We study the attitudes of junior and senior employees towards strategic uncertainty and competition, by means of a market entry game inspired by Camerer and Lovallo (1999). Seniors exhibit higher entry rates compared to juniors, especially when earnings depend on relative performance. This...

A substantial literature claims that the strong increase in inequality over the last decade in countries such as the US would lead to a collapse of society. Fading hopes in the population seem to confirm this. The paper rejects this interpretation since the decline in hopes cannot be traced back...

We consider redistributional taxation between people with and without human capital if education is endogenous and if individuals differ in their perceptions about own ability. Those who see their ability as low like redistributive taxation because of the transfers it generates. Those who see...

This paper analyses the determinants and impact of labour market reforms in the European Union over the period of 2000-2011. The source of information on reforms is the LABREF database developed in DG ECFIN of the European Commission in cooperation with the Economic Policy Committee of the...

Economic hardship is strongly reflected by the housing market. It is the concern of much research, but its analysis is often obstructed by insufficient lagged data. This paper evaluates search intensity for "hardship letter" from Google Insights to detect ensuing mortgage delinquencies. Such...

Starting from the observation that all firms in Ireland (foreign and domestic in manufacturing and services industries) were hit by the crisis, the paper asks whether there is a difference in the behaviour of foreign and domestic firms. One hypothesis is that foreign multinationals are less...

With banking sectors worldwide still suffering from the effects of the financial crisis, public discussion of plans to place toxic assets in one or more bad banks has gained steam in recent weeks. The following paper presents a plan how governments can efficiently relieve ailing banks from toxic...

The paper surveys the state of German pension system after a sequence of reforms aimed at achieving long-term sustainability. We argue that the latest reforms have moved pension provision in Germany in principle from a defined benefit to a defined contribution scheme, and that this move has...