In the present paper an analysis of the neo-classical optimization model with linear constraints is proposed. By introducing the dual problem it is shown that the solution to the maximization problem is also a solution to the minimization problem. The purely theoretical model proposes a...

Das amerikanische Politmagazin Foreign Policy befragte zwischen August und September 2012 insgesamt 62 bekannte US-Ökonomen, worin sie die Hauptursache für die schleppende Erholung des Arbeitsmarkts sehen. Am häufigsten genannt wurde "Unsicherheit" (31 Prozent). Was ist mit diesem Begriff...

Disclosure of private medical information allows insurance companies to better predict medical expenditures. The premiums the companies charge the insured employees reflect these expenditures. This paper studies incentives of employees to disclose their medical information. I find that healthier...

Contemporary research documents various psychological aspects of economic thought and decision-making. The main goal of our study is to analyze the role of the hindsight bias (Fischhoff [20]) and the anchoring bias (Tversky and Kahneman [53]) in perceiving economic and financial information,...

In October 2002, a substitution reform was introduced in the Swedish pharmaceuticals market. In this paper, the effects of increased price competition due to the reform on the entry of new pharmaceutical products were studied. The results show that the reform did affect the entry behavior of...

In recent years the issue of the role of asset prices in monetary setting has become increasingly topical since booms and busts in asset market are associated with the fluctuations in overall economic activity through its impacts on aggregate spending. In this study, we use Smooth Transition...

We study optimal hedging design for returns on an Italian equity mutual fund index since 2008. Alternative hedging instruments include one-month futures contracts for FTSE-MIB, FTSE100 and Xetra DAX. We use bivariate models of our Italian equity mutual fund index and each hedging instrument to...

This paper codifies in a systematic and transparent way a historical chronology of business cycle turning points for Spain reaching back to 1850 at annual frequency, and 1939 at monthly frequency. Such an exercise would be incomplete without assessing the new chronology itself and against...

Die deutsche Wirtschaft wird wegen des schwachen Winterhalbjahres in diesem Jahr nur um 0,4 Prozent wachsen. Allerdings dürfte die Schwächephase wohl bereits überwunden sein; im kommenden Jahr wird das Wachstum mit 1,8 Prozent kräftig sein. Die Weltkonjunktur ist wieder auf einen...