The suggested changes to German orthography are among last year's most fervently debated topics. The article identifies the individual and collective costs and benefits of such a change and, from the point of view of standardization economics, inquires into the conditions under which such a...

Die Misere an den deutschen Hochschulen wird einmütig beklagt, schon in der Analyse der Ursachen dieser Krise aber scheiden sich die Geister. Woran krankt die deutsche Universität aus ökonomischer Sicht? Muß Hochschulbildung öffentlich bereitgestellt werden, oder ist ein marktorientiertes...

This thoroughly updated and revised edition of a popular and authoritative reference work introduces the reader to the major concepts and leading contributors in the field of law and economics. The Companion features accessible, informative and provocative entries on all the significant issues,...

Das Dopingproblem im Spitzensport ist lösbar. Es besteht in einer sozialen Dilemmasituation, in der es im Gleichgewicht für jeden einzelnen Sportler rational ist, Dopingmittel einzunehmen, obwohl jeder von ihnen besser stehen könnte, wenn niemand solche Substanzen konsumierte. Anders als die...

Our analysis of new bathymetric data reveals six submarine landslides at the eastern Sunda margin between central Java and Sumba Island, Indonesia. Their volumes range between 1 km³ in the Java fore-arc basin up to 20 km³ at the trench off Sumba and Sumbawa. We estimate the potential hazard...

In this paper, recent accounting scandals in Germany are traced back to a serious incentive problem in German auditing law. Since the auditor depends economically on his client, contrary to the legislator's intention, a factual forcing contract is established which enables the client to control...

This paper investigates the claim made by Kehoe and Prescott (2002) that Switzerland and New Zealand experienced 'great depressions' in the last two decades. We question the appropriateness of the measure used by Kehoe and Prescott (GDP per working-age person) and propose a more accurate measure...

The information content of qualitative survey responses are confronted with the corresponding quantitative figures on a firm-by-firm basis. This comparison permits to directly check the information content of the qualitative data. The findings indicate that survey respondents provide correct...

The median value of realized changes for surveyed firms expecting "no change" is zero. I suggest to modify the Carlson-Parkin procedure using this conditional absolute null (CAN) regularity. The adjustment solves the zero response problem and improves the variance estimates.

In 2001 more than 80 percent of the Swiss electorate voted in favour of a constitutional amendment which aims at stopping the expansion of the public debt. A convincingly simple and seemingly intuitive formula provides an easy-to-implement expenditure rule for the budgetary process. This...