We analyze various normatively determined distributions of language rights in multilingual settings. A general model for the analysis of language rights over time in a model with overlapping generations is set up. This model is then first used to find efficient allocations of rights in the...

We analyze normatively determined distributions of language rights in multilingual settings. It is shown in a welfare-maximizing model where rights today influence the status of a language in the future, that the "naive" ex ante cost-benefit analysis has to be augmented in various directions....

Does redistribution in democracies cater to the will of the majority? We propose a direct empirical strategy based on survey data that needs not assume that voters are guided by pecuniary motives alone. We find that most democracies implement the median voter's preferred amount of redistribution...

We propose and apply methods to quantify the impact of national institutions on international trade and development. We are able to identify the direct impact of country-specific institutions on international trade within the structural gravity framework. Our approach naturally addresses the...

We focus on the role that the transmission of information between a multilateral (the IMF) and a country has for the optimal design of conditional reforms. Our model predicts that when agency problems are especially severe, and/or IMF information is valuable, a centralized control is indeed...

We develop a model to analyze one mechanism under which stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection may improve the ability of firms in developing countries to break into export markets. A Northern firm with a superior process technology chooses either exports or technology transfer...

We analyze the growth and welfare effects of globalization in a dynamic Schumpeterian North-South product-cycle model. Economic growth is driven by R&D activities of Northern entrepreneurs. Top Northern production technologies are imitated by the South. In the North, there is wage bargaining...

Economists around the world rely in addition to official statistics on business (and consumer) surveys, which are more up-to-date. However, for many emerging and developing countries there is a lack of such surveys. This gap can, at least partly, be filled by the Ifo World Economic Survey (WES)....

Suppose that when addressing the question of "what’s left for the WTO?," negotiators relied not on the agenda established in 2001 but instead on the terms-of-trade theory of trade agreements to identify tariff negotiating priorities. This paper uses the lens of the terms-of-trade theory to...

Using various methods (currency demand, physical input (electricity) method, model approach), which are discussed and criticized, estimates of the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition and OECD-countries are presented. The average size of a shadow economy varies from 12 percent...