Credit rating agencies have come under increased scrutiny since the financial crisis. Their failure to recognise the threats to the financial system prior to the crisis coupled with their steady downgrading of European sovereign debt has led to much criticism, especially from European...

Die Europäische Union scheint sich in einer Vertrauenskrise zu befinden. Vor allem nach der Finanz- und Eurokrise kam es weiträumig zu langanhaltenden Vertrauensverlusten. Die Einschätzung wirtschaftspolitischer Probleme unterscheidet sich aber zwischen verschiedenen regionalen Gruppen...

The ageing of the European population gave rise to heated discussions. Most participants recommended severe reductions of public pensions, a shift towards a funded system and increased savings of the current generation to reduce the burden of the next one. The paper elaborates five...

The traditional debate on the real and financial consequences of ageing is based on two assumptions: a deteriorating old-age dependency ratio and declining productivity of an ageing population. Both suppositions are questionable. Relevant for the future burden is not the old-age dependency ratio...

Happiness is increasingly named as a target of policy measures. Apart from the confusing fact that the attention-grabbing catchword 'happiness' refers to 'life satisfaction' in most cases, this approach appears preferable to alternatives as utility functions, magic polygons or to the opaque...

Das deutsche Bildungßsystem steht unter enormem Veränderungsdruck. Um die Schulen auf die Zukunft vorzubereiten und große Investitionsprogramme zu ermöglichen, haben Bund und Länder beschlossen, das Grundgesetz zu ändern. Dazu gehört auch die Öffnung von Artikel 104c. Der Bund wird...

The Magic Polygon and the Trade-Off-Analysis For the economic policy of most countries, the magic polygon seems to be regarded as the desirable leitmotif. But do economic policy measures actually pursue such objectives, and what weight do they assign to them? Questions of this nature resulted in...

Bankengröße und Effizienz Die Diskussion um die Konzentration im europäischen Bankwesen wird weitgehend qualitativ ohne Bemühungen um empirische Tests geführt. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen über Größenvorteile (Economies of Scale), Verbundvorteile (Economies of Scope) oder auch bloß...