In economics and other social sciences, complex processes are often represented by numerical models of reality which more or less well reflect behavioral relationships and interactions. Such attempts are the subject of a lecture course "Mathematical Theory of Democracy" by the author at the...

In this paper, we defend the idea of the potential existence of equilibrium in personal income distribution in Germany. This concept can be motivated by two different approaches: One is a status theory put forward by Gerold Blümle, the other is a sort of hybrid variant of the prospect theory,...

The statistical techniques which cover the process of modeling and evaluating consumer credit risk have become widely accepted instruments in risk management. In contrast, we find only few and vague statements on how to define the default event, i. e. on the concrete circumstances that lead to...

Results from frontier analysis show that German investment management companies are far from being cost e fficient. The average investment management company may be able to reduce its costs by 48% to 75% when compared with the best-practice company in the sample. The level of e fficiency even...

An important development that contributes to store brands’ growing success in the grocery market is the increasing number of discount stores that sell predominantly own, private-label, brands. To fight private labels, manufacturers of national brands feel increasingly compelled to develop...

Since central banks have limited information concerning the transmission channel of monetary policy, they are faced with the difficult task of simultaneously controlling the policy target and estimating the impact of policy actions. A tradeoff between estimation and control arises because policy...

When making decisions, agents tend to make use of decisions others have made in similar situations. Ignoring this behavior in empirical models can be interpreted as a problem of omitted variables. We suggest a possibility of integrating such outside influences into models of discrete choice by...

This paper develops a theoretical model for the formation of subjective beliefs on individual survival expectations. Data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) indicate that, on average, young respondents underestimate their true survival probability whereas old respondents overestimate...

While the literature has established that there is substantial and highly selective return migration, the growing importance of repeat migration has been largely ignored. Using Markov chain analysis, this paper provides a modeling framework for repeated moves of migrants between the host and...

The IAB employment subsample is now available for researchers in a third, anonymised version. Following the so-called basic file and the regional file from the IAB employment subsample, which encompassed the years 1975 to 1990, the actualized version of the basic file covers now the years 1975...