The contributory infringement rule assesses liability to a third party that contributes tothe infringement of a patent. Not only are firms that directly infringe liable, those whoindirectly contribute are also liable. We investigate how this rule affects the creation of anetwork of members...

Several countries have recently abolished or significantly reduced their taxes on bequests.Bequest taxes, on the other hand, were among the first to be introduced when modernsystems of taxation were developed at the end of the nineteenth century. We propose anexplanation for these facts which is...

Douglass North gehört zu den führenden Sozialwissenschaftlern des 20. Jahrhunderts.Er wurde für seine bahnbrechenden Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der ökonomischenGeschichtstheorie mit dem Nobelpreis ausgezeichnet. Dieser Aufsatz rekonstruiert (a)seine kliometrische Diagnose der Moderne, (b)...

Die Debatte über die optimale Ausgestaltung der Alterssicherung wird in jüngster Zeit äußerst kontrovers und hitzig geführt. Dabei scheint uns ein zentraler Aspekt nicht genügend beachte zu werden: Welcher Zusammenhang besteht zwischen den Merkmalen des Finanzsystems und des...

Wenn man untersuchen möchte, ob sich die Finanzsysteme verschiedener Länder im Verlauf der letzten Jahre aneinander angeglichen haben oder demnächst angleichen werden, braucht man ein Konzept zur Beschreibung von Finanzsystemen, durch das wesentliche Strukturen, deren Unterschiede und...

We explore the country-specific institutional characteristics likely to influence an individual’sdecision to become an entrepreneur. We focus on the size of the government, on freedomfrom corruption, and on ‘market freedom’ defined as a cluster of variables related toprotection of property...

In this paper we explore the relationship between the individual decision to become anentrepreneur and the institutional context. We pinpoint the critical roles of property rights andthe size of the state sector for entrepreneurial activity and test the relationships empirically bycombining...

We study the effect of fair institutions on growth. In our model, individuals are endowed with unequal entitlements to theeconomy’s output. They can free-ride or cooperate. Cooperation is individually costly, but increases aggregate output and growth.Experimentally, we observe significantly...

mode of production exist that is based on the contributions of many software programmerswithout providing any direct monetary incentives for them? And how can these programmerscoordinate their actions without relying on either the guidance of the price mechanism or thedirection through a...

In this paper we combine a wide range of country-level institutional indicators with surveydata taken from the Global Enterprise Monitor on potential and actual entrepreneurial entry,to investigate the role of the institutions as determinants of the entrepreneurial entry,controlling for...