Why do some economic systems depend on bank financing while others rely on capital markets and bond financing? We propose a political economy model in which elites favor a bank-based system, which increases their rents due to reduced competition. If suffrage is restricted to the elite, this will...

Exploiting a natural voting experiment we identify female preferences for real policy issues in the electorate. We then analyze whether female or male politicians in parliament more closely correspond to female preferences. Holding constant revealed constituent preferences, there is generally no...

Does the enfranchisement of women lead to an increase in public support for government spending? By utilizing a natural experiment from Switzerland, I test this hypothesis empirically. I analyze the voting outcomes of two very similar referendum ballots concerning the federal government's...

Numerous studies analyze gender wage differences focusing on gross hourly wages. The analysis of differences in gross wages allows statements on productivity differences between men and women and to quantify the unexplainable wage gap which is often attributed to discrimination. While there is...

We investigate the determinants of couples labor supply within an experimental setting. On the one hand, we are interested in the e ect of taxes on couples labor supply, but on the other hand we focus on factors beyond purely economic incentives: the role of the social norm of a male...

In several empirical contributions researchers have found a gender gap in preferences for public spending. This paper analyzes the persistence of these gender gaps when income differences between individuals are taken into consideration. Using survey data from the years 1996 and 2006 of German...

In the present paper I provide novel evidence on the formation of the gender pay gap with respect to directly measured job task contents. Using high-quality administrative employment data for Germany, and augmenting these by individual-level task information, I provide detailed evidence on the...

We present theory on international migration of dual-earner couples, and test it using Danish register data. Our model predicts that the probability that a couple emigrates is increasing in the earnings of the primary earner. The effect of the earnings of the secondary earner may go either way....

This research challenges the stylized fact of a gender gap in financial literacy, i.e. the finding that women lag behind men in this respect. Our data which samples middle-class people from Bangkok does not show a gender gap, neither in regards to financial literacy nor regarding various kinds...

This paper analyzes the question why desired and actual sharing of market work and family duties among parents with young children in Germany fall apart. Potential explanations include financial incentives favoring the single-earner model, as well as constraints in choosing working hours due to...