Economists typically predict that people are inherently selfish; however, experimental evidence suggests that this is often not the case. In particular, delegating a choice (such as a wage) to the performing party may imbue this party with a sense of responsibility, leading to improved outcomes...

Keynes' mathematical Treatise addresses what some call "radical uncertainty", which he thought endemic in world affairs and whose appreciation underpinned much of his later work. In contrast, the mainstream view in economics, as elsewhere, has been that even if radical uncertainty exists, either...

At present and in the medium-term perspective, the security systems of most European countries are challenged by a number of social and economic trends: demographic change and the selective withdrawal of state authority from the security sphere. This process has been accelerated by current...

Countries in a monetary union can adjust to shocks either through internal or external mechanisms. We quantitatively assess for the European Union a number of relevant mechanisms suggested by Mundell’s optimal currency area theory, and compare them to the United States. For this purpose, we...

As the largest economy in the world, the US labor market is crucial to the economic well-being of citizens worldwide as well, of course, that of its own citizens. Since 2000 the US labor market has undergone substantial changes, both reflecting the Great Recession, but also resulting from some...

The authors use US data on media coverage of politics and individual survey data to document that citizens exposed to more politicized newspapers have more extreme political preferences. This polarization effect of media is mainly driven by individuals who harbor liberal opinions reading more...

Conventional economic wisdom has long maintained that there is a necessary trade-off between pursuit of the efficiency of a system and any attempts to improve equity between participants within that system. Economist Robert Lucas demonstrated the implications of this common economic axiom when...

This paper argues that the traditional social contract that underlies the free market economy has run its course and needs to be replaced by a new contract, based on a new conception of the “empowering economy.” Whereas different social contracts are relevant to different societies, all...