We use a dynamic framework and panel methodology to investigate thedeterminants of a firms’ time-varying capital structure. Our sample comprises706 European firms from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. overthe period from 1983 to 2002. If capital structure adjustment is costly, firmsmay...

This paper empirically investigates the impact of both the first release of analysts' stock recommendations to a limited clientele and the subsequent dissemination of the same information in a major newspaper to a broader audience. For a sample of 1460 stock recommendations published in FuW,...

There is a longstanding concern that material incentives might undermine prosocial motivation,leading to a decrease in blood donations rather than an increase. This paper providesan empirical test of how material incentives aect blood donations in a large-scale eld experimentspanning three...

This paper develops a 9-dimensional SVAR to investigate the sources of the U.S. business cycle. We extend the standard set of identified shocks to include unexpected changes in commodity prices. Our main result is that commodity price shocks are a very important driving force of macroeconomic...

The estimation of an ordered probit model for currency reforms trying to end 31hyperinflations and three big inflations of the 20th century shows that the introduction of anindependent central bank and the adoption of a credibly fixed exchange rate are crucial for the successof a currency...

In many countries, TV viewers have access to more and more TVchannels. We study whether people can cope with this and watch the amount of TVthey find optimal for themselves or whether they are prone to over-consumption. Wefind that heavy TV viewers do not benefit, but instead report lower life...

It is often argued that Black-Scholes (1973) values overstate the subjectivevalue of stock options granted to risk-averse and under-diversified executives.We construct a “representative” Swiss executive and extend the certainty-equivalence approach presented by Hall and Murphy (2002) to...

We analyse the role of euro area M3 as an indicator for future inflation. We analyse the short and long run relationship between money growth and inflation in an error correction framework taking into account the output gap and short and long term interest rates. We find robust cointegration...

In the absence of a broad international agreement, national climate policiesare less efficient, due to carbon leakage, and more costly, due to causingunemployment and a loss of competitiveness on international markets. As,in many countries, a substantial fraction of emissions results from the...

Environmental policy often has to be devised under informational constraints,like uncertainty and asymmetric information. We consider an environmentalpolicy that aims at reducing the welfare losses caused by asymmetricinformation while being sufficiently simple for implementation. Inthis policy,...