This paper empirically assesses the relative role of health plan prices, service quality and optional benefits in the decision to choose a health plan. We link representative German SOEP panel data from 2007 to 2010 to (i) health plan service quality indicators, (ii) measures of voluntary...

The paper empirically assesses microeconomic exporting-productivity nexus using the data for Ukrainian manufacturing and service sectors for the years 2000-2005. The results of the estimation show that firms with higher total factor productivity (TFP) levels in the period prior to entry are much...

This paper reports an experiment designed to elicit social preferences over income compensation schemes, where income differences between subjects have two independent components: one due to chosen effort and the other due to random chance. These differences can be compensated through social...

Ageing populations place an increasing financial burden on governments. Retired older workers are a source of untapped economic capacity. Maestas (2010) finds 26% of Health and Retirement Study (HRS) sample respondent’s ‘unretire’. We estimate unretirement rates between 5.5...

This paper analyses the temporary unemployment regulations that several governments of European countries have introduced during the recent recession. We view these measures as a collection of real options that governments provide to firms and value these options. We study, in particular, the...

The global financial crisis has clearly shown that macroeconomic stability is not sufficient to guarantee the stability of the financial system. Hence, the recent policy debate has focused on the effectiveness of macroprudential tools and their interaction with monetary policy. This paper aims...

A growing body of literature suggests that over widely varying historical eras and across a wide range of asset classes momentum investing, often accompanied by a trend following overlay, provides superior risk-adjusted returns. We examine the effectiveness of applying these methodologies to...

When voters discount the future there is pressure on governments to increase debt. Governments are more able to resist this temptation if voters are polarized ideologically. Policy contrasts starkly with models of ‘strategic debt’ wherein debt is predicted to increase with...

We analyse a procurement auction in which sellers are distinguished on the basis of the ratios of quality per unit of money they offer. Sellers are privately informed on the quality of the technology or good they offer. We assume that the procurer cannot perfectly identify the best offer. Thus,...