This paper aims to explain the rise and fall of communism by exploring the interplay between economic incentives and social preferences in different economic systems. We introduce inequality-averse and inefficiency-averse agents responding to economic incentives and transmitting their ideology...

This paper presents a detailed documentation of the hybrid energy-economy model REMIND-D. REMIND-D is a Ramsey-type growth model for Germany that integrates a detailed bottom-up energy system module, coupled by a hard link. The model provides a quantitative framework for analyzing long-term...

This article studies the likely impact of unconventional gas developments in the U.S. on EU competitiveness. We find, first of all, little evidence for a prosperous unconventional gas development in Europe. Second, the U.S. boom has already a strong impact on both world and European energy...

We introduce the notion of language disenfranchisement which arises if the number of EU working languages is reduced. We use the data on language proficiency in EU and show that, in spite of the widespread knowledge of English, the retention of French and German as working languages in essential...

We examine patterns of acquiring non-native languages in a model with two languages and two populations with heterogeneous learning skills, where every individual faces a binary choice of learning the foreign language or refraining from doing so. We show that both interior and corner linguistic...

Using data on the 20 Italian regions for the period 1970-1995, I examine whether the presence of social capital, as reflected in a number of different measures collected by Putnam (1993), affects economic productivity. I find three types of effects. First, social capital, when treated as an...

China’s global quest for resources, in particular oil and natural gas, has received unprecedented worldwide attention and scrutiny. This is partly because of China’s own high-profile, active energy diplomacy, its national oil companies’ acquisitions in the key exporting regions of oil and...

Globally as well as in China, cities have contributed to most of the economic output and have accordingly given rise to most CO2 emissions. In particular, given unprecedented urbanization, cities will play an even greater role in shaping energy demand and CO2 emissions. Therefore, cities are the...

China has gradually recognized that the conventional path of encouraging economic growth at the expense of the environment cannot be sustained. It has to be changed. This article focuses on China’s efforts towards energy conservation and environmental quality. The article discusses a variety...

In this paper we investigate the choice of FDI versus joint-venture, made by Italian, Spanish and Swiss multinationals in China, as shaped by the risk of Dissipation of Intangible Assets. Probit estimates, based on an entirely new firm-level dataset, constructed by the author, show that FDI is...