Archives

  • We need to talk about the member states. National Accountability of member governments in the EU
    Vol. 1 (2022)

    The idea that the EU can make decisions against the national interest, stokes fear of sovereignty loss. Judging by the rise of Eurosceptic parties across Europe, this fear resonates increasingly well with a broader public. Past reforms to address the democratic deficit of the EU focused on the empowerment of the European parliament. Yet, how can an institution populated by a majority of ‘detached europhiles’ assuage the concerns of the Eurosceptic voter?

    We often forget that most of the EU’s contested policies have been shaped within institutions where national governments represent their electorate with a quasi-veto right. Moreover, national governments can easily scapegoat ‘Brussels’ when a decision is domestically unpopular and claim the credit for EU decisions if they prove popular at home. But how do we know whether a country was indeed outvoted by other member states or whether our ire should be directed at national governments which were ‘sleeping on the job’ as they failed to identify and defend key national interests during Council discussions? Or worse, that government officials make false statements about their actions at the EU-level? Here, questions of public accountability of national governments come into play. The contributions in this issue explore different mechanisms by which member governments can be held to account over EU policies. Looking at the lack of transparency in the Council, the capabilities of national parliaments, organized interests in society, and watchdog journalism they offer novel insights into a pressing issue.

    Johan Adriaensen, supervisor

  • Surveillance societies under the microscope
    Vol. 2 (2019)

    Transparency is a concept that has been approached by surveillance theory and studies on privacy since the emergence of the field along with Bentham’s development of the Panopticon and Foucault’s re-appropriation of the concept. By establishing a framework where surveillance is regarded as an omnipresent disciplinary tool, Bentham and Foucault have also established the blueprints of a continuously evolving theory that has caught the interest of several scholars. Some scholars, such as Deleuze, Haggerty and Ericson or Zuboff have preferred to develop their thinking by stepping away from the Panoptic logic for they reproached its statism. Most of their research is thus dedicated to emphasising the dynamics of surveillance. Most scholars have nevertheless preferred to keep, yet modify panoptic features and adapt them to their own conceptualisation of surveillance: i.e. participatory/lateral surveillance (see Albrechtslund, Andrejevic, Jansson, Lyon…). Therefore, their underlying intention was to modernise the field due to the development of social media as a new, and quite powerful, means of surveillance. Indeed, the emergence of social media is what gives transparency its significant topicality. This is why, within a period of several months, eight students participating in the MaRBLe programme “Transparency in Perspective” have developed seven unique and individual research projects, which are all linked to the major topics of surveillance and privacy. Numerous individual as well as group meetings, countless hours of intensive reading, debating and summarizing, and differing theoretical as well as practical approaches have finally resulted in the following seven contributions to this volume.

  • Democracy and Resentment: Why are so many people angry nowadays?
    Vol. 1 (2019)

    From January to June 2019, a few students from the Bachelor Programmes European Studies and Arts & Culture participated in the Marble course Democracy and Resentment: Why are so many people angry nowadays? at Maastricht University. The course was supervised by Dr. Sjaak Koenis. The present volume, edited by Caroline Leusch and Estelle Paquay, includes the students’ original papers.

  • For the People - Critical Perspectives on Transparency
    Vol. 4 (2018)

    From January to June 2018, eight students from the Bachelor Programmes European Studies and European Law participated in the Marble course Transparency in Perspective at Maastricht University. The course was supervised by Dr. Nico Randeraad. The present volume, edited by Selina Rathke, includes shortened versions of the students’ original papers.

