Game theory is a powerful tool for the disciplined analysis of interacting choices. Nevertheless, its use in empirical research is considered questionable since the standard assumptions of mathematical game theory seem to place exceedingly high information costs on real-life actors as well as on...

This paper continues the examination, begun in MPIFG Discussion Paper 89/9, of the validity of game-theoretic explanations in empirical social science research. Assuming that real actors with bounded rationality would be unable to cope with the explosive complexity of n-person games, discussion...

European integration has come to constrain the capacity for democratic political action in EU member states through the judicial constitutionalization of "economic liberties," whereas the capacity for effective political action at the European level is narrowly constrained by the multiple-veto...

At the end of the postwar period, the politically shaped configurations of normatively integrated European political economies differed greatly among "social-market" and "liberal market economies." Such differences persist even though the characteristic achievements of social market economies...

The end of the Bretton Woods regime and the fall of the Iron Curtain deepened the export orientation of the German model of the economy. Only after entry into the Monetary Union, however, did rising exports turn into a persistent export–import gap that became a problem for other eurozone...

The performance of EMU member economies is shaped by different and structurally entrenched "growth models" whose success depends on specific macro-regimes – restrictive for export-led growth, accommodating for demand-led growth. These two types of models cannot be equally viable under a...