Starting a firm with expansive potential is an option for educated and high-skilled workers. This option serves as an insurance against unemployment caused by labor market frictions and hence increases the incentives for education. We show within a matching model that reducing the start-up costs...

Economies constantly undergo significant cyclical variations of distinct pattern and origin. In duration, business cycles vary from more than one to ten or twelve years, and comprise a boom, or expansionary phase, followed by a recession, or contractionary phase. Such cycles recur at...

We investigate whether the costs of job displacement differ between blue collar and white collar workers. In the short run earnings and employment losses are substantial for both groups but stronger for white collar workes. In the long run, there are only weak effects for blue collar workers but...

We incorporate the fact that inheritances create a second distinguishing characteristic of individuals, in addition to earning abilities, into an optimum income taxation model with bequests motivated by joy of giving. We show that a tax on inheritances and a uniform tax on all expenditures...

Neben dem Pensions- und dem Gesundheitssystem ist der Pflegebereich das dritte Aufgabengebiet der Sozialpolitik, das stark von der demographischen Entwicklung geprägt ist. Schon derzeit sind die Budgets der Länder und Gemeinden durch die Mittel für die Pflege, vor allem für die in Alten- und...

Die EU hat durch die Zinsenrichtlinie einerseits eindeutig von einer Politik, die auf einem Vertrauen gegenüber dem Bürger und einer gewissen Selbstbestimmung beruhte, zu einer Vorgehensweise gewechselt die durch Misstrauen und Kontrolle geprägt ist. Andererseits erscheinen die Regelungen der...

This paper deals with a cross section analysis of local compensation payments to farmers for their provision of landscape amenities in alpine tourist communities. These payments can be interpreted as the outcomes of Coasian negotiations. Based on Austrian data we empirically identify the...

The class of new worse/better than used in expectation on average (NWUEA/NBUEA) distributions is proposed. It is defined by the requirement that for each age t a weighted average of mean residual lives be greater/smaller than the life expectancy at birth. The weights are the shares of ages up to...