  • Research in Emerging Markets
    Vol. 3 (2018)

    FOREWORD
    Emerging Markets is a new, multi-disciplinary specialisation at Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics. This specialization has been developed to address topics that managers and economic analysts face in rapidly developing countries. The students who are selected for this specialization are trained to look for market opportunities and develop operational business knowledge for emerging markets, but also to analyze these markets from economic and societal points of view. The students retain the core learning goals of the regular bachelor’s programmes in business or economics, but additional learning goals associated with the context of emerging markets are added.
    A core component of this programme is a mandatory six-month internship in an emerging economy. The internships range from multinational companies to startups in the private sector, and from non-governmental organizations to research institutes and governmental agencies in the public and non-profit sectors. During the internship, the students also choose the focus of their bachelor thesis, and independently carry out the thesis research as well as the writing of the thesis. All of this is done in parallel with the internship work. The topic of the thesis builds on, or in some other way be related to, the content of the internship. In addition, the thesis stimulates the students to revisit the content of their academic curriculum, including courses on institutional development and political economy, innovation management, finance for emerging markets and international economic relations.
    Three theses were chosen for this series from the first cohort of Emerging Markets students. 
    Till Folger, also studies the interactions between China and other emerging markets, though in his thesis the focus is on the impact of Chinese economic activity in Africa. (He did his internship at a Portuguese consulting firm operating in Guinea-Bissau, where the bulk of his internship took place.) His thesis was composed of a combination of quantitative research and a case study on Guinea-Bissau. The findings, not unlike the results of Antonia Ramm, suggest that natural resources might not be as important to China as they are often thought to be. Furthermore, his findings indicate that China, again contrary to commonly held expectations, might in fact prefer to invest in democratic nations.

    Antonia Ramm, who did her internship at an economic development firm in Ecuador, wrote a thesis focused on the growing importance of China in Latin American economies. More specifically, she examines the underlying determinants of Chinese foreign finance allocation in Latin America through both a quantitative study and a case study on Ecuador. Her results do not lend general support to the popular hypotheses of resource-driven or power-driven Chinese aid allocation. That said, for certain types of financing natural resource endowments do turn out to be a driving factor in the allocation of funds, in line with expectations about return-oriented investments.

    Finally, Jan Werner, who did his internship at the financial office of a German multinational company in Malaysia, takes on an entirely different topic in his thesis: Islamic finance. He examines the factors that influence the price sensitivity of customers in the vehicle financing market in Muslim countries, and concludes that the way of practicing religion, and knowledge about Islamic finance, are crucial determinants of the uptake and price sensitivity of various financial products.
    These three students distinguished themselves in several ways. In particular, they all performed excellently during their internships, they showed deep intellectual curiosity during both their internship and their thesis work, they developed their thesis topics independently and managed to link the topics to their internships in interesting ways, they carried out their thesis work diligently. They put significant effort and creativity into acquiring new methodological skills that turned out to be necessary in order to carry out their research. Taken together, this all makes them great examples for future cohorts of Emerging Markets (and other) students to emulate.


    Kaj Thomsson
    Emerging Markets Coordinator

  • Quantitative methods in Business and Economics
    Vol. 2 (2018)

    I am happy that it was possible to compile a new issue for Quantitative method in Business and Economics. Four invited students have made  the necessary changes to their bachelor thesis to make it publishable.

     

    Carien Leushuis represents the field of econometrics with a thesis on the question whether state space models have the potential to predict the outcome of Australian Rules Football matches and can produce significant positive return over the bookmaker’s odds. 

     Li Yang represents the field of Actuarial Sciences, using the paper ‘Quantile credibility models’ by Georgios Pitselis, It introduces credibility theory and shows how quantiles can be incorporated in the B¨uhlmann-Straub model and the Hachemeister’s regression model.

     Bas van Andel’s paper is in the field of Operations Research and focuses on the transportation of shipments from suppliers to production sites, using data from an existing company.

     Finally, Kyara Lucas presents her findings in the field of Mathematical Economics,  investigating how the one-to-one deferred acceptance algorithm can be used to solve the many-to-one school choice problem.

     

    All four thesis discuss interesting topcis and are examples of excellent bachelor research. 

