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Institut für Höhere Studien (IHS), Wien Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna

Vol. 8 / No. 1 / Winter 1999/2000

Institutional Rankings in Econometrics:

The Relative Performance of the Institute for Advanced Studies

Robert Kunst

The Institute for Advanced Studies boasts some comparative advantage in econometrics, due to its inherent linkage between post-graduate education and paid projects in econom- ics, particularly the forecasts that are based on a large macroeconometric model. By defini- tion, econometrics is a science between the sciences of economics and statistics. Neither the average statistician nor the average economist is fully aware of what econometrics really is about, either one tends to classify econometrics as part of the other's science. This situa- tion is worse in continental Europe, particularly Germany though excepting the Benelux, than in the English-speaking academic sphere.

Notwithstanding this perception by academic ignoramuses, the field of econometrics has been developing well during the last decades. In the years before, econometrics had been restricted to the more statistical parts of the journal Econometrica, in the Review of Econom- ics and Statistics, and in the International Economic Review. The Journal of Econometrics, which allows its contributors to focus on methodological issues, has become one of the leading economic journals in the 1970s. The review journal Econometric Reviews saw seminal and innovative contributions in the 1980s, such as the GARCH model of empirical finance. Finally, Econometric Theory was founded by Peter Phillips and his friends as the high-end technical digest. Empirical journals were also doing well and their number kept in- creasing, particularly in the booming field of financial econometrics. This small survey should sufficiently outline why an evaluation of econometric research performance is par- ticularly difficult and necessarily contains some subjective elements.

A recent international ranking of scientific institutions sees the IHS on the third place within Austria.

In irregular intervals, the journal Econometric Theory publishes international rankings of per- sons and institutions for the discipline of econometrics, which are based exclusively on jour- nal articles. A.D. Hall compiled the rankings of 1987 and 1990, while Badi Baltagi gave the most recent update in 1998. The Hall-Baltagi ranking restricts itself to 15 leading journals, which include all above-mentioned ones but also some otherwise purely statistical or eco- nomic journals. This requires subjectively eliminating, e.g., all American Economic Review articles without econometric contents from the roaster. Pages of published articles are weighted according to the number of characters per page but no conversion is made to ad- just for the relative quality of journals. Baltagi's 1998 summary evaluates the impressive amount of 61,415 pages converted to the Econometrica type font and of 3,477 different arti- cles. Although Badi Baltagi also gives a separate ranking for econometric theory (one third of the pages), here I focus exclusively on the general ranking, where there always is a place for the industrious empiricist.

Continued page 2

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IHS Newsletter 1999/2000 No. 1

Whereas the list confirms prejudices, with US institutions at ranks 1 through 6 (7 is the LSE), with the best non-English- speaking being the Dutch (Tilburg at 23), and the academic giant of Germany be- ing far behind (Mannheim at 119), easily dominated by places such as Aarhus, Athens, or Helsinki, our Institute should celebrate its rank of 173 as a small victory.

In the presence of always problematic funding and wild fluctuations of its faculty, many of whom are often obliged to put an academic project on the shelf in or- der to get a paid one going, the Institute for Advanced Studies beats Bonn and Munich and is the undisputed third within Austria following the University of Vienna (133) and the Vienna University of Technology (148).

Note that these are not relative rankings but count the total of pages, hence the impact of econometric work from the Institute is absolutely bigger than that of the University of Munich.

How did the IHS achieve this rank? It is likely that many of the included articles were written by me, oth- ers by Dalia Marin and other former members of this Institute. It is certain that most of them were co- authored papers, and that most of the co-authored papers were in-house cooperations. Empirical econometrics feeds well on the overlap between the research areas of widely different persons. Hence, in order to keep and improve our rank, I would recom- mend (1) to seriously consider the person next door as a potential co-author; (2) to always target the inter- national market; (3) to submit and revise until your

work gets published. ˆ

Badi H. Baltagi, Applied Econometrics Rankings: 1989–1995, in:

Journal of Applied Econometrics 14, 1999, pp. 423–441.

New Keynesian Monopolistic Competition and Objective Demand

During his visit at the IHS in October and November 1999, where he held a course on Mathematics for Economists, Gerd Weinrich of the Catholic Univer- sity of Milan presented a paper on New Keynesian monopolistic competition and objective demand.

In the paper he investigates to what extent the New Keynesian model of monopolistic competition is compatible with objective demand. More precisely, he takes the model of Blanchard and Kiyotaki (American Economic Review, 1987) and confronts it with the approach to objective demand developed by Bénassy (The Economic Journal, 1988). The reason for doing this is that New Keynesian Economics has

often been criticized of being too much of a partial equilibrium nature; on the other hand, many “true Keynesian” insights seem to come from the spill- over effects in a full general equilibrium framework.

