This paper analyzes the impact of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and the Nias earthquake in 2005 on population dynamic across regions in Aceh and North Sumatera. We find no evidence that the disasters affected the regularity of size-distribution of the regions. The estimates of a population...

Climate skeptics argue that the possibility that global warming is exogenous implies that we should not take additional action towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions until we know more. However this paper shows that even climate skeptics have an incentive to reduce emissions: such a change of...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069612000927">'Journal of Environmental Economics and Management'</A>, 2012, 64(3), 342-363.<P> Optimal climate policy is studied in a Ramsey growth model with exhaustible oil reserves, an infinitelyelastic supply of renewables, stock-dependent oil extraction...</p></a>

We analyze resource extraction in a political economy setting by introducing a political leader who optimizes both his own and the society's welfare function. We find that accounting for the private utility of a political elite, its higher discount rate and a different time horizon generally...

An anticipated benefit of the prospective European Banking Union is stronger supervision of European banks. Another benefit would be enhanced resolution of banks in distress. While national governments confine themselves to the domestic effects of a banking failure, a European Resolution...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in the <I>Journal of Public Economics</I> (2013). Volume 105, pages 72-85.<P> In a door-to-door fundraising field experiment, we study the impact of fundraising mechanisms on charitable giving. We approached about 4500 households, each participating in either...</p></i>

Cross‐border banking needs cross‐border recapitalisation mechanisms. Each mechanism, however, suffers from the financial trilemma, which is that cross‐border banking, national financial autonomy and financial stability are incompatible. In this paper, we study the efficiency of different...

Explaining the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among unrelated individuals is one of the fundamental problems in biology and the social sciences. Recent experimental evidence suggests that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism to maintain cooperation among humans. In this...

The financial trilemma states that financial stability, financial integration and national financial policies are incompatible. Any two of the three objectives can be combined but not all three; one has to give. This paper develops a model to underpin the financial trilemma. Our findings for...

<b>Purpose:</b><br>This paper addresses the nature, formalization, and neural bases of (affective) social ties anddiscusses the relevance of ties for health economics. A social tie is defined as an affectiveweight attached by an individual to the well-being of another individual ('utilityinterdependence')....