     

    Enjoy reading,

     

    Jan Nijhuis

    April 2018

    jfh.nijhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl

     

  • Research in Business and Economics
    Vol. 1 (2018)

    I am happy that it was possible to create a new volume of the marble series on Economics and Business. Due to the willingness of students and the quality of the papers, we cover most of the disciplines in the field. In this way we cover many aspects of the field and hopefully set the standard for future marble series. Both in quality and in range of interesting topics relevant for society.

     

    Eline Roomer starts with a paper in the field of Organization. She focuses on the question how business practitioners can encourage voice behaviour (i.e. communicating opinions and concerns to improve business functioning).  Furthermore, she evaluates the moderating effect of work discipline on this relationship between power distance and voice. Data was collected from a survey sent out to mainly Dutch and German employees who are active on the labour market.  Carla Schmitt represents a study in Economics focuses on the victory of Donald J. Trump, more specific she focuses on the importance of economic factors for individual voting behaviour. To that regard, the analysis focuses on determining which factors influenced the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Chris de Koning a student in the field of Finance. He used yearly panel data for 83 globally dispersed banks is collected over the period 2002-2015 to answer the question: What are the effects of reputation and corporate social responsibility on the financial performance of banks? Chris Eule, majoring in information management investigated the question whether there is a relation between varying legal disclosure environments and the level of IT governance disclosure by companies. To investigate this relationship, 48 companies´ 2015 annual reports are analysed in accordance with an IT governance disclosure framework. Sacha de Nijs representing the field of International Economics answer the following question: To what extent can the grants provided by the Central Emergency Response Fund decrease the output growth volatility caused by natural disasters? using a panel database  which contains data on 83 countries over the time period 2006-2015. Emma de Groot contributes to the field of accounting, addressing the effects of market share dynamics on audit quality in the U.S. audit market from fiscal years 2005 to 2013. Johanna Schonbron, specializing in the field of supply chain management analyzed the adoption of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in the retail industry. Upon the review of substantial literature on technology adoption in the information management field, a two-factor model is established. This model incorporates enablers and inhibitors of RFID adoption, retrieved from reviewing supply chain management literature. Next, the model is then tested in three expert interviews. Finally, Philipp Alt representing the field of strategy investigated the impact of innovation on performance in the European automotive industry. More specifically, using secondary data for 98 observations and running multiple regression models, this study examines the effect of the number of both total and green patent applications, and R&D intensity on return on assets.

     

    Also in this volume, Marble students in the field of Business and Economics demonstrate their capabilities to do interesting and relevant research. I hope that these examples inspire future Marble students to conduct research and contribute to new knowledge in economics and business.

     

    Jan Nijhuis

    Maastricht, June 2018

  • Democracy and Resentment
    Vol. 3 (2017)

    Introduction

     

    Conceptualizing democracy reveals that the term encompasses numerous ideas about the core meaning of democracy. It might solely refer to a formal, political model characterized by collective decision-making through elections and the separation of powers. On a normative level, the term democracy encompasses certain values and norms that citizens are living up to, for instance equality. Regarded from a social perspective, democracy gives structure to society and other entities such as firms, families and institutions by giving guidance for the interaction between societal actors. In order to fully understand and evaluate the theoretical term on the one hand and the practical functioning of a democratic system on the other hand, it is important to consider all the different spheres it touches upon. The interplay between people and politics, guided by norms and values, hereby represents the core of a democracy. In the form of different political arrangements such as representative or direct democracies and a multitude of formal processes, a democracy’s basic feature is the reciprocal interaction between society and state. By regulating the use of power, democracy structures the relationship between a multiplicity of institutions and their respective political and societal actors.  

