Traditionell werden Prognosen über den Ausgang von politischen Wahlen aus Befragungsdaten gewonnen. Seit etwas mehr als einem Jahrzehnt beschäftigen sich auch Ökonomen vermehrt mit der Frage, wie eine gute Wahlprognose gewonnen werden kann. Als Instrument hierzu wurde die politische...

Die Ökonomische Theorie des Haftungsrechts kommt zu dem Ergebnis, daß Haftungsregeln unter bestimmten Bedingungen dazu geeignet sind, externe Effekte zu internalisieren. Die allokativen Wirkungen von verschiedenen Haftungsregeln wurden in Deutschland insbesondere vor dem Hintergrund der...

Econometric forecasting models typically perform bad in volatile environments as they are often present in economies in transition. Since forecasts of key macroeconomic variable are inevitable as guidelines for economic policy, one might alternatively make attempts at measuring market...

In 1996/1997 Bulgaria was hit by a severe financial crisis, spreading from a banking crisis to a currency crisis. We argue that the Bulgarian Financial Crisis might serve as an illustrative example of a twin crisis involving both a currency and a banking crisis. While the Bulgarian Crisis had...

This paper analyzes sovereign risk contagion in the Eurozone using an extension to the canonical model for contagion proposed by Pesaran and Pick (2007) and Metiu (2012) to allow for time-varying coefficients. This becomes necessary due to changes in the risk pricing of sovereign bonds since the...

This research evaluates Minimal Economic Knowledge (MEK) in Germany - that is, basic knowledge of economic facts, concepts, and causal relationships needed for understanding and successfully participating in the economy. It is addressed to gain an understanding of the level of Minimal Economic...

The birth of children often shifts the power balance within a family. If family decisions are made according to the spouses' welfare function, this shift in power may lead to a time consistency problem. The allocation of resources after the birth of children may differ from the ex-ante optimal...

This paper empirically studies the impact of decentralization and inter-jurisdictional competition on foreign aid effectiveness. For this purpose we examine a commonly used empirical growth model, considering different measures of fiscal decentralization. Our panel estimations reveal that...

Households in real cities are heterogeneous regarding their size and composition. An aspect usually neglected in urban models used to study economic and policy issues that arise in today's cities. We develop an urban general equilibrium model that takes a more complex household structure...