New Publications
New publication by Prof. Lisa Spantig
The article "Cash in hand and savings decisions" by Prof. Lisa Spantig has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. The experimental study deals with the influence of cash in hand on savings accounts.
Prof. Lisa Spantig has been Junior Professor for Experimental Economics at RWTH Aachen University since June 2021 where she heads the School's laboratory for experimental economic research ("AIXperiment").
New Publication by the School's Emeritus Prof. Harald Dyckhoff
The European Journal of Operational Research has accepted for publication an article by Harald Dyckhoff and Rainer Souren on "Integrating multiple criteria decision analysis and production theory for performance evaluation: framework and review". The paper will be published open access as an invited review.
Prof. Dyckhoff held the Chair of Business Theory with Special Focus on Sustainable Production and Industrial Controlling in the School of Business and Economics from 1988 to 2016; Prof. Souren gained his Habilitation degree in business administration from the School in 2002 and now heads the Group of Sustainable Production Management and Logistics at the TU Ilmenau.
New Publication from the Chair of Economics esp. Microeconomics: Article on combinatorial auctions published
The article "Competing Combinatorial Auctions" has been accepted for publication by Information Systems Research and published online. The article was written by Thomas Kittsteiner (Chair of Microeconomics) in collaboration with Marion Ott (ZEW Mannheim, formerly RWTH Aachen) and Richard Steinberg (London School of Economics).
Combinatorial auctions are auctions in which bids can also be placed for packages of items rather than just for individual items. These auctions are generally beneficial to both auctioneers and bidders because they allow bidders to express synergy for items.
In recent years, combinatorial auctions and online market platforms with competing auctioneers have emerged. However, combinatorial auctions are largely not offered on these platforms. These research results provide a possible explanation for this. It is shown that competition between auctioneers can reduce the attractiveness of combinatorial auctions. Specifically, it is shown that auctioneers can limit competitive pressure among themselves if they allow bids only for certain packages, and these packages differ from auctioneer to auctioneer. This leads to market segmentation with respect to the auction used. Different auctioneers, even if they auction the same goods, allow bids only on certain packages, which differ between auctioneers. This increases the revenue of competing auctioneers even if, in otherwise comparable situations, a monopolistic auctioneer would not impose restrictions on combinatorial auctions.
This is relevant for the design of online market platforms. It implies that it need not be advantageous for an online market platform with multiple competing sellers offering their products through auctions to offer combinatorial auctions to sellers as a design option.
Article Published by Journal of Operations Management
Prof. Peter Letmathe and Marc Rößler have had their article "Should firms use digital work instructions?-Individual learning in an agile manufacturing setting" published by the renowned Journal of Operations Management (Financial Times Journal).
In comprehensive experiments at the Aachen Demonstration Factory, the researchers were able to prove that digital work instructions lead to significantly higher production performance in terms of productivity and quality of the manufactured products with regard to key performance indicators. The publication thus has important implications for product ramp-up and quality management in manufacturing companies.
The article can be accessed here.
Publication on Climate Protection and Decentralized Energy Transition
Recently, the article "Effects of CO2 Pricing on the Building, Transportation, and Energy Sectors" was published in the Journal of Energy Economics.
Professor Madlener and his co-authors thus make an important contribution to the current socio-political discussion on the question of which CO2 prices are acceptable or reasonable in order to be able to achieve Germany's climate policy goals.
Their results showed that the introduction of a minimum CO2 price leads to a stronger decarbonization of power generation, a stronger expansion of renewable energy capacities, and an accelerated phase-out of coal-fired power generation.
Click here to read the full article.
New publication of the Chair of Energy Economics and Management
Professor Madlener and Siamak Sheykhha from the Chair of Energy Economics and Management published a study on energy consumption and CO2 emissions of video-streaming in Europe together with Dr. Wolfgang Briglauer from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.
The article "The electricity- and CO2-saving potentials offered by regulation of European video-streaming services" was published in the renowned journal Energy Policy.
New Publication from the School
In the edited volume "Die Energiewende der Bürger stärken" by Christian Lautermann, a chapter is being published on which Prof. Reinhard Madlener und Dr. Christian Oberst collaborated. The title is "Prosumer-Haushalte und ihr Beitrag zur Transformation des Energiesystems und der Gesellschaft" (Prosumer Households and their Contribution to the Transformation of the Energy System and of Society").
The edited volume takes a detailed look at climate protection and Germany's decentralized "Energiewende" and the way in which some members of society engage with these issues, whereby both challenges and solutions are analyzed.
New publication of the Chair of Management Accounting on the Dieselgate
The Dieselgate cost Germany around 20 billion euros - this is the result of a new study by Professor Peter Letmathe and Frank Baumgärtner from the Chair of Management Accounting: External costs of the Dieselgate - Peccadillo or substantial consequences?
By manipulating the diesel engines, the car industry itself is to be blamed for the decline of the diesel, despite accusations against politicians or environmentalists. Because it was only through the exhaust gas fraud that the engine, which is beneficial in itself, became an environmental sin and thus a cost factor for the whole of society.
Frank Baumgärtner and Prof. Letmathe analyzed the data of 49 vehicle models and calculated the economic costs of the excessive exhaust emission values: The increased air pollution from 2008 to 2015 caused social costs of 2.5 billion euros annually.
The fact that the limit value for exhaust gases was exceeded six times in some cases led to permanent damage to the reputation of diesel. Nevertheless, it is still possible - as Baumgärtner and Prof. Letmathe show - to design clean diesel engines that would even cause less external costs than electric cars.
The study was also taken up by the magazine "Der Spiegel" in the current issue No. 47 and on Spiegel Online.
Joint publication of the Chairs of Organization and of HRM and Personnel Economics
The joint paper "Competing on the Holodeck: The Effect of Virtual Peers and Heterogeneity in Dynamic Tournaments“ by Professor Christian Grund (Chair of Human Resource Management and Personnel Economics), Professor Christine Harbring, and Frederik Graff (both from the Chair of Organization) has been recently published in the Journal of Behavioral & Experimental Economics.
It has already attracted some attention and is, for instance, featured by the Center for Corporate Performance Network of Copenhagen Business School (here) and by Peter Kuhn, UC Santa Barbara (here).