Discusses incentives for basic research, which were recently introduced in the German Institute for Economic Research, including both team and individual incentives. Possible problems arise from focussing on the measurable, crowding out intrinsic motivation and undesirable externalities....

Economic page turners like <italic>Freakonomics</italic> are well written and there is much to be learned from them -- not only about economics, but also about writing techniques. Their authors know how to build up suspense, i.e., they make readers want to know what comes. An uncountable number of pages in books...

In order to profit from China’s enormous business opportunities, international firms need to know Chinese consumer preferences. To learn more about intrinsic Chinese consumer preferences and their distinction from other Asian consumer preferences, this study analyzes differences in the...

Wir untersuchen die Determinanten der regionalen sektoralen Konzentration filmbezogener Dienstleistungen (wie Kameraverleih, Castingagenturen oder Pyrotechnik). Unser Hauptinteresse gilt dabei der Humankapitalspezifität, die auf zwei einander entgegengesetzte Weisen die Standortwahl...

An important concern of experimenters is that instructorsʹ nonverbal cues might change subject behavior. We let a professional actor try to produce this bias on purpose, finding only weak evidence for an "instructor demand effect", and only for female subjects.