Many public goods like dams, fire departments, and lighthouses do not provide direct utility but act more as insurance devices against floods, fire, and shipwreck. They either diminish the probability or the size of the loss. We extend the public good model with this insurance aspect and...

Many public goods like lighthouses and fire departments do not provide direct utility but act as insurance devices against shipwreck and destruction. They either diminish the size and/or the probability of the loss. We extend the public good model with this insurance aspect and generalize...

This paper studies the effect of endogenous audit probabilities on reporting behavior in a face-to-face compliance situation such as at customs. In an experimental setting in which underreporting has a higher expected payoff than truthful reporting we find an increase in compliance of about 80%...

According to a widely held belief, ?all who are able to work, should work?. We consider this statement within a framework of non-linear taxation. The crucial difference between our model and the standard model is that the government can distinguish between productive persons and the disabled. A...

When the centre-left government came into power in Germany in 1998, a core promise of the new Chancellor, Schroeder, was to reduce the lack of jobs and to increase welfare. Facing persistently increasing unemployment rates from then on, the government finally launched ?Hartz IV? in 2004; the largest...

We study whether individuals in a face-to-face situation can successfully exert some lying effort to delude others. We exploit data from a laboratory experiment in which participants were asked to assess videotaped statements as being rather truthful or untruthful. The statements are...

Recently, early investments in the human capital of children from socially disadvantaged environments have attracted a great deal of attention. In a discrete version of the Mirrlees model with a parents' and a children's generation we show the intra-generational and the inter-generational...

Mit den im Zuge der Umsetzung der Agenda 2010 initiierten Reformen ist das Ziel verbunden, der Kostenexplosion einer sich über die Jahre zunehmend fehl entwickelnden und zum Teil falsch verstandenen Sozialstaatlichkeit Einhalt zu gebieten und damit einen Kollaps der Sozialsysteme zu verhindern....

Die große Koalition in Berlin sieht sich gewaltigen Herausforderungen auf dem Gebiet des Arbeitsmarktes und der Sozialpolitik gegenüber. Entgegen allen Hoffnungen und Anstrengungen verharrt die Unterbeschäftigung weiter auf hohem Niveau. Inwiefern geraten Arbeitslose in die...

Recently, early investments in the human capital of children from socially disadvantaged environments have attracted a great deal of attention. Programs of such early intervention, aiming at children's health and well-being, are spreading considerably in the U.S. and are currently tested in...