We examine whether it is socially beneficial for the individual voting records of central bank council members to be published when the general public is unsure about central bankers' efficiency and central bankers are aiming for re-election. We show that publication is initially harmful since...

This paper examines whether it is socially desirable for the individual voting records of central bank council members to be published when central bankers' preferences differ. We show that the misrepresentation of their preferences is not advantageous for central bankers although central...

Recent evidence from large-scale field experiments has shown that employers use job candidates' unemployment duration as a sorting criterion. In the present study, we investigate the mechanisms underlying this pattern. To this end, we conduct a lab experiment in which participants make hiring...

In this paper we study how promoting product market competition by reducing mark-ups or by increasing productivity are able to complement labor market reforms. We use a simple general equilibrium model with different types of labor. The bottom-line of the paper is that product market reforms...

Persistent unemployment across OECD countries has led to increasing investments in activation programmes and, as a consequence, rigorous evaluations of the effectiveness of these programmes. The results of these evaluations have been mixed at best. To improve the effectiveness of the activation...

We develop a product market theory that explains why firms invest in general training of their workers. We consider a model where firms first decide whether to invest in general human capital, then make wage offers for each others' trained employees and finally engage in imperfect product market...

We examine wage-bargaining in a two-sector economy when employers and labor unions in each sector are not always aware of all general equilibrium feedback effects. We show analytically that if agents only consider labor demand effects, low real wages and low unemployment result. With an...

Based on contribution patterns to parties in Germany and elsewhere, we suggest that European democracies should use a mixed system where private funding can play a larger role than public funding. In Germany the high level of public funding for parties can be reduced without expecting...