Why do rational politicians choose inefficient policy instruments? Environmental regulation, for example, often takes the form of technology standards and quotas even when cost-effective Pigou taxes are available. To shed light on this puzzle, we present a stochastic game with multiple...

Robert Wilson und Paul Milgrom erhielten am 10. Dezember 2020 den Preis der Schwedischen Nationalbank für Wirtschaftswissenschaften zu Ehren von Alfred Nobel. Die Ökonomen erhielten den Preis für ihre Beiträge zur Auktionstheorie und für die Entwicklung neuer Auktionsformate.

The failure of public policies is ubiquitous. This paper ascribes this failure to the complex system nature of public policies. A key characteristic of complex systems is that they cannot be closely controlled or predicted. Yet the traditional approach to public policy is fundamentally based on...

People who are unable to maintain the same standard of living as others around them experience a sense of relative deprivation that has been shown to reduce feelings of well-being. Relative deprivation reflects conditions of worsening relative poverty despite striking reductions in absolute...

Knowing whether corruption leads to higher emigration rates - and among which groups - is important because most labor emigration is from developing to developed countries. If corruption leads highly-skilled and highlyeducated workers to leave developing countries, it can result in a shortage of...