Robert Kunst

New Keynesian Economics has of- ten been criticized of sticking too

much to partial equilibrium.

The agents in Blanchard’s and Kiyotaki’s model are not completely rational from a general equilibrium point of view since they neglect the income effects of their price and wage choices as well as the effects on price and wage levels. While the latter is standard in Chamberlinian monopolistic competition, the in- come effect becomes relevant when monopolistic competition is embed-

ded in a general equi-

librium model.

Weinrich shows that Blanchard’s and Kiyo- taki’s model can be adjusted to take into account these effects, too. In other words, their model can be modified so as to work with an objective demand. Then the outcome of their

model differs in that equilibrium prices and profits are higher, quantities exchanged are smaller and the validity of the menu-cost argument is strengthened.

The significance of these changes depends on the number of firms; in the numerical example provided they vary from about 50%, for the case of two firms, to zero as the number of firms becomes infinite. As a by-product, the model of Blanchard and Kiyotaki with objective demand turns out to be a completely (and, to the author’s best knowledge, the first) worked-out example for Bénassy’s structure.

Gerd Weinrich

Gerd Weinrich is Professor of Economics at the Catholic University of Milan. He has been a research associate in mathematical economics at C.O.R.E.

and a Jean-Monnet research fellow in economics at the European University Institute in Florence. As an assistant professor he has taught at the University of Western Ontario and at the Virginia Polytechnic In- stitute & State University. ˆ

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IHS Newsletter 1999/2000 No. 1

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Term Structure Models

of nominal rigidity: wage contracts and output price flexibility and contracts for both prices and wages. In addition, their model is sufficiently simple so that ex- act utility calculations are made.

Dominique Y. Dupont works as an economist in the Division of Monetary Affairs of the Federal Reserve Board. His main fields of research include asset pric- ing and microstructures of financial markets.

This implies that different monetary stabilization regimes, with the interest rate as the policy instru- ment, can be ranked according to their welfare prop- erties. Henderson and Kim calculate a Pareto-optimal monetary policy rule and compare this to simpler rules that focus on the stabilization of one or two variables of interest, such as the output gap and nominal in- come. Henderson and Kim find that the simpler rules do not attain the Pareto-optimal outcome, since they do not respond to labor supply shocks. In addition, under wage contracting all nominal income targeting rules do worse the more important are productivity disturbances.

Recently, Dupont looked at how the agents’ use of the information available on financial markets affects the equilibrium price. In the model, when investors extract information from the market price, they render this price less informative and more volatile than if

they just rely on their private sig- nals. Hence, a more efficient use of the information at an in- dividual level may not always translate into a ‘better’ equilib- rium price.

Dupont also applied Rubin- stein’s ‘implied tree’ method to filter information about the future probability distribution of interest rates using the prices of options traded in the market. This method is very flexible and can be adapted to different needs. One can compute a probability distribution that perfectly replicates the prices of traded options. Alternatively, one can choose to match the market option prices closely but not perfectly to smooth out the possible idiosyncratic components of the option prices. In that case, one can choose to match better the prices of the options with superior trading volume. The implied probability distribution yields a more complete image of the mar- ket view of the path of interest rates than using simple measures like implied volatility. ˆ

Dominique Y.

Dupont

Under wage contracting money supply stabilization generally per- forms worse than nominal income

stabilization.

Henderson and Kim also show that under wage con- tracting money supply stabilization generally performs worse than nominal income stabilization. They ob- serve, however, that this result must be interpreted with care, since, in practice, monetary data is more easily available than other types of macroeconomic data. Finally, Henderson and Kim plan to apply the methodology used in this paper to analyze the effects of money growth, inflation, and inflation and output targeting on the evolution of employment, output, and

inflation. ˆ

Dale Henderson’s IHS Lec- ture on Monetary Policy

Walter H. Fisher

Dale Henderson

In December 1999 Dale Henderson of the Federal Reserve Board presented his paper “Exact Utilities Under Alternative Monetary Rules in a Simple Macro Model with Optimizing Agents” in a research seminar at the Institute.

This paper, co-authored by Jinill Kim of the Uni- versity of Virginia and forthcoming in the journal Inter- national Tax and Public Finance, considers the issue of monetary policy in a model in which optimizing agents face various macroeconomic disturbances. A key feature of the model is the existence of one- period nominal contracts. Henderson and Kim con- sider two types

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IHS Newsletter 1999/2000 No. 1

Christian Fölzer

Foreign Direct In- vestments and Aus- tria’s Economy

Outflows from Austria are increasing but are still at a low absolute level. In 1993 Austria’s outflows of 1,189 million USD almost reached the level of Swe- den (1,362 million USD).

