The EU-enlargement in mid-2004 will probably be followed by the accession to the European Monetary and Economic Union (EMU), depending on the individual state of convergence of the accession candidates. As a political rather than an economic decision on EMU enlargement is not beyond imagination,...

Seit mehr als 30 Jahren ist in Deutschland ein treppenf�rmiges Anwachsen der Arbeitslosigkeit zu verzeichnen. Meist wurde auf diese Entwicklung mit eher kosmetischen Reformen reagiert, die fundamentalen Ursachen wurden nicht angegangen. Diese Vorg�nge stellen die Sozialsysteme vor...

Despite the fact that policymakers often have a short-term horizon and prefer discretionary over rule bound policy, one can observe policy reform with a focus on rules and long-term orientation. Sometimes reforms are driven by crisis, sometimes they are pursued in times of relative prosperity....

Overregulation is one major obstacles to the free and innovative development of markets, even if these markets needed regulation after the privatization of a former monopolist. As a radical change of the regulatory regime could endanger it as a whole, the objective is to find a transitory regime...

A procurement contract is granted by a bureaucrat (the auctioneer) who is interested in a low price and a bribe from the provider. The optimal bids and bribes are derived based on an iid private cost assumption. In the experiment, bribes are negatively framed (betweensubjects treatment) to...

This paper analyses how the central banks role in the monetary institutional setting can affect the unification process of the overall financial supervision architecture. Using indicators of monetary commitment and central bank independence, we claim that these legal proxies show an inverse link...

In this paper we empirically discuss the question whether or not debt relief in the past fifteen years has been economically rational. Analysing the determinants of debt relief our results suggest that governance quality did not play a role in the decision of creditor countries to forgive debt...

We analyse whether biodiversity can improve the economic growth of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) by increasing the receipts of tourism as one of the world biggest and fastest growing industries. The intention of our examination is to present an alternative utilization of biodiversity, rather...

Die aktuelle bildungspolitische Diskussion hat mit dem Vorschlag, Eliteuniversitäten zu schaffen, einen vorläufigen Höhepunkt erreicht. Von vielen Seiten wird hierzu Stellung bezogen. Der vorliegende Beitrag dient zum Einen zur Versachlichung der Diskussion und zum Anderen dazu, in knapp...

Between 1990 and 2002 a wave of takeovers was observed in the North American and European energy utilities market. We analyze the impact of these takeovers on market power, studying 70 takeovers of US-American and 69 takeovers of German energy utilities by applying event study methodology. Stock...