This paper investigates the business cycle co-movement across countries and regions since the middle of the last century as a measure for quantifying the ongoing globalization process of the world economy. Our methodological approach is based on analysis of a correlation matrix and the networks...

Fiscal packages usually capitalize into house prices. But if enough land for construction is available, housing developers can supply new houses and capitalization may disappear. We provide a theoretical model in which income taxes and public services capitalize at lower rates when housing...

After some theoretical considerations, fiscal institutions called ?debt brakes? designed to prevent public deficit and debt from going off course, are discussed. We first present some models applied in some Swiss cantons, especially in the canton of St. Gallen, then the respective institution...

Improving transparency and enabling the principal to hold its agents accountable is a major issue in any principal agent relationship. This paper focuses on the role of public auditors in this task and presents evidence on the impact of auditor term length and term limits on government...

This paper suggests that institutional factors which reward social net- works at the expenses of productivity can play an important role in ex- plaining brain drain. The e€ects of social networks on brain drain are analyzed in a decision theory framework with asymmetric information. We...

In Switzerland, political concordance or direct popular rights and the resulting consociational democracy are often held responsible for delay or even cancellation of necessary political reforms. Switzerland is, however, not the only country with such a system, and direct democracy is just one...

20 years ago, William Baumol provided an interesting wish list that outlined his hopes for the future of economics over the next hundred years. Impatiently, this paper puts his wish list to the test by comparing the characteristics of publications that appeared in the American Economic Review...

Baron von Richthofen (the Red Baron) arguably the most famous fighter pilot of all time painted his plane the vividest of red hues, making it visible and identifiable at great distance, showing an aggressive pronouncement of dominance to other pilots. Can colour affect aggression and performance...

Research on happiness has produced valuable insights into the sources of subjective well-being that are of importance to economics. A major nding from this literature is that people exhibit a "baseline" level of happiness that shows persistent strength over time. Here we explore the extent to...

Recent literature emphasizes the importance of independent media for beneficial political, economic and social outcomes. I investigate how media consumers react to state ownership of TV stations and the regulation and financing of these public broadcasters. The empirical results show that a...