I examine whether transitory events can tip the scales against authoritarian regimes and lead to persistent democratization. I think of situations where this is a possibility as democratic tipping points. The transitory events I focus on are rainfall shocks in the most agricultural countries in...

This paper investigates competition between health insurance companies under different financing regulations. We consider two alternatives advanced in recent German health care reform discussions: competition by contribution rates (health contributions) and by fees (health premia). We find that...

This paper provides novel evidence on exchange rate expectations of both chartists and fundamentalists separately. These groups indeed form expectations differently. Chartists change their expectations more often; however, all professionals' expectations vary considerably as they generally...

This paper shows that import exposure affects voting behavior because it affects local labor markets. We develop a new framework for mediation analysis where one instrumental variable is sufficient to identify three causal effects. Using German data from 1987–2009, we find that import exposure...

This paper considers the problem of aggregation in the case of large linear dynamic panels, where each micro unit is potentially related to all other micro units, and where micro innovations are allowed to be cross sectionally dependent. Following Pesaran (2003), an optimal aggregate function is...

This paper explores the interdependency of political institutions from the voter's perspective. Specifically, we are interested in: Does the partisan identity of the mayor influence the voter's decision in the subsequent town council election?; Does this partisan identity influence the vote in...

Germany exhibits a strong reduction in domestic manufacturing production depth (bazaar effect). I argue that this reflects an unbundling of comparative advantage. Using a model where Ricardian plus Heckscher-Ohlin-type comparative advantage relates to fragments of production, I compare a trading...

The labor-leisure distortion of a pay-as-you-go pension system can be reduced through a stronger tax-benefit link or Bismarck pension system. Distortions of the fertility decision can be reduced through the introduction of a stronger child-benefit or child pension system. Within our optimal...

This paper analyzes the relevance of firm losses for tax revenues and welfare when switching from separate accounting to a system of tax base consolidation with formula apportionment. We find that a system change unambiguously decreases tax revenues in the short run, in which neither firms nor...

We reassess the quot;scarringquot; hypothesis by Clark et al. (2001), which states that unemployment experienced in the past reduces a person's current life satisfaction even after the person has become reemployed. Our results suggest that the scar from past unemployment operates via worsened...