We use trade data from an online game economy to test the 'dopaminergic reward prediction error' (DRPE) hypothesis: upon buying a game item at a price which is obviously too low, a player should become more active in the trading market. We find that players are more willing to buy goods in the...

We analyze a unique data set from a massively-multiplayer online video game economy called The Kingdom of Loathing to assess the viability of these markets in conducting economic research. The data consist of every transaction in a market with over one million players over three years of real...

We use data from an online game economy and econometric matching methods to test whether social capital of players has an impact on game success. Membership in a 'clan', a voluntary organization of players, positively impacts game success. Hence, social capital has a positive effect on outcomes....

We study the effects of random assignment to coeducational and single-sex classes on the academic performance of female high school students. Our estimation results show that single-sex schooling improves the performance of female students in mathematics. This positive effect increases if the...

This study empirically assesses the influence of globalization on the institutional root causes of gender equality as measured by the new OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). We capture the multifaceted concept of globalization with the KOF index and its three sub-indices which...

Previous theoretical studies on the debt shifting behavior of multinationals have assumed affiliates of multinationals to be wholly owned. We develop a model that allows a multinational firm to determine both the leverage and ownership structure in affiliates endogenously. A main finding is that...

This paper studies the effect of globalization on public expenditures allocated to different stages of education. First, we derive theoretically that globalization’s influence on education expenditures depends on the type of government. For benevolent governments, the model suggests that...

This paper generalizes the discussion about disagreement versus uncertainty in macroeconomic survey data by emphasizing the importance of the (unknown) true predictive density. Using a forecast combination approach, we ask whether cross sections of survey point forecasts help to approximate the...

While macroeconomic volatility in the US economy decreased since the early 1980's, individual earnings volatility and wage inequality increased. This paper argues that increasing financial development can contribute to both changes. I develop a real business cycle model with sectoral...

Using data on the B.E. Journals that rank articles into four quality tiers, this paper examines the accuracy of the research evaluation process in economics. We find that submissions by authors with strong publication records and authors affiliated with highly-ranked institutions are...