Christian Fölzer

Compared to other small open economies within the EU, foreign

direct investment outflows from Austria are at a rather low level

though they are increasing.

International production is at the core of the so- called globalization. Transnational enterprises pro- duce goods and services in various countries but manage and control them at home. World-wide more than 500,000 subsidiaries are in the hands of about 60,000 parent companies. In 1997 the 100 largest international companies world-wide held 1.79 trillion USD in foreign assets and sold goods worth 2.1 trillion USD. All in all they employed about 5.98 million workers in foreign affiliates. These compa- nies accounted for some 15 per cent of foreign as- sets of all transnational companies and 22 per cent of sales. It can be shown that 90 per cent of these top-ranked enterprises have their headquarters in the US, Japan, or the European Union.

In 1998 Austria’s outflows reached 3,013 million USD compared to 22,465 million USD in Sweden. This year Austria’s investments were as high as Portugal’s (2,946 million USD). As it can easily be seen Austria is lagging behind compared to other small open economies within the EU. For instance Finland, which reached 19,812 million USD, and the Netherlands with 38,310 million USD.

Automotive, electronics, petro- leum, chemicals and pharmaceuti- cals are among the most important

industries.

The same is true for foreign direct investment in- flows. 643,879 million USD,2 of which 193,375 million USD went to the US and only 5,915 million USD were directed towards Austria, were invested world-wide in 1998. The absolute level of inflows is increasing (1993 1,129 million USD) but in comparison to the countries mentioned above Austria has a poor per- formance (Finland: 11,115 million USD, the Nether- lands: 31,859 million USD, and Sweden: 19,358 mil- lion USD).

Automotive, electronics, petroleum, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, lumber industry, mechanical engi- neering are among the most important and promising industries. Ranked by foreign assets the US-based General Electric is top of the list with 97.4 billion USD.

Calculating the transnationality index,1 Seagram Company, a Canadian beverages and entertainment enterprise, is ranked first (97.6 per cent). As a result of growing internationalization the average transna- tionality index has increased from 51 per cent in 1990 to 55 per cent in 1997. Europe’s largest company ranked by assets is Royal Dutch Shell coming third with 70.0 billion USD. Asean Brown Boveri (ABB) is second on the list of transnationality (95.7 per cent).

Not surprisingly, no Austrian company can be found in the rankings although meanwhile Austria has 896 investors abroad. In Austria’s second and third economic sector 292,100 out of 2.76 million were em- ployed in 1996 by affiliates of transnational enter- prises. One year later 2,985 foreign companies in- vested in Austria.

To foster foreign direct investment inflows the IHS analyzed the economic background of Austria and major US-based enterprises. By doing so we defined branches and companies which may succeed in the future. As a result we found evidence that in the fol- lowing branches Austria’s economy is better off:

automotive, biochemistry, sports and leisure, and means of transport for railroads. ˆ In 1998 foreign direct investment outflows worth

648,920 million USD were registered world-wide. The most important country of origin was the US with

132,829 million USD (20.47 per cent). Bernhard Felderer, Christian Fölzer, Christian Helmenstein et al.,:

Standortaffinität internationaler Wachstumsunternehmen, 1998, IHS, Vienna.

1 The index is calculated as an average of three ratios: foreign assets to total assets, foreign sales to total sales and foreign em- ployment to total employment.

2 The difference between inflows and outflows is due to exchange rate differences and deprecations.

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IHS Newsletter 1999/2000 No. 1

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Oil Price Shocks and Macro- economic Performance

Weiyu Gao and Reinhard Madlener

Since OPEC, together with some non-OPEC oil pro- ducers, agreed to curb oil supply in early March this year, the oil price has surged strongly from about $10 at the end of last year to recently $26, the highest level since the 1991 Gulf war. The increase in oil price was aggravated by speculations on rising oil prices by large investment funds, mainly US pension funds. Nonethe- less, the impact of oil price increase on the world econ- omy seems to be modest compared to those of previ- ous shocks, like in 1973 and 1979−80. This may be due to the fact that since the 1970s many developed countries have shifted to less energy intensive activities. At the same time energy efficiencies in many areas have been greatly improved. Even if the impact seems less harmful today, at least for many of the highly developed countries, we may still expect certain adverse effects on the economies, say, in terms of in- flationary pressure and output reductions, and these effects may often significantly vary across different economies.

The question of how real output of an economy is af- fected by crude oil price shocks has attracted much re- search in the past. The observation of a negative corre- lation between oil price and GDP is widely accepted. For example, in the US, virtually every recession during the post-war period was preceded by an oil price shock.

However, the causal relationship between the oil price and the national output is still the subject of much de- bate. In general, the oil price can be expected to have an influence on the economy through three channels:

demand, supply, and investment.