     

    Practically, both levels, political and social, have mutual expectations of how the relation between people and politics in a democracy should look like. Society demands the state to protect its rights and possessions while simultaneously guaranteeing its freedoms. By participating in political procedures such as elections, people exercise their freedom of speech and attempt to steer politics in a certain direction. Once citizens feel that their voices are no longer heard or that political efforts by the responsible authorities are tenuous, dissatisfaction with the political system and the government in office can emerge. At this point, the defining interplay between the social and the political sphere can be negatively affected due to a misfit between expectations on part of society and practice on part of the government.

     

    This misfit has found its expression in the rise of populist movements that can be observed in the European political landscape since the late 1970s. Growing societal resentment that reflects people’s discontent with contemporary politics challenges the functioning of democracies all across the continent. Illiberal voices stemming from oppositional groups and parties such as the French “Front National” and the German “Alternative für Deutschland” are increasingly pushing peoples’ attitudes further towards extremist positions and pretend to provide simple solutions to complex, geopolitical problems. Thinking about the present-day concept of democracy thus requires the inclusion of resentment as an inherent part of today’s political life. The theoretical interaction between state and society that is symptomatic for a democratic system, has to practically withstand the anti-democratic tendencies that in some cases, for instance in Poland and Hungary, even undermine fundamental state structures.

     

    As resentment recently emerged as an additional factor that has to be considered when talking about the concept of democracy, we should also assess the different effects that resentment can have on a democratic system. Framing societal resentment merely as a danger to democracy, neglects that democracy itself gives rise to this discontent. Resentment is thus coming from within the democratic system itself and can even have a strengthening impact on societal cohesion. Through challenging democratic structures, extremist and oppositional voices can increase the pressure on the political system and hence its responsiveness towards citizens’ demands. Critical debates and oppositional points of view within society and in the political arena incentivise to rethink the functioning of governments and to reconsider whether liberal values are sufficiently protected. The core feature of democracy, the interaction between social and political spheres, is thus still intact, but is expressed and acted out in a different manner. Confrontational approaches force politicians to contrast their actions with citizens’ demands and to evaluate whether both sides’ conceptions of democracy still coincide.

     

    Novel challenges, unanticipated crises and global political developments consequently create a need to redefine democracy, making it far more than a static and easily graspable term. The transformability of a democracy within a certain framework of values, norms and political responsiveness might thus be added to the concept’s core attributes. This variability and the multiple challenges that repeatedly put democracy’s social, political and normative spheres to a test makes it particularly interesting to study democratic systems in today’s complex environment.

     

    Based on the differentiated conceptualizations of democracy, this volume sheds light on the political and social system from different perspectives, aiming to better understand its complexity. In particular, the volume deals with the relation between democracy and resentment as it is one of the most shaping elements when trying to grasp the functioning or malfunctioning of present-day states. On the basis of country examples of, amongst others, the United States, Israel, Germany and Poland, the volume’s chapters scrutinize contemporary developments in these democracies and how the interplay between society and state is challenged in these specific cases. Next to providing an insight into the functioning of democracies in certain countries, the volume additionally deals with broader questions that are leading back to the fundamental ideas that a democratic state structure is based upon. Are the original, democratic notions still practicable in today’s society? How can a democratic system react flexibly to increasingly complex challenges without withdrawing citizens’ rights of involvement? Is there any form of “social capital” that can prevent political and societal groups from further fragmentation?

     

    Following the historic example of the French aristocrat Alexis de Toqueville who famously embarked on a journey to America to study the roots and the functioning of the American democracy in the 19th century, this volume observes and critically evaluates the concept of democracy in order to assess its strengths and flaws. We hope to offer academic input for a debate on a novel conceptualization of democracy, and to deliver potential solutions and approaches that can help to restore and strengthen the essential relation between society and state, aligning it to current and future challenges.

  • Research in Business and Economics
    Vol. 2 (2017)

    This year four students accepted the invitation to participate in a new volume of Research in Business and Economics. Philipp Loick did a study in the field of Finance, using a sample of 2867 U.S. equity mutual funds, from 2003 to 2015 provided by Center of Research and Security Prices (CRSP) hosted from Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) from the University of Pennsylvania.

