Innovations in the finance industry are an important tool to enhance profitability and to increase anation's wealth. It, therefore, is not astonishing that there is much empirical work on innovations infinance. Most of the work however is concerned with the design of innovative products. The...

The paper discusses the impact of the Basel II Accord on the financing of smalland medium size enterprises (SME) in Austria. Although the Basel II Accord hasnot been established yet, the study tries to evaluate the expected impact of theBasel II Accord on SMEs, on the bases of the current...

Tax fraud is a serious problem for fiscal authorities worldwide, not only in countries regarded as “hightax”like Germany. Besides long-term tax reforms, tax amnesties are used to bring back taxableamounts into the legal sector. The German tax amnesty of 2004/2005 was one of the last examples...

This paper explores approaches to measure the performance of the internal audit function.Based upon three proposed dimensions of formal internal audit performance – material performance,cost and risk – it uses competence research methodology to characterize and structureinternal audit...

In May 2004 the CFO Forum harmonized the various efforts of reporting the embedded valueof life insurance companies by issuing the European Embedded Value (EEV) Principles.In this working paper a methodology is proposed to derive a maximum lending amountfrom EEV figures without much additional...

This paper studies the effects that heterogeneous multiple bank financing hason a firm’s risk- and information-policy, particularly with respect to credit rene-gotiation efficiency. We find that a significant, yet limited, degree of relationshiplending enables firms with high asset specificity...

With the development of new internet technologies new security problems arise. Thus, it isimportant to consider security aspects during the complete development process of a web application.Every participant of such a process should have the appropriate knowledge. Classicallearning methods are...

In many analyses of the Chinese so-called economic miracle, cultural factors loom large. Thispaper offers a brief overview of recent economic approaches to culture and puts these into ananalytical framework that highlights the dynamic and creative aspects of culture. I argue thatChina is a model...

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have become active investors on the financial markets. Thisworking paper meets the increasing thirst for information on the investment activities of SovereignWealth Funds, their legal environment and the implications on German stock listedcorporations. Thus, this...

This work describes the legal structuring of a mortgage covered bond in accordance withthe regulations of paragraphs 791 cont. and 1184 cont. German Civil Code (BürgerlichesGesetzbuch). The work shows how to structure the share of common rights of the bondholders according to the regulations of...