Oil price increases will decrease the real balance of an economy and induce counter-inflationary monetary policy. Through this channel, oil price increases may have negative impacts on demand. Besides, oil price increases also cause income transfers from oil importing to oil exporting countries. This in turn leads to consump- tion reduction in the importing countries and thereby tends to reduce gross output.

The impacts of oil price shock on supply can be rep- resented in three different aspects. First, if oil is a com- plement to other inputs (like capital) in production, oil price increases will possibly lead to a reduction in the utilization of other inputs and thus suppress the output.

Secondly, even if oil is not a significant input for every industry, it may still be costly to shift labor and capital between sectors. Therefore, oil price increases may de- crease total factor utilization in an economy. Thirdly, oil is also an important input in generating other forms of energy, like electricity or biofuels. Oil price increases could raise the price of those energies and thereby af- fect the total production in ways similar to those men- tioned for the first and second aspect. The investment channel asserts that in the face of high uncertainty about input prices it might be optimal for firms to postpone in- vestment expenditures, especially when the investment is irreversible. Oil price volatility generates some degree of uncertainty about the future movement of prices and could reduce or defer potential investments, hence de- press the growth of output. Moreover, if the delayed in- vestment has technological content, e.g., machines with new know-how, oil price uncertainty could further reduce the level of future innovations and productions. One im- portant observation about the impact of oil price shocks on the economy is that it affects the economy asymmet- rically. That is, output responds negatively to oil price increases, but does not respond positively in a propor- tional manner to price decreases. This phenomenon appears to be more related to the negative effects of oil price shocks on supply and investment discussed above than impacts of oil price shocks on the demand side.

The negative impacts of oil price increase and volatility on output growth and technical progress have aroused significant attention in both academic and industrial cir- cles. To effectively deal with these negative effects, ef- fective energy policies at the macroeconomic level and efficient energy risk management at the firm level are required.

Energy economics is one of the new fields of re- search at the IHS undertaken at its recently estab- lished regional branch IHS Carinthia in Klagenfurt, capital city of Austria’s most southern province Carin-

thia. ˆ

Oil Price Change vs GDP Growth Rate of the OECD Countries

-0,60 -0,40 -0,20 0,00 0,20 0,40 0,60

1975,1 1976,1

1977,1 1978,1

1979,1 198 0,1 198 1,1 198 2,1 198 3,1 198 4,1 198 5,1 198 6,1 198 7,1 198 8,1 198 9,1 199 0,1 199 1,1 199 2,1 199 3,1 199 4,1 199 5,1 199 6,1 199 7,1 199 8,1 199 9,1

Time

% Change in Oil Price

-0,06 -0,04 -0,02 0,00 0,02 0,04 0,06

GDP Growth Rate, (%)

Quarterly Percentage Change in Oil Price

OECD Quarterly GDP Growth Rate

Data source: Quarterly Na- tional Account (OECD) and In- ternational Petroleum Monthly.

OPEC’s F.O.B. price is used here as an indicator for the world oil price.

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E CONOMICS

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F INANCE

IHS Newsletter 4/97

From Transitology to Con- solidology

Klaus von Beyme

Students in Communist Studies had to live with the fact that nobody correctly predicted the collapse of Communism. Some writers did – but they gave the wrong reasons, such as “war between China and the Soviet Union” (Amalrik 1970) or “clash of ethnic groups” (Carrère d’Encausse). Most scholars over- came the shock though it remains noteworthy that af- ter 1991 the debate was dominated not by the old gang of Kremlinology but by scholars who have never been east of “Checkpoint Charlie” in Berlin util 1989, such as Schmitter, Klingemann, Kitschelt, Rose, Offe and others.

Those who transformed communist into post- communist studies had, however, a new disappoint- ment to overcome. Again they were wrong in predic- tions. The enthusiasm about democratisation did not last very long: most systems proved to be illiberal de- mocracies. The concepts derived from transitions in Southern Europe and Latin America proved to be in- applicable.

‘Transitology’ as a new branch of knowledge deal- ing with the peaceful revolutions since the 1970s and 1980s originally used a sequence model along the lines: liberalization, democratization and consolida- tion. Only in the model of transition via erosion of the communist rule did a liberalization take place. The pe- riod of democratization is normally identified with institution-building (constitutional power and secondary institutions such as parties and interest groups). This process was successful in most Eastern European countries but on the second level, hardly in the successor states of the Soviet Union.