    The study at hand employs a novel consistency ratio by means of the return-based style analysis for U.S. equity mutual funds to investigate that relationship. Based on their consistency scores, mutual funds are subsequently divided into quintiles and compared for their risk-adjusted performance. Konstantin Grün, of the field of accounting, attempted to find a relationship between the implicit incentives provided by promotion opportunities and employee performance. He focuses on two different settings in which these incentives are present, namely situations in which the tasks to be performed after the promotion are similar as compared to the current job’s tasks, as well as situations in which the tasks differ after the promotion. Both scenarios are analyzed through two-step generalized method of moment tests using panel data from a Swiss retail bank between 2006 and 2012. Lara K. Fagin-Stief, a marketing student, studied job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Results are compared between three geographically close countries, namely Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. The significance of these predictors in the three countries is analysed through OLS regression using data from 2012 provided by the European Social Survey (ESS). Mariam Dehghan investigated the validity of the so called concept of "Advantages of Backwardness", which is a controversial theory within the field of Development Economics. It positively frames the opportunities of less developed countries and puts forward arguments reasoning why less developed countries benefit economically from their current status through foreign technology, R&D and foreign markets accessible for trade.

    Also in this volume Marble students show their capabilities to do interesting and relevant research. I hope that these examples inspire future Marble students to contribute to new knowledge in economics and business.

     

    Enjoy reading.

     

    Jan Nijhuis

    June 2017

    jfh.nijhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl

     

  • Quantitative Methods in Business and Economics
    Vol. 1 (2017)

    We publish this volume with rather mixed feelings. Our enthusiastic and inspiring coordinator of the thesis for Econometric and Operations Research, prof. dr. Jean Pierre Urbain, deceased in October 2016, after a short period of illness.  We are gratefull for his commitment.

     

    Because of a new procedure it was possible to compile a new volume of the marble series rather fast. A new template and organizing the flow of manuscripts makes it more efficient to publish a new volume.

     

    In this volume all the disciplines within the field are represented. Simon Lambert represents the field of econometrics with a thesis on the pre-supposed existence of the role of democratic institutions on income inequalities reduction, using panel data. Peter Zhang of the field of mathematical econometrics focuses on to find optimal locations of two public bads in a region given the preferences of two agents located there, using the lexmin preference as the joint preference of each of the agents for locating pairs of public bads. Tom Kennes’ thesis was in the field of actuarial sciences, focusing on the forecasting mortality rates in the 21st century. Finally, Merit Geldmacher, also one of the winners of the best Bachelor thesis award of the UM, presents her findings in a thesis on Operations research. The aim is at finding a link between image segmentation and equitable partitions, which are a common concept in spectral graph theory.

     

    Enjoy reading,

     

    Jan Nijhuis

    February 2017

    jfh.nijhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl

  • Listening to citizens
    Vol. 4 (2016)

    A Study of the Interaction between Citizens and Councillors in Four Municipalities in the Meuse-Rhine Euregion

  • I Spy with my little eye
    Vol. 3 (2016)

    From January to June 2015, eleven students from the Bachelor Programmes Arts and Culture and European Studies participated in the course Transparency in Perspective at Maastricht University.

    This course was organised in the context of the Maastricht University Research Based Learning Project (MaRBLe), and was supervised by Dr. Nico Randeraad.

    This book includes shortened versions of the original papers of the students who have participated in the course.

    We would like to thank the organisers of the MaRBLe project, our external advisers, and in particular Dr. Nico Randeraad, for their support throughout the entire research process.

