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The weak rationality principle is not an empirical statement but a heuristic rule for how to proceed in social sciences. It is a necessary ingredient of any 'understanding' social science in the Weberian sense. In this paper, first this principle and its role in economic theorizing are...

In this paper, institutions are described which are designed to reach sustainability of public finances in the Swiss cantons. These are on the one hand direct popular rights, the fiscal referendum in particular, which allow citizens to express their fiscal preferences. These are on the other...

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Using Swiss data from 1983 to 2008, this paper investigates whether growth rates of the different measures of the quantity of money and or excess money can be used to forecast inflation. After a preliminary data analysis, money demand relations are specified, estimated and tested. Then,...

Using an applied general equilibrium of the Swiss economy the economic consequences of an environmental tax reform are analysed. Such a reform is followed by a substantial reduction of C02 emissions and the use of non-renewable energy (first dividend), and a reduction of involuntary...

We first give a brief sketch of the economic tasks the government has to perform, before three issues are discussed in more detail: public production, competition policy, and government interventions in Corporate Governance. These three issues are of particular political relevance in...

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This paper investigates how Swiss consumer prices for gasoline and light heating oil react to changes in corresponding Rotterdam prices and tax rates. Monthly data from January 1977 to June 1993 are employed. After using unit root, Granger causality and cointegration tests error correction...

This paper gives a survey of the empirical results of the impact of direct popular rights on public finances which have been achieved in a project financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Using panel data from the Swiss cantons from 1986 to 1997 and cross-section data from the Swiss...