Consolidation of elite attitudes (the ‘only game in town’ criterion developed by Juan Linz) and the citizens is incomplete in most countries. The Visegrad states and those which entered negotiations with the European Union (Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia) are fairly consolidated even in terms of economic indicators. But also other systems – outside the CIS – have consolidated by ex- periencing several free elections, by reducing the volatility of votes, by avoiding violence and reducing the weight of extremist parties by practicing alternating governments which included even the acceptance of a come-back of the post-communists which turned in many countries to democratic socialism (Lithuania 1992, Poland 1993, Hungary 1994). Most countries have changed the composition of their governments from Czechia (1998) down to Romania (1996) without turning the critical election

to a crisis of the system.

in Table 1:

Pathways to democracy

Pragmatic piece meal engineering Control from above Opening of the communist regime (Ro-

mania, Bulgaria)

Pressures from below Erosion of Socialism (Poland, Hun- gary)

Not all the processes of consolidation were success- ful, however. Consolidology as a new branch in the study of democratization discovered various types of unconsolidated democracies which have been called

‘delegated democracies’ (Guillermo O’Donnell) or ‘de- fective democracies’ (Wolfgang Merkel). Most of these defective democracies have implemented a rather democratic mode of participation, but fall short of consolidation in the sphere of the legal state and the treatment of minorities.

Newly Published

Green Political Education.

A Problem-Oriented Account of the Develop- ment in Germany and Austria.

by Margit Leuthold

Opladen, Leske und Budrich, 1999

After the turning-point of 1989 and at the beginning of the 90s a change of alternative political education took place. The book de- scribes and analyzes this changed approach towards politically motivated adult education focusing those intermediary organiza- tions which have emerged in the context of the new social move- ments since the beginning of the 80s. Foundations which show affinity with the Greens and the change of their understanding of political educational work thus gain particular consideration in the study. The problem-oriented approach of Margit Leuthold con- trasts the different phases of political education with reference to the historical development. The educational practice of different educational institutions follows a particular logic varying from case to case. These specific structures and procedures of educa- tional institutions and foundations which show affinity with the Greens have been supported by empirical data.

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IHS Newsletter 4/97

P OLITICAL S CIENCE

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University and University- Related Research in Austria:

A Comprehensive Evaluation Model

David F.J. Campbell and Bernhard Felderer

At IHS a model was developed for the evaluation of university and university-related (“ausseruniversitäre”) research in Austria. This model represents the final result of a several-year study about academic re- search evaluation, which the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Transport (BMWV) commissioned.

The IHS evaluation model – and its recommendations – are based on the following principles:

1. Contribution for discussion: It contains a complex analysis of academic (that means university and uni- versity-related) research, and the necessity for evaluations. Furthermore, detailed recommendations are put forward that focus on the question of: How can or how should academic research be evaluated in Austria? These recommendations are derived from experiences in other European countries (primarily the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, but also Germany, Switzerland and Finland) and the specific situation of the domestic Austrian academic institu- tions. Thus the status of the IHS model should be interpreted as that of a qualitative discussion contribu- tion for the general discourse on evaluations in Aus- tria.

2. Comprehensive evaluation approach: The IHS model attempts to design a systematic and nation- wide evaluation system for university research in all of Austria. In addition, possible interfaces for a system- atic evaluation of university teaching are also indi- cated. Although the recommendations focus primarily on the evaluation of university research, a compre- hensive evaluation model for university-related re- search is also designed that, however, expresses a more preliminary status. The institutional heterogene- ity of the Austrian university-related sector compli- cates systematic applications of evaluations.

3. Units of assessment: Within the university context the university departments represent the smallest in- stitutional units for evaluation. Those university de- partments ought to be assigned to disciplines, since the disciplines define the primary frame of evaluative assessment: mainly the research efficiency and re- search quality of departments of the same disciplines, that normally are located at different universities, should be compared with each other.

4. Dual evaluation model: For the evaluation of uni- versity (but also university-related) research a dual evaluation mode is proposed that equally combines

two different evaluation concepts: a “monitoring” sys- tem and an external ex post evaluation.

5. Monitoring: The monitoring focuses on quantitative information and data that cover the input, output and the whole performance of universities in research, teaching and administration. In that respect it is rec- ommended to broaden the already existing instrument of the “Reports of the Department Chairs” (“Arbeits- berichte der Institutsvorstände”) to “Extended Re- ports” (“Erweiterte Arbeitsberichte”). A professional monitoring system allows a systematic and compara- tive calculation of university research efficiency.

6. External ex post research evaluation: The ex post evaluation concentrates primarily on research quality.

For that approach the traditional “peer review” method can be applied by implementing expert panels for each discipline (all university departments are as- signed to specific disciplines). In addition, the majority of experts per panel ought to come from abroad, thus a bilingual procedure (English and German) is rec- ommended. The research quality of each university department should be assessed according to four di- mensions and also graded on a five-point rating scale (1-5). These suggested dimensions are: quality, effi- ciency, relevance, and long-term viability. All disci- plines may be evaluated sequentially during an evaluation cycle of 3-4 years.

