stark erhöht. Die Erfolgsfaktorenforschung hat diese Form von...

In 2003, Swiss Re introduced a mortality-based security designed to hedge excessive mortality changes for its life book of business. The concern was apparently brevity risk, i.e., the risk of premature death. The brevity risk due to a pandemic is similar to the property risk associated with...