In the context of the quantitative requirements under pillar 1 of Solvency II, internal risk models quantify a specific company's risk position, that is, measure the risk capital it requires. Because the individual insurance company's situation is modelled, its risk landscape is reflected more...

Motivated the European debt crisis, we construct a tractable theory of sovereign debt and structural reforms under limited commitment. The government of a sovereign country which has fallen into a recession of an uncertain duration issues one-period debt and can renege on its obligations by...

Virtually all goods and services that characterize modern societies' welfare depend on the provision of commercial energy. The core objective of this paper is to identify necessary changes in trends for achieving a transition towards more sustainable energy systems and development paths. The...

This paper investigates the effects of policy, fuel prices and technological progress on the Austrian passenger car fleet in terms of energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To analyse these effects a simulation model is used. We model the car fleet from a bottom-up perspective,...

In this article we examine whether or not the small size (in terms of population) of some German Laender (states) is harmful. The economic theory of federalism forms the ground on which we present empirical evidence, focusing on our own results for the German Laender. We find evidence that...

Norbert Berthold, Nadya Kosturkova und Andreas Müller, Universität Würzburg, evaluieren in ihrer aktuellen Studie Erfolg und Aktivitäten der Bundesländer im Zeitraum 2006 bis 2008. Die Studie misst den Erfolg der einzelnen Bundesländer anhand von sechs Zielgrößen. Diese werden zu einem...

In this paper, we construct and estimate a unified model combining three of the main sources of cross-country income disparities: differences in factor endowments, barriers to technology adoption and the inappropriateness of frontier technologies to local conditions. The key components of our...

We construct and estimate a unified model combining three of the main sources of cross-country income disparities: differences in factor endowments, barriers to technology adoption and the inappropriateness of frontier technologies to local conditions. The key components are different types of...