This study explores the reduction potential of greenhouse gases for major pollution emitting countries of the world using nonparametric productivity measurement methods and directional distance functions. In contrast to the existing literature we apply optimization methods to endogenously...

Much empirical research in economics is based on data from household surveys. Panel surveys are particularly valuable for understanding dynamics and heterogeneity. A possible concern with panel surveys is that survey participation itself may alter subsequent behavior. We provide novel evidence...

Attorneys elected to the US House of Representatives and to US state legislatures are systematically less likely to vote in favor of tort reforms that restrict tort litigation, but more likely to support bills that extend tort law. This finding is based on the analysis of 54 votes at the federal...

Ambiguity aversion has shown to be economically relevant and has been proposed as an explanation for many phenomena in economics and finance. While the literature has suggested a large variety of elicitation methods to measure ambiguity preferences, their consistency and reliability it is rarely...

Based on the seminal paper of Farrell (1957), researchers have developed several methods for measuring e fficiency. Nowadays, the most prominent representatives are nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) and parametric stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), both introduced in the late 1970s....

Managers often use tournament incentive schemes which motivate workers to compete for the top, compete to avoid the bottom, or both. In this paper we test the effectiveness and efficiency of these incentive schemes. To do so, we utilize optimal contracts in a principal-agent setting, using a...

Given the ambiguous empirical results of previous research, this paper tests whether support for a climate policy induced pollution haven effect and the pollution haven hypothesis can be found. Unlike the majority of previous studies, the analysis is based on international panel data and...