Economically highly developed countries are mostly democratic. But does this association constitute a causal relationship according to which democracy is a determinant of economic development? Or is it, conversely, economic development that paves the way for democratization? This paper gives an...

In German literature, particularly in poetry, an amazing wealth of illustrations for economic contract theory can be found. Signaling, screening, incentive contracts, the winner's curse, and even the prisoner's dilemma within a team are treated by different writers. The respective examples are...

Child-care subsidies are meant to facilitate work for mothers with small children. The paper demonstrates that the predominant current subsidy scheme in Switzerland, which ties the subsidies to realized income (but not to potential income), creates strongly negative work incentives especially...

Swiss banking secrecy laws not only tempt foreign investors to remain silent about at least part of their capital incomes and, thus, not pay taxes as obliged by law. Therefore, Switzerland introduced a withholding tax on capital income in 1934, primarily in order to coerce domestic residents to...

There is a basic tension between the principle of democracy and the rule of law. This becomes obvious whenever the Swiss citizens accept an initiative that is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. First, we discuss the traditions behind these two principles before we survey...

A social market economy, together with corrective government activities, allows citizens to achieve the highest possible welfare with limited resources. Income and welfare, however, tend to be very unequally distributed in society. Most theories of justice call for some redistribution for a more...

Ökonomen sehen Armut in aller Regel als strukturelles Problem und versuchen, sie mit Wirtschaftswachstum zu überwinden. Nach einer Diskussion verschiedener Armutskonzepte wird daher zunächst auf die Wachstumsproblematik eingegangen und gezeigt, weshalb es Sinn macht, Armut mit strukturellen...

In this paper the approach of Constitutional Economics is presented and some of its applications are shown. First, the concept of the original position (constitutional convention) with its informational restrictions and the unanimity rule are discussed. Next, the exchange paradigm which lies...