7. Research points: As an outcome of the recom- mended dual evaluation mode for university research, each university department should be accredited “re- search points” that display the efficiency and quality of research. The research points for research efficiency are deducible from the monitoring and the points for research quality express the results of the ex post evaluation. In a bottom-up procedure those depart- ment-based research points can be aggregated also to the level of universities. In the IHS model the total (national) number of research points is equally weighted for efficiency and quality. Thus the monitor- ing and ex post evaluation concepts are symmetrically emphasized. Obviously, this may be altered: if there is, for example, a greater concern for quality in a tradi- tional approach understood as “peer review”, then a weighting in favor of research points for research quality can be introduced. This system of assigning research points should fulfill at least two functions;

first of all, making transparent the combined evalua- tion results for quality and efficiency; second, offering a “rational” frame of reference for the allocation of re- sources.

8. Consequences of evaluation results: The IHS evaluation model proposes that at least partially a linkage should be established between evaluation re- sults of research and the allocation of resources to- wards universities. The following evaluation-based financial components are set up for discussion: 5-15%

of the public basic funding and 20-25% of “real” in- creases in the public basic funding. Furthermore, it is suggested that also the university-internal reallocation

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IHS Newsletter 4/97

Attitudes towards European Integration in a Changing Environment

of resources and the distribution of earmarked funding by the FWF (Austrian Science Fund) should, at least to a certain degree, reflect evaluation outcomes:

through such initiatives additional incentives may be created.

9. The necessity for increasing the public expendi- ture on R&D (research and experimental develop- ment): The IHS evaluation recommendations are car- ried by the underlying conviction that evaluations aim at increasing the “rationality” of universities and, therefore, may not be misused for justifying possible decreases in public funding. Derived from the average OECD total expenditure for R&D (2.21% of the GDP in 1997) the target in Austria for the R&D spending of the federal government should amount to about 0.82% of the GDP: for 1999 this would be 22.1 billion ATS and for 2000 22.8 billion ATS. The actual federal R&D expenditure in 1999, however, was limited to 16.3 billion ATS. Therefore, a significant increase of the public research funding would substantially sup- port the implementation of a comprehensive evalua- tion model for university and university-related re- search in Austria.

In early November, Bernhard Wessels, Senior Fellow at Social Science Research Center Berlin (Wissen- schaftszentrum Berlin, WZB) visited the Institute for Advanced Studies and gave a seminar on the changes of public attitudes in the European context.

One of the most stunning developments and changes in the bases of public attitude formation and the principles of political support can be observed in the course of European integration. The “European Project”, probably one of the most important and most challenging political innovations and institution- buildings in modern times, has dramatically changed its characteristics since the early beginning in the 1950’s. In the early period, the politics of European integration was an elite project and very remote from the day-to-day life of citizens. Attitudes toward the po- litical community, the regime, the authorities, and the process of European integration had no foundation in real experience, but in trust that political elites do right. During the course of integration, European is- sues became more salient and very recently through Maastricht also policy objectives. With the higher ac- cessibility of issues, the permissive consensus van- ished and citizens developed more and more refined yardsticks for the evaluation of European integration.

A review of studies on attitude formation dealing with support for the EU shows that the foundations of atti- tudes changed from very diffuse kinds of support based on trust in authorities to more utilitarian evalua- tion criteria of a sociotropic kind and most recently to criteria based on individual utility functions. It is not clear whether the latter finding will stabilize in the fu- ture but if so, it will have some consequences for fur- ther integration. If support for integration will be based on increasingly specific performance criteria the de- grees of freedom for actions and decisions of authori- ties will decrease. This means that public opinion and public support for integration will play a more and more important role in the process of European inte- gration. It also means that the need for fully devel- oped democratic structures at the EU level will be- come more and more urgent. At the same time, how- ever, enlargement will make it even more difficult to consensually set up such structures than it already is.

Copies of the Final Research Report and of a Work- ing Paper, that contains the executive summary of the IHS evaluation model, can be ordered from the IHS library ([email protected] – or telephone: +43/1/59991- 237):

Bernhard Felderer / David F.J. Campbell (September 1999). “Wie kann oder wie soll Österreichs akademische Forschung evaluiert werden? Empfehlungen zur Evaluation universitärer und ausseruni- versitärer Forschung in Österreich”. Vienna / Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS): Research Report. David F.J. Campbell / Bernhard Felderer (November 1999). “Empfehlungen zur Evaluation universi- tärer und ausseruniversitärer Forschung in Österreich”. Vienna / Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS): Political Science Series No.

