This paper analyzes the impact of FORIS contracts on litigation and settlement decisions using a simple divergent-expectations model. A FORIS contract introduces contingent fee arrangements under the British legal cost allocation rule: the plaintiff pays a percentage of his settlement or trial...

The German law on employees' inventions requires employees to report to their employer any invention made in relation with the work contract. An employer claiming the right to the invention is obliged to pay a compensation to the employee. Up to now, this compensation is a matter of...

We analyze the legal reform concerning employees' inventions in Germany. Using a simple principal-agent model, we derive a unique efficient payment scheme: a bonus which is contingent on the project value. We demonstrate that the old German law creates inefficient incentives. However, the new...

There are theoretical foundations which allow hypothesizing on a positive association of life expectancy or retirement age with income. If both cannot be falsified, the relationship of income and the internal rate of return of a public pension system is not straight forward. By application of a...

In this survey, we compare the history and status of immigration of a traditional immigration county (the US) with the experiences of a new immigration country (Germany). This reveals differences in the immigration policy as in the immigration population in the respective countries. We resume...