A high degree of de facto judicial Independence (JI) functions as a crucial precondition of governments to credibly commit to legislative decisions, such as respecting private property rights. Thus, de facto JI should improve the allocative efficiency and may therefore contribute positively to...

This paper studies attitudes about who should provide for the livelihood of the elderly in two aging societies, namely Germany and Japan. Applying an ordered logit model to individual data from representative public opinion surveys, it is analysed which socio-demographic, economic or political...

This paper analyses whether interest rate paths in the EMU member countries would have been different if the previous national central banks had not handed over monetary policy to the ECB. Using estimates of monetary policy reaction functions over the last 20 years before the formation of EMU,...

This paper compares the ECB's conduct of monetary policy with that of the Bundesbank. Estimated monetary policy reaction functions for the Bundesbank (1979:4-1998:12) and the European Central Bank (1999:1-2004:5) show that, while the ECB and the Bundesbank react similarly to expected inflation,...