66.

IHS Workshop

On 21 December, 1999, the IHS organized a workshop on the topic, in which the two authors Bernhard Felderer and David Campbell presented the IHS evaluation model to the public. Two highly renowned and invited guest speak- ers were Prof. Arnold Schmidt, President of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), and Prof. Georg Winckler, Rector of the University of Vienna. The workshop attracted about sixty participants. The lively and interesting discussion clearly revealed the importance that evaluation issues will increasingly express for universities and other academic institution.

Wessels is senior fellow at the Social Science Re- search Center (WZB). His research interests include political behavior, public opinion, and political repre- sentation in comparative perspective. He has written numerous articles and books in these fields. This year he has published a co-edited volume on the views of parliamentarians on European integration and an- other multi-authored volume on political representa- tion in Western democracies, both with Oxford Uni- versity Press.

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IHS Newsletter 4/97

P OLITICAL S CIENCE

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Interviewing Experts. Some Methodological Considerations

Michael Meuser

The expert interview is a very frequently used method in social research. In policy and implementation re- search, industrial sociology, elite studies most empiri- cal research makes use of this method, either as the sole instrument or, more often, in combination with other ones, document analysis for instance. Notwith- standing this importance there are only few methodo- logical reflections on the specific characteristics of in- terviewing experts. A methodological discussion must focus on the following questions:

What is the meaning of the term “expert” within the con- text of interviewing? Who are the “candidates” to be in- terviewed?

Which parts of the expert’s knowledge are asked about in the interview?

What are the characteristics of expert knowledge?

How can this knowledge be discovered, that means, what is the appropriate technique of interviewing?

To determine the status of experts a differentiation made in the sociology of knowledge is helpful: that of expert and layman/laywoman. All social actors are involved in the process of constructing reality, but ex- perts have an institutionalized competence for doing this. This competence is either related to the profes- sional status of the expert – this is the way expertise developed historically – or it is acquired through active participation in organizations, citizens’ groups, com- munity affairs, etc. In both cases the special know- ledge is based on a privileged access to information.

Persons who have this access are candidates for ex- pert interviews.

The expert interview does not focus on the whole stock of knowledge of the interviewee but on those segments that are related to the institutionalized competence mentioned above. We are not interested in the expert’s personality, not in her/his biography, but in the representative, who has a specific function. The expert interview focuses on this functional context and its insider knowledge, differentiating it from other forms of interviewing like the biographic interview. Although expert knowledge is bound to a specific functional con- text, it is not necessarily present in the mode of „dis- cursive consciousness“ (Giddens). Experts do not re- flect on all parts of their specialized knowledge. Struc- tures of relevance that determine the expert‘s deci- sions and actions very often form part of the implicit or tacit knowledge.

If the most important parts of expert knowledge are not present discursively, the knowledge must be “dis- covered”. This requires an open interview technique that gives the interviewee the opportunity to report how he/she decides, to give examples how he/she handles specific cases, to extemporize, etc. So the appropriate method is not a standardized questionnaire but a fo- cused interview that provides the interviewee with the

freedom to introduce materials that the re- searcher did not anticipate. The interpretive, reconstructive methodology argued for in this article corresponds with the expectancies of the interviewees. Experts do not like it, per- haps more than other people, to be forced into the “straitjacket” of a standardized ques- tionnaire with its predetermined questions

and often answers. Such a research design would be contradictory to the institutionalized competence for reality construction.

Michael Meuser

Michael Meuser is lecturer at the Sociological De- partment of the University of Bremen and at other uni- versities in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Applied Multivariate Statis- tics

Marcus Hudec

In November and December 1999, Marcus Hudec, Professor at the University of Vienna, visited the IHS and held a course on applied multivariate statistics.

In this class Hudec worked with his students on dif- ferent topics of applied statistics. A general introduc- tion into the classical approach of modelling complex structural relationships by means of multivariate statistical methods was strongly supported by dynamic graphical representations, which enable an intuitive understanding of multivariate methods without going deeply into the mathematical details.

The methods discussed in detail were principal component analysis, factor analysis, various types of cluster analysis (hierarchical classification, model- based clustering, k-means algorithms) and survival analysis in heterogeneous populations (Kaplan-Meier estimation, Log rank - test, Cox Model). Besides a fundamental theoretical approach much time was devoted to the practical application of such methods.

For each topic real life applications have been presented and analysed by means of modern statistical software packages (SPSS and S-PLUS).

