Unternehmerisches Engagement von Adeligen wurde in der europäischen Frühen Neuzeit unterschiedlich bewertet, galt aber tendenziell als nicht standesgemäß. Dennoch war das Wirtschaften, das am Gewinn orientierte Handeln des Adels, eine ökonomische Notwendigkeit und stellte eine...

We examine a hitherto unexplored aspect of intergenerational transmission of economic standing, namely culturally determined status markers and their valuation in the marriage market. We take nobility to be such a status marker. We propose a two-trait extension of the optimal sorting model in...

We examine a relatively neglected aspect of intergenerational transmission of economic standing, namely culturally determined status markers and their valuation in the marriage market. We take nobility to be such a status marker. Using data on Swedish marriages, we test the hypothesis that...

In this paper we assess the current relevance of Ricardian theory. Relative prices, labor costs, and productivity are evaluated as determinants of a country's international competitiveness at the industry level. Working with detailed data on unit values and with industry data on productivity, we...

All micro studies of demand are based on using time series cross sectional data. Because in such data each household is only observed once, it is only under strong identifying restrictions that one can interpret the coefficients on consumer behavior. For example, if tastes are correlated with...

Recovery in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain is held back in part by structural barriers. Overcoming these requires structural reform and public investment. Given the limited availability of political and financial capital, prioritising reform efforts and spending is important, but difficult....

Greece, Portugal and Spain face a serious risk of external solvency due to their close to minus 100 percent of GDP net negative international investment positions, which are largely composed of debt. The perceived inability of these countries to rebalance their external positions is a major root...

We compare three EU countries that have recently experienced substantial but very different reforms of their family support systems: Austria, Spain and the UK. The structure of these systems is different: Austria emphases universal benefits, Spain tax concessions and the UK means-tested...

Growth rate data that are collected incompletely in cross-sections is a quite frequent problem. Chow and Lin (1971) have developed a method for predicting unobserved disaggregated time series and we propose an extension of the procedure for completing cross-sectional growth rates similar to the...