International refugee law is binding upon all European Union member states, however European regional instruments, relocation theories and practices may diverge from the 1951 Geneva Convention and 1967 Protocol. This may lead to the violation of the ius cogens norm of the principle of...

The aim of the paper, based on empirical research in Brazil, is to investigate how supply chains have evolved over time, what factors have driven this evolution and also how a specific set of contractual practices along these chains is linked to access to international markets. The two selected...

Transaction costs are a major reason why international trade flows are much smaller than traditional trade theory would suggest. Trust between trading partners lowers transaction costs and may therefore enhance trade. The empirical analysis of this paper shows that more trust leads to more trade...

The significance of data as an economic good in the digital economy quickly raises the question of who owns the data. More specifically, within the context of a data marketplace in which data is being exchanged or traded and where different bundles of rights (property rights) are trans-ferred...

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have become active investors on the financial markets. This working paper meets the increasing thirst for information on the investment activities of Sovereign Wealth Funds, their legal environment and the implications on German stock listed corporations. Thus, this...

The limited liability company (LLC) is a much more popular business entity in some U.S. states than in others. This empirical study provides the first detailed analysis of this phenomenon, using a partly original set of cross-sectional state-level data. I find that formation fees, rather than...

The work report first describes the current developments on the German market for nonperforming loans, which after its peak in spring 2007 is now also affected by the financial crisis. The sale of small and medium-size portfolios is described within the scope of a case study. Furthermore, the...

Private equity has seen an impressive activity surge in Germany over the last ten years. This working paper meets the increasing thirst for information on the German buyout market with an overview of its historic development, a quantitative analysis of its performance and a future outlook. While...

Regulation of economic activity is ubiquitous around the world, yet standard theories predict it should be rather uncommon. I argue that the ubiquity of regulation is explained not so much by the failure of markets, or by asymmetric information, as by the failure of courts to solve contract and...

We provide a simple but novel model of trade agreements that highlights the role of transaction costs, renegotiation and dispute settlement. The model allows us to characterize the appropriate remedy for breach and whether the agreement should be structured as a system of "property rights" or...