Relational contracts when employed as a tool of economic policy create mutual dependency between State and enterprises. This bluntly contradicts the principles of „Ordnungspolitik" as the key policy device to ensure efficiency on the microeconomic level and growth on the macroeconomic level....

Governments may draft contracts with market agents for allocating subsidies and pursuing specific policy goals. Contract enforcement via binding commitments is difficult, however, when exogenous (environmental) and endogenous (behavioural) risks interact. Analyzing the old debt compromise in...

It is argued that parents provide help with housing downpayments in order to encourage the production of grandchildren, and that such a subsidization emanates from the ?demonstration effect:? a child?s propensity to furnish parents with attention and care can be conditioned by parental example....

This paper considers the role of Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) advances in stabilizing their commercial bank members' residential mortgage lending activities. Our theoretical model shows that using mortgage-related membership criteria or requiring mortgage-related collateral does not ensure that...

Most private giving between living generations takes the form of tied transfers, such as help with housing downpayments. We argue that parents provide help with downpayments in order to encourage the production of grandchildren, and that such a subsidization emanates from the demonstration...

Die Überführung der Wohnungswirtschaft in die soziale Marktwirtschaft gehört zu den dringlichen und schwierigen Aufgaben im Gesamtprozeß der Reformen in den neuen Bundesländern. Das Ziel einer möglichst raschen und nachhaltigen Verbesserung der Wohnverhältnisse ist unkontrovers....

This paper explores the determinants of international patterns of housing tenure choice. Up to now, no study has carried out an international comparison in housing tenure using household level data. The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) provides microeconomic data on fourteen OECD countries. In most...

The paper analyses the causes of the current crisis of the global financial system, with particular emphasis on the systemic elements that turned the crisis of subprime mortgage-backed securities in the United States, a small part of the overall system, into a worldwide crisis. The first half of...

Household credit, especially for mortgages, has doubled over the past years in the new European Union member countries, raising concerns about the economic and social consequences of household indebtedness in the event of a macroeconomic crisis. Using household survey data for 2005, 2006, and...