This thesis consists of five independent chapters, studying how economic agents respond to unanticipated shocks. Chapter 1 shows that a well-intentioned policy can create unintended barrier to voting by creating seemingly small shocks to voting costs. Election administrators in Munich control...

This study was prepared by Beate Schirwitz while she was working at the Ifo Institute’s Dresden Branch. It was completed in February 2012 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Law, Management, and Economics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in July 2012. It focuses on a...

This volume was prepared by Constantin Mang while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes a short introduction and four self-contained chapters that focus on ICT...