A Job Demands–Resources Approach to Public Service Motivation

This article uses job demands–resources theory to build a model of public service motivation (PSM). Public service motivation determines how employees in the public sector deal with their daily job demands and resources. Highly motivated public servants are able to deal with their job demands and prevent exhaustion. Additionally, because of their sense of calling, they are motivated to mobilize their job resources to stay engaged and perform well. However, if job demands are consistently high and job resources are consistently low, highly motivated public servants will lose their psychological resources, resulting in lower PSM. Reduced PSM, as a consequence, may strengthen the loss cycle of job demands and exhaustion and weaken the gain cycle of job resources and engagement. Public service managers and employees may use this model to optimize their work environment on a day‐to‐day basis.     

Playing the Vertical Power Game: The Impact of Local Authorities in Cantonal Parliaments on the Financing of Special Schools

This study analyses the effect of local authorities in the Swiss cantonal parliaments on the allocation of special school costs. The empirical findings show that a higher share of local authorities in the cantonal legislature leads to a higher share of special school costs borne by the cantonal authorities. The effect is stronger for mayors compared to all members of local governments. Hence, mayors have a strong connection with their home municipality and use the political power of the accumulation of mandates for shifting undesirable costs from the local up to the cantonal level. This specific finding does not depend on the overall national constitutional framework, as the introduction of the NFA (Neuer Finanzausgleich) – in the course of which the federal state fully withdrew from financing special schools ‐ has not changed the magnitude of this effect.     

Rethinking the medical causes of infant death in early modern Europe: a closer look at church registers and medical terminology

The historical roots of the prevailing hypothesis about the main causes of high infant mortality in Europe in the last four centuries are presented in detail focusing on German sources and publications. Assumptions about infections being the main cause of deaths during infancy clearly need to be reevaluated. The terminology of early sources has passed many steps of translation and interpretation. In the old church registers, wording in the local vernacular merely described the most visible symptoms before the final stages of diseases. Scientific medicine and its terminology repeatedly went astray before real pediatric competence was acquired in the nutritional physiology of infants. The combination of different kinds of evidence points to serious flaws in the prevailing hypothesis, while source data and publications confirm a different conclusion: inadequate nutrition due to early weaning and unsuitable substitute food caused the specific set of symptoms described in the historical sources. Medical evidence about infant malnutrition in developing countries supports this new interpretation.     

Bestandflächenänderung: Nachtrag (§ 21 GebG) oder Neuerungsvertrag (§ 24 GebG)

Werden in einem Erg?nzungsvertrag "Lage?nderungen der Bestandfl?chen" vorgenommen und dabei wesentliche Merkmale des Bestandvertrages ge?ndert, so ist iSd § 24 GebG gebührenrechtlich von einem neu abgeschlossenen Rechtsgesch?ft auszugehen; wird hingegen nach zun?chst vorl?ufiger Festlegung der Bestandfl?chen im Erg?nzungsvertrag eine endgültige Festlegung vorgenommen, dann liegt (nur) ein Nachtrag iSd § 21 GebG vor.     

Werbungskosten (bei Einkünften aus V+V) auch ohne Bauherreneigenschaft

Das Recht des Werbekostenabzugs für Mietobjekte h?ngt nicht vom Vorliegen einer (kleinen oder gro?en) Bauherreneigenschaft ab. Die Kosten der Finanzierung, der steuerlichen Beratung, der Mieterakquirierung und der überwachung des Mieteneingangs sind (soweit es sich nicht um verdeckte Grundstücksvermittlungsprovisionen handelt, die aktivierungspflichtig w?ren) stets Werbungskosten. Kosten der Baubetreuung, Kontrolle der Baurechnungen, Kaufvertragskosten bzw Kosten der treuh?ndigen Kaufpreisabwicklung sind hingegen stets aktivierungspflichtige Anschaffungs- oder Herstellungsnebenkosten.