University of Mannheim

About: University of Mannheim is a education organization based out in Mannheim, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Politics. The organization has 4448 authors who have published 12918 publications receiving 446557 citations. The organization is also known as: Uni Mannheim & UMA.

Efficiency of hospitals in Germany: a DEA-bootstrap approach

Abstract: Various attempts to assess the performance of German hospitals have generated a wide range of estimates regarding their efficiency. These attempts were based on different, often rather small data sets consisting of heterogeneous hospitals; the techniques applied range from simple benchmarking approaches to studies which employ Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Some studies report ‘dramatic differences in efficiency’ and propose savings potentials of 50%; others find an average efficiency in excess of 95% and characterize almost 75% of their observations as fully efficient. This study presents results for two datasets representative of two segments of the German hospital system. These segments comprise all hospitals that have one internal medicine and one surgery department; the hospitals are located in the old federal states of Germany. None of the hospitals provides tertiary care. DEA can be applied because all hospitals offer a comparable quality and range of services. The results were estimated with a D...

Accuracy Motivation, Consensus Information, and the Law of Large Numbers: Effects on Attitude Judgment in the Absence of Argumentation

Abstract: This study examined the influence of majority opinion on attitudes in the absence of persuasive argumentation. Participants who were either high or low in accuracy motivation were presented with an opinion poll that conveyed consensus information and the sample size of the poll. According to the law of large numbers (LLN), large polls provide more reliable estimates of consensus than smaller polls. Results generally supported predictions. Less-motivated participants tended to be influenced by consensus regardless of poll size, whereas highly motivated participants based attitudes on this information only if the poll was reliably large. Thus, participants who were highly motivated seemed to appreciate the LLN when making their attitude judgments. Consistent with the heuristic-systematic model, process measures indicated that consensus influenced attitudes through both heuristic and biased systematic processing under high motivation, but it influenced attitudes only via heuristic processing when motivation ...

Capital structure choice and company taxation: A meta-study

Abstract: This paper provides a quantitative review of the empirical literature on the tax impact on corporate debt financing. Synthesizing the evidence from 46 previous studies, we find that this impact is substantial. In particular, the tax rate proxy determines the outcome of primary analyses. Measures like the simulated marginal tax rate (Graham (1996a)) avoid a downward bias in estimates for the debt response to tax. Moreover, debt characteristics, econometric specifications, and the set of control-variables affect tax effects. Accounting for misspecification biases by means of meta-regressions, we predict a marginal tax effect on the debt ratio of 0.3.

Don’t know in probabilistic systems

Abstract: In this paper the abstraction-refinement paradigm based on 3-valued logics is extended to the setting of probabilistic systems. We define a notion of abstraction for Markov chains. To be able to relate the behavior of abstract and concrete systems, we equip the notion of abstraction with the concept of simulation. Furthermore, we present model checking for abstract probabilistic systems (abstract Markov chains) with respect to specifications in probabilistic temporal logics, interpreted over a 3-valued domain. More specifically, we introduce a 3-valued version of probabilistic computation-tree logic (PCTL) and give a model checking algorithm w.r.t. abstract Markov chains.