     

    Matt Bucholski, Konrad Duffy, Caro Gröne, Maxime Hensels, Magdalena König, Christophe Leclerc, Jonas Quicker, Pia Sombetzki, Jasmijn van der Most, Viktor Werner, Jakob Zeijl

  • Research in Business and Economics
    Vol. 2 (2016)

    Letter from the editor


    The Marble (Maastricht Researched Based Learning for Excellence) programme at SBE facilitates the development of research projects for highly motivated and excellent undergraduate students. Students attending the bachelor programme of Economics and International Business can join the Marble programme in the third year of their study. During the third year they perform a short research which deals with their specialization or major. The findings are presented at a mini symposium in December or June and documented in a research paper.

    This series contains the best research papers in the academic year 2014/15 and are a representation of the different types of research in the bachelor programmes. Niels Mourmans specialized in Fiscal Economics. His paper uses panel data from 34 OECD countries over the period 1981-2014 to find out what the determinants of corporate income tax rates are. It is found that strategic fiscal interactions between countries are the main driver of corporate tax rate setting behavior by countries. The quality of his research became also recognized at the Marble symposium where he won the best poster award. He continues his career in research, as he takes the research master at SBE. Hannes Titeca specialized in economics. He applied regression utilising an existing categorisation of the predominately high-income countries of the OECD in 2009. It is found that more public insurance and less private insurance is associated with significantly lower spending after controlling for differences in income through GDP and healthcare quality/outcomes through life expectancy. He hopes to start a PhD in September 2016. Caroline Fosdike studied Economics. Spanning the period 1979-2012, her paper analysed the viability of a monetary union between nine Union of South American Nations members from a generalised purchasing power parity (G-PPP) perspective. Lise Devits, attended the Marketing major, ran an experiment to test whether a complex logo and a simple logo had different effects on consumption. Kenneth Venmans attempted to find a relationship between management earnings forecasts and executive compensation contracts. Three relations were analysed through both logistic and linear regressions using a sample of 90 U.S. listed companies between 2006 and 2012. Michelle Amory, majoring in Finance did an empirical study in the relation between cultural values and excess return of sin stocks using DataStream.


    Jan Nijhuis

    Maastricht, June 2016

  • Quantitative Methods in Business and Economics
    Vol. 1 (2016)

    Letter from the editor

    This volume is a rather short one. Due to technical and logistical problems it contains only two papers. However, I am happy that it is still possible to publish both papers.

     

    The papers are written in the Econometrics and Operations Research programme during the academic year 2014/15. Ellissa Verseput represents the field of Operations Research. Her research focused on cost savings in shipments, using a mixed linear approach. Nikolaus Landgraf represents the field of Mathematical Econometrics. His research focused on detecting the presence of bubbles in asset prices, using Monte Carlo simulations.

     

    By publishing the Marble series we provide a platform for dissemination of bachelor research and stressing its relevance. Furthermore, we hope to stimulate students to do excellent research and contribute to knowledge creation.

     

    Maastricht, January 2017

    Jan Nijhuis

    jfh.nijhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl

  • Biomedical and Health Sciences Research
    Vol. 6 (2015)

    Maastricht University started in late 2008 with the implementation of its bachelor’s excellenc program under the National Sirius program. This excellence programme was named MaRBLe (Maastricht Research Based Learning for Excellence) and is a weighted component within the third year of the regular bachelor program. Excellence for the university means above average developed academic skills, but also above average enthusiasm and passion to develop.

    At the FHML we choose for the option to have a faculty wide project called MaRBLe+, with the emphasis on career development competencies. Furthermore, interdisciplinarity was also one of the cornerstones of the program, meaning students from the various tracks were mixed in the MaRBLe groups, and in this way they learned that Healthcare is broader than their track alone. Students were selected to participate in this excellence program, from:

    • Molecular Life Sciences, a specialization with a strong focus on the molecular basis of health and disease;
    • Biological Health, focuses on the complex physiological regulation systems within the body that control the equilibrium (homeostasis) governing health and disease;
    • Human Movement Sciences, a specialization about the processes and structures in the body that enable movement;
    • Policy, Management and Evaluation of Health Care focuses on the complex relationships within the health;
    • Biology and Health examines the influence of diet, physical activity, and environmental factors in the development of diseases;
    • Mental Health looks at the biological, psychological and socio-cultural aspects of psychopathology;
    • Prevention and Health focuses on disease prevention, early detection of diseases and help people to cope with their illness.

