Die vorliegende Dissertation besteht aus vier eigenständigen Forschungsarbeiten, die ich in der Zeit von April 2004 bis Juli 2007 an der Universität Konstanz verfasst habe. Gemeinsam ist allen Arbeiten eine empirische Ausrichtung und die Erkenntnis, dass die empirische Analyse für das...

Der überraschende Wahlausgang der spanischen Parlamentswahlen vom 14. März und die sich abzeichnenden politischen Folgen haben viele Fragen aufgeworfen. Im Mittelpunkt stehen zwei Fragen: Erstens die Frage nach der Bedeutung, die dem terroristischen Attentat in Madrid vom 11. März 2004 für...

With the end of the Cold War and the election of President Clinton, the Department of Energy (DOE) set a new course which began with the publication of its first departmental strategic plan in April 1994. Entitled ``Fueling a Competitive Economy, it provided the framework and shared vision for...

The Iranian economy and political situation have undergone radical changes since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The excesses of the early years of the revolution have gradually given way to moderation and a more pragmatic economic policy--based on the principles of the free market. The petroleum...

In important conflicts such as wars and labor-management disputes, people typically rely on the judgment of experts to predict the decisions that will be made. We compared the accuracy of 106 forecasts by experts and 169 forecasts by novices about eight real conflicts. The forecasts of experts...

This paper argues that investment in agriculture has a large and continuing developmental importance in terms of both economic growth and poverty reduction. Moreover, targeted public resources have proven to be indispensable in achieving these results. Both arguments are supported with novel...

This paper contributes to the literature on foreign aid by exclusively explaining a donor’s motivation for foreign external assistance. The underlying framework focuses on recipients’ needs for foreign aid to address income inequality as and when growth occurs. A tax-subsidy policy is...

While the last half century gave rise to over a dozen developing nations whose economic expansion surpassed the growth rates of many industrialized economies, the same fifty years witnessed a majority of aid-dependent Sub-Saharan Africa suffer from economic stagnation and in some cases even...

"This paper has provided a model framework of foreign assistance policy in the context of dynamic optimal control and investigated the environmental policies in LDCs that received some financial support from abroad. The model framework features a specific behavior of the social planner who...