While the potential benefits and information gain due to the application of complex multivariate methods has been pointed out on the one hand, on the other hand the limitations and dangers of wrong or superfi- cial application and interpretation of multivariate analyses has been stressed either. With the in- creased availability of data and the ease of use of software packages the fields of application of multi- variate statistics has grown enormously in the last years not only in research but also in business appli- cations. A new field of research - Data Mining -which tries to combine classical multivariate statistical meth- ods with recent research results from the artificial in- telligence community has been established and is quickly growing. Nevertheless - the increase in com- putational power may not provide a substitute for a

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sound understanding of multivariate models, which even becomes more important.

In a final session concrete research projects of the sociological department currently under work respec- tively planned have been discussed from the point of statistical methodology. Special emphasis has been put on different approaches for construction of risk/chance indicators based on multivariate data.

Marcus Hudec has been working as an assistant pro- fessor at the IHS from 1978 to 1980. After this re- search period he joined the Department of Statistics &

Decision Support at the University of Vienna, where he is now working as professor in the field of applied statistics.

Bettina Stadler, student at the Depart- ment of Political Science of the IHS, on the seminar of Marcus Hudec

Social Scientists who intend to work with complex statistical methods often have problems with the joining of statistical theory and their individual research designs. During his seminar at the Institute for Advanded Studies Marcus Hudec managed to make some of the most important multi variate statistical methods a lot more accessible to the participants. In his lecture he concentrated on the application of statistical methods in social research designs.

He offered the attendants a look at the underlying mathematical concepts. But this was never an end in itself. Mainly he focused on basic principles of the application of these methods. By doing this Marcus Hudec succeeded in satisfying the needs of post-graduate scholars who want to work with statistical methods but are not specialized in this area. Fears and inhibitions of using these meth- ods were removed. Additionally, he provided the participants a lot of suggestions for practical use. To make further work in this field easier he also handed us a very useful manuscript. At the end of the seminar one attendee summed up our thoughts: If statistics is that interesting, I might study this subject, too!

Günter Landsteiner

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Abschiede von Andreas, Rainer, Jarko, Beatrix

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Günther Landsteiner

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Visiting Professors

(October - December)

Finance

Prof. D A (U) T (, 1997) Prof. D A (U)

T (, 1997)

Economics

Prof. D A (U) T (, 1997) Prof. D A (U)

T (, 1997)

Political Science

Prof. D A (U) T (, 1997) Prof. D A (U)

T (, 1997)

Sociology

Prof. D A (U) T (, 1997) Prof. D A (U)

T (, 1997)

Personnel

Lectures (L) and Publications (P)

Maria M. Hofmarcher

Higher satisfaction is expensive - resource consump- tion in the EU health systems,

Core Subject: Managed Care, part 1, Health System Watch II/Summer 1999

Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) – IHS HealthEcon, Edited by the Hauptverband der österreichischen So- zialversicherungsträger, Wien 1999

Health Insurance and Productivity, Croatian Medical Journal 40(2):260-265, June 1999

Gesund und Reich ist besser als krank und teuer - Entwicklung der Altersstruktur in der EU, Schwer- punktthema: Managed Care, Teil 2, Health System Watch III/Herbst 1999

Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) – IHS HealthEcon, Edited by the Hauptverband der österreichischen So- zialversicherungsträger, Wien 1999

Returns on Health Investment - Gesundheitszustand in der EU, Schwerpunktthema: Gesundheit21 - Ös- terreichische Ziele. Health System Watch IV/Winter 1999/2000 Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) – IHS HealthEcon, Edited by the Hauptverband der ös- terreichischen Sozialversicherungsträger, Wien 1999

Margit Leuthold: (P) Die Logik der Praxis (2000). Zum Wandel der alternativen politischen Bildung in Deutschland und Österreich.

Opladen (forthcoming).

Helmut Hofer: (P) (& G. Rünstler, T. Url) The Dynamic Ef- fects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances − Fur- ther Evidence, Applied Economic Letters 7, 2000, 25−28.

Martin Wagner (P) On the Structure of Cointegration (& M. De- istler) (forthcoming).

The Institute for Advanced Studies is a postgraduate research and education institut was established in 1963 on the initiative of Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Oscar Morgenstern non-profit organization. The Institute is divided into four departments: economics, fin political science and sociology.

Director: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bernhard Felderer IHS Newsletter, Vol. 5, No. 3, September 1997 Editorship: Andrea Wolf, Printed by: Chytra Druck

The IHS Newsletter is a quarterly publication of the Institute for Advanced Studies. T ceive a complimentary subscription of the IHS Newsletter write to:

Andrea Wolf (address below) or telephone: +43-1-599 91-122;

e-mail: [email protected]

Institut für Höhere Studien (IHS) Institute for Advanced Studies Stumpergasse 56, 1060 Vienna, Austria Phone.: +43-1-599 91-0, Fax: +43-1-597 06 35 E-mail: [email protected]

Homepage: http://www.ihs.ac.at/

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