Long-term beneficial welfare state reforms not only face opposition from powerful insiders and beneficiaries of the system in place. While potential losers from a policy change are often relatively easy to spot, ewll-designed reforms generate mostly diffuse gains, and the potential winners are...

Coal is at the core of the debate about climate change mitigation policies, yet the international market for it is not well represented in most energy models. This paper presents the COALMOD framework which is a model of the international steam coal market that can be readily used to explore...

We study the role of whistleblowing in the following inspection game. Two agents who compete for a prize can either behave legally or illegally. After the competition, a controller investigates the agents' behavior. This inspection game has a unique Bayesian equilibrium in mixed strategies. We...

Various attempts have been made to reveal the impact of corona virus on the global economy through interdisciplinary approaches. The ultimate logic behind the strategies adopted by leaders of various economies regarding the first level policy response of lockdown and the and the end level...

Brexit, Trump und die AfD - eine Reihe von Abstimmungs- und Wahlergebnissen konnten Meinungsforscher in der jüngeren Vergangenheit nur schlecht vorhersagen. Der vorliegende Beitrag diskutiert diese Problematik am Beispiel der in Deutschland erstarkten rechtspopulistischen AfD: Da diese von der...

Die bisherigen Regierungen in Schleswig-Holstein und Nordrhein-Westfalen bekamen bei den Landtagswahlen am 7. beziehungsweise 14. Mai 2017 keine Mehrheit mehr. In beiden Fällen sind rechnerisch mehrere Koalitionen möglich. Dennoch erlaubt es die kooperative Spieltheorie bereits jetzt,...

Am 25. und 26. Mai ist Europa-Wahl. Wenn sich die Tendenz aus den letzten vier Jahrzehnten fortsetzt, wird die Mehrheit der Wahlberechtigten aller Voraussicht nach nicht die Wahlurne aufsuchen und stattdessen darauf verzichten, die Zukunft Europas mitzugestalten. Die Gründe dafür sind...

The aim of this doctoral project is an empirical analysis of questions concerning economics of education, in particular education policy. The first key aspect is the relationship between public opinion and the level of information of the population. As part of this, a first research project...

It has been recognized that the support for democracy seems to be increasing with the time spent in a democratic system. An individual's life experience living under democratic rule positively affects the support for democracy as a political system. Therefore it seemed inevitable that the newly...

The Internet has significantly expanded worldwide, changing our relationship with the world, and the way we communicate, educate, and inform ourselves. Africa, despite having a very low number of fixed-broadband subscriptions for 100 inhabitants, has not escaped the Internet phenomenon, as the...