    The program consisted of various workshops, a meeting with a career coach and the opportunity for the students to practice in giving scientific talks to a broad audience and not only their fellow students from the same track. Furthermore, the students had the opportunity to present the findings of their bachelor thesis esearch during the MaRBLe+ symposium in July 2015.

    This series contain the summaries of the bachelor thesis of the MaRBLe + students of 2015, and represent the different strands of research in the various bachelor tracks of Health Sciences and Bio Medical Sciences programmes in the academic year 2014/15. It should be noted that some of the work is considered for publication in a peer reviewed scientific journal and therefore the content of the presented thesis summary may be altered to prevent double publication of scientific work. This publication could be the first step in a research career for students and is an ideal way to spread their research findings to a broader audience.

  • Conservation controversies: On experts and the environment
    Vol. 5 (2015)

    This collection of essays is the result of a Maastricht Research Based Learning (MARBLE) Project that was carried out at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) at Maastricht University in the academic year 2013-2014. The project went under the title ‘Conservation Controversies’ – funnily misspelled at the university website as ‘Conversation Controversies’. Next to having agreeable conversations about conservation, this MARBLEproject aimed to provide so-called research-based learning. Under the guidance of Raf de Bont, five third year students from the Bachelor programs ‘Arts and Culture’ and ‘European Studies’ explored the role of experts in controversies about nature and the environment. They did so via particular case studies. Four of these are presented in this volume. 

  • Regulating Innovation, Trade and Uncertain Risks
    Vol. 4 (2015)

    Due to experiences such as the Chernobyl disaster, the asbestos tragedy, various food
    scandals and comparable experiences, in modern times technology-based innovation
    is often associated with risks that are highly uncertain. In other words, there are
    suspicions about potential hazards to human health or the environment for which there
    is no scientific proof, but which cannot be fully refuted either (Van Asselt & Vos 2006).
    Following scandals such as the BSE crisis where uncertain risks were initially ignored and
    governments and experts attempted to reassure the public with zero risk statements, the
    current societal climate in which innovation takes place can be characterized as ‘posttrust’
    (Löfstedt 2005).
    Technology-based innovation poses significant challenges to regulators. In the early
    stages of the innovation process, when technology could be controlled relatively easily,
    one does not know enough about harmful consequences to issue regulation, whilst at a
    later stage, by the time consequences are apparent, control by regulation is expensive and
    drastic. This dilemma is referred to as the Collingridge dilemma of control of technology
    (Collingridge 1980). Furthermore, research into health and environmental impacts usually
    lags behind: by the time first insights are available, the research is already outdated
    because new generations of the technologies are already available (Harremoës et al. 2002)
    Regulators are foremost confronted with the obstacles to innovation in the context
    of trade: the free circulation of innovative products may be blocked by states or trade
    blocks for reasons of protection of human or environmental health. Controversies
    about innovation and uncertain risks therefore often have trade consequences. Many
    of the complex cases that challenge the EU or the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in
    their ambition for further market integration pertain to conflicts about innovation and
    uncertain risks (Prévost 2014). The question often is how to allow free trade while at the
    same time ensuring that the protection of human and environmental health is duly taken
    into consideration. Trade conflicts concerning genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and
    hormones in beef are iconic examples.

  • Inside Local Democracy
    Vol. 3 (2015)

    Letter from the editor

    This volume contains the report on the empirical research done in the framework of the MaRBLe project ‘Inside local democracy’ in the Spring of 2015. All over Europe there is concern about the state of our democracy and the relationship between citizens and politicians. In this project the participants have focused on this relationship at the local level. In the system of multi-level governance in Europe, the local level of governance is the closest to citizens. They conducted in-depth interviews with thirty local councillors in four different municipalities in the Meuse-Rhine Euregion, to find out more about the role behaviour of local politicians vis-à-vis citizens in their municipality. In four chapters the results of the empirical research in the different municipalities are presented and analysed and the report concludes with a chapter on the main findings.

