We develop a simple model of fiscal competition among ageing municipalities. When ageing advances, gerontocracies and social planners gradually substitute publicly provided goods aimed at the mobile young population for publicly provided goods for the elderly. This substitution process does not...

This paper discusses rising enrolment rates, access, governance, underperformance in research and teaching, lack of internationalisation, private returns to education and the funding problems of European universities. Our proposals for reform are based on more autonomy for universities, higher...

Differences in the degree of fiscal decentralization observed between the U.S. and many countries in Europe cannot be explained within the standard theory of fiscal decentralization. By introducing preferences for solidarity - equality in the provision of public goods and services across regions...

There is much evidence against the so-called "too big to fail" hypothesis in the case of bailouts to sub-national governments. We look at a model where districts of different size provide local public goods with positive spillovers. Matching grants of a central government can induce...

Demographic change will be one of the major challenges for economic policy in the developed world in the next decades. In this article, we analyze the relationship between age structure and the number of startups. We argue that an individual's decision to start a business is determined by his or...

We investigate the economic and technological determinants inducing entrepreneurs to establish ventures with the purpose of reinventing financial technology (fintech). We find that countries witness more fintech startup formations when the latest technology is readily available, capital markets...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the effects of new product versus process innovations on export propensity at the firm level. Product innovation is a key factor for successful market entry in models of creative destruction and Schumpeterian growth. Process innovation helps securing...

This paper investigates how different damage rules in patent infringement cases shape competition when intellectual property rights are probabilistic. I develop a simple model of oligopolistic competition to compare two main liability doctrines that have been used in the US to assess...

Research on immigrants' educational disadvantages largely focuses on differences in student achievement tests. Exploiting data from the German PIRLS extension, we find that second-generation immigrants face additional disadvantages with respect to grades and teacher recommendations for secondary...

Using pooled data on instructional time and student performance by subject, our study finds evidence for the school inputs-student achievement relationship for German states. This finding is robust both to the inclusion of state fixed effects and in an extensive extreme bounds analysis. It...