When a deficit occurs in the funding of collective goods, it is usually covered by raising theamount of taxes or by rationing the supply of the goods. This article compares the efficiencyof these institutions. We report the results of a 2x2 experiment based on a game in the firststage of which...

Political corruption is a concern of many modern democracies. It weakens democraticinstitutions, restricts public services, and lowers productivity undermining economicdevelopment. Yet despite its importance, our understanding of what determines corruption islimited. This paper uses a novel...

In meiner Arbeit zur „Wissenschaftsgesellschaft – Von Galileo zur High-Revolution“(Kreibich 1986) habe ich dargelegt, dass ‚Wissenschaft und Technologie’ die zentraleProduktiv- und Innovationskraft der Industriegesellschaft ist. Mit der Entwicklung dermodernen...

Economic theory suggests that it is optimal to reward teachers depending on therelative performance of their students. We develop an econometric approach, based onstochastic frontier analysis, to construct a fair ranking that accounts for the socio-economicbackground of students and schools and...

We derive a natural definition of responsibility in a formal model where employees care for their career prospects: A superior holds a subordinate responsible for a task, when she announces her beliefs that this subordinate contributes most to this task. We show, that those announced beliefs...

Judicial independence is not only a necessary condition for the impartiality of judges, it can also endanger it: judges that are independent could have incentives to remain uninformed, become lazy or even corrupt. It is therefore often argued that judicial independence and judicial...

We develop a model of manager-employee relationships where employees care more for their manager when they are more convinced that their manager cares for them. Managers can signal their altruistic feelings towards their employees in two ways: by offering a generous wage and by giving attention....