Um zu zeigen, dass wirtschaftliche Aktivitäten dem Gemeinwohl dienen, wird als normative Referenz im allgemeinen das Pareto-Kriterium verwendet. Dieses lässt sich auch in begrenztem Rahmen zur Rechtfertigung politischer Entscheidungen nutzen. Damit solche Entscheidungen getroffen werden...

In response to recent negative publicity within and outside the economics profession, the Verein für Socialpolitik instituted a Code of Ethics for its members in 2012. The Code is based on central three principles of transparency, objectivity, and fairness. This essay presents a rationalization...

Whether democracy or capitalism should have normative priority depends on the philosophical point of view but also how both are defined. The more relevant perspective is, however, the positive one. Formally, politics dominate, but the economy often dominates de facto because political decisions...

In this paper we discuss the main taxation related problems which arise from internet commerce. Additionally, a survey of the economic literature about this problem is provided. This literature mainly deals with the United States. First, effects on indirect taxation are discussed. Then, we deal...

After a short description of some positions which reject the principle of value freedom and after a short specification of what is meant with this principle, first the relation between the genesis of a scientific statement and its validity is discussed. There, we also tackle the problem of...

Using Allensbach survey data about how people look forward to the coming year, we construct true ex post-forecasts and compare them with the forecasts produced by the German Council of Economic Experts and by the Economic Research Institutes. Then, we perform rationality tests for these forecast...

We first show three major disagreements among today’s leading economists: the minimum wage, the effects of large government debt and the politics of the European Central Bank. Using a prominent and highly relevant example, the possible deterrent effect of death penalty, we demonstrate how...

More recently, new modes of collaboration between private and public agents have been developed which provide new possibilities for private interests to influence political processes. These are: (i) intermediate institutions, (ii) direct involvement of private agents in preparing legislative...

First the assumption of self-interest as applied in Economics is presented. Here we also discuss areas in which (many) people behave less self- but more other-regarding than traditional economic models assume. Then, greedy behaviour is considered as existing in the political and economic...

Increasing fuel extraction costs and global temperatures make it likely that in the medium-term future, technological or political measures against global warming will be implemented. In assessments of current climate policy, possible medium-term future developments, such as backstop...