     

    Maastricht, September 2015

    Klaartje Peters and Sander van Berghen

    klaartje.peters@maastrichtuniversity.nl

  • Research in Business and Economics
    Vol. 2 (2015)

    Letter from the editor

    In this volume the best papers in 2013_14 from the different disciplines in business and economics are represented. The coordinators of the different disciplines have selected the best paper in their field, resulting in a variety of research methodologies. For finance, Lukas Hein focused on the Correlation and Volatility Transmission among Equity, Gold, Oil and Foreign Exchange using a time series approach. For marketing, Susann Heinz, used experiments to research the effect of making a derived food choice for a relevant other on the pre-fulfilment of one’s own health goal. Macroeconomics is represented by Aurélien Rigolet, researching the effects of major natural disasters on developing and underdeveloped countries using panel data analysis. For accounting the paper of Leonard Strauß was selected, he used secondary data from a survey to analyse conditional inter-dependencies between behavioural constraints, incentives and employee selection. Anna Lina Tholen, choose the specialization micro-economics. She used ordinary least squares regressions to find out whether a statistical relationship between ethnic group representativeness and the effect on political conflict exists.


    Maastricht, May 2015
    Jan Nijhuis

  • Quantitative Methods in Business and Economics
    Vol. 1 (2015)

    Letter from the editor

    After several paper versions of the Marble series for SBE, I am happy to present the first eversion of the Marble series. With the help of Peter Verberne, Web developer at the Library of Maastricht University, the e-journal was set up. Peter created the appropriate working environment and answered all the questions which accompanied the introduction of a new system. Four papers written in the Econometrics and Operations Research programme during the academic year 2013/14 were selected by Dries Vermeulen, the Marble coordinator, and Jean Pierre Urbain, representing the different strands in the field. Samuel Feder represents the field of Operations Research, with a paper on scheduling in a job shop. Wouter van Wel researched mortality modelling, representing the field of Actuarial Science. Michael Pollman did research in the field of Econometrics focusing on the question of model selection. Finally, Joost Veth (Mathematical Econometrics) addressed the problem of polarisation. As most papers in econometrics are written in Latex, I am grateful to Bouke Klein Teeselink, who edited the manuscripts to fulfil the style requirements of the Marble series. By publishing the Marble series we provide a platform for dissemination of bachelor research and stressing its relevance. Furthermore, we hope to stimulate students to do excellent research and contribute to knowledge creation.

     

    Maastricht, May 2015

  • Biomedical and Health Sciences Research
    Vol. 2 (2014)

    This series contain the summaries of the bachelor thesis of the MaRBLe+ students of 2014, and represent the different strands of research in the various bachelor tracks of Health Sciences and Bio Medical Sciences programs in the academic year 2013/14.

  • Taxation Perspectives: MCT Research Papers
    Vol. 1 (2014)

    This book includes the professional papers that the members of MCT PREMIUM Honours team 2013/2014 have written during the program. Each team member completed an individual professional tax paper. The topics of these individual papers cover a broad range of issues from international commercial tax to transfer pricing, and from VAT to the FTT and the application of the equality principle to the Dutch business succession rules. This wide spectrum of tax issues shows the candidates’ broad professional orientation on taxation and their ability to translate the theory of law to its effects in real life. The team also wrote reports in subteams on the three tax seminars that they attended. Jointly, they wrote a professional conference report on the first Global Tax Policy Conference held at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Amsterdam on 6 March 2014. The results of their work show the broad scope and deep understanding of professional tax matters of these talented young tax experts. 

1-25 of 36