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...

Social interactions are in the core of economic activities. Their treatment in Economies is however often limited to a focus on the market (Manski, 2000). The role social interactions themselves play for the behavior of agents as well as the formation of their attitudes is often neglected. This...

With the Paris Agreement of 2016, 189 nations signed a legally binding document to keep global warming below 2 C, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C. It was recognized that this would reduce climate change impacts substantially. All signatories submitted "Intended...

This volume includes five self-contained chapters in the fields of public debt and fiscal transfer schemes. After an introduction to the topic, chapter 2 shows that the institutional setting of fiscal policy making needs to be considered when assessing the sustainability of fiscal policy. Using...