This paper studies the politico-economic reasons for the refusal of a proposed compulsory flood insurance scheme in Germany. It provides the rationale for such scheme and outlines the basic features of a market-orientated design. The main reasons for the political down-turn of this proposal were...

This papers studies the effects on service quality and consumer surplus of a minimum price which is fixed by a bureaucratic non-monopolistic professional association. It shows that the price floor set by a Niskanen-type professional assocation will maximize consumer surplus only if consumers...

The differing paradigms of ecological and neoclassical environmental economics have been described in various articles and books and are also embedded in different institutional settings. However, we cannot take for granted that the paradigm debates described in the literature are actually...

This paper uses data from the GSOEP to look at the relationship between labor force status and fatherhood among men in East and West Germany. For many years, in particular from the late fifties through the mid-seventies, fertility patterns in the East and West were quite similar. With the...

As from a political economy perspective, politicians often fail to implement structural reforms, we investigate if the resistance to reform is based on the differences in the risk preferences of voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. Based on the empirical results of a survey of the population in...

Die Bedeutung regionaler Unterschiede des Preisniveaus wird in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften unterschätzt. Lediglich in Form von Mietspiegeln werden regionale Preisniveauunterschiede lebensweltlich berücksichtigt. Wie experimentelle Berechnungen des Bundesinstituts für Bau-, Stadt- und...

This paper studies the long-term impact of societal socialization on values using the example of doping behavior in sports. We apply the German Reunification Approach to the microcosm of Berlin and exploit its 40-year long division into a capitalist and a communist sector. We deliberately chose...

Im vorliegenden kleinen Aufsatz werden der Geschichte der deutschen Wiedervereinigung 1990 drei 'Fußnoten' angefügt. Zu den Themen 'Abschätzung der Produktivität der DDR-Wirtschaft', 'Dauer des Aufholprozesses der Neuen Bundesländer' und 'Rentenangleichung'. Anschließend werden einige...

Open access means that research outputs, such as articles and data, are free of restrictions on access and free of restrictions on use. In the light of recent market developments in academic publishing, we argue in this essay that the discourse about open access must include a discussion about...