We examine subsidies for health care when consumers have present-biased preferences, which lead them to underestimate the effect of today s consumption on future health. We compare immediate subsidies paid for health-conscious consumption and future subsidies rewarding a good health outcome. We...

We examine subsidies for health care when consumers have present-biased preferences, which lead them to underestimate the effect of today s consumption on future health. We compare immediate subsidies paid for health-conscious consumption and future subsidies rewarding a good health outcome. We...

In this paper, citizens vote in order to influence the election outcome and in order to signal their unobserved characteristics to others. The model is one of rational voting and generates the following predictions: (i) The paradox of not voting does not arise, because the benefit of voting does...

When grades lose their informative value because the percentage of students receiving the best grade rises without any corresponding increase in ability, this is called grade inflation. Conventional wisdom says that such grade inflation is unavoidable since it is essentially costless to award...

The direct democratic choice of an examination standard, i.e., a performance level required to graduate, is evaluated against a utilitarian welfare function. It is shown that the median preferred standard is inefficiently low if the marginal cost of reaching a higher performance reacts more...

This dissertation contains economic microanalyses of voting, regulation and higher education. It is about individual decisions, institutions, and the incentives the latter create. Three chapters of this dissertation are based on empirical results, whereas one chapter is a purely theoretical...

The thesis „Everyday Decision Making: A Theoretical and Empirical Study“ analyzes the individuals' decision-making and the role of institutions in creating incentives and influencing individuals' choices. The first part is descriptive and theoretical and deeply rooted in behavioral public...

The thesis “Student Performance in Higher