Communication plays a crucial role in influencing various aspects of our social life. However, communication has more often than not been distorted by unequal opportunities to initiate and sustain it. Such a condition has been criticized by Habermas who argues for an ideal speech situation. It...

Besides being a distribution medium for up-to-date information, the Internet provides professional communities of users with an infrastructure for collaborative work. An important problem, however, is that groups working over the Internet often fail to accomplish their goals. In this paper our...

This study was prepared by Nina Czernich while she was working with the Ifo Institute for Economic Research.It was completed in December 2010 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. The study addresses the question whether the emergence of...

Previous studies found the introduction of the today well established media radio and television to affect political participation. This paper evaluates the effect of the relatively recent introduction of a new medium, broadband internet. OLS resultssuggest a positive association between DSL...

This report investigates the impact of trade structure and trade specialization on long-run development patterns in a heterogeneous set of countries, including most OECD countries, developing and rapidly industrializing Asian and Latin American countries as well as ten Central and Eastern...

All advanced industrialized societies face the problem of air pollution produced by motor vehicles. In spite of striking improvements in internal combustion engine technology, air pollution in most urban areas is still measured at levels determined to be harmful to human health. Throughout the...

This dissertation was prepared by Jasmin Gröschl and is a collection of five self-contained empirical essays. They aim at contributing to the understanding of non-standard determinants of trade and migration: historical and cultural characteristics in the United States (Chapter 1),...

Principal-agent problems can arise when preferences of voters are not aligned with preferences of political representatives. Often the consequence of the political principalagentproblem is political catering to special interests. In this paper I provide examples of principal-agent problems...

The theory of established-outsider figurations developed by Norbert Elias is a use-ful tool for examining deprived neighbourhoods. The case of this paper is Dort-mund Nordstadt in Germany, an old inner-city neighbourhood which from its early days has housed the newly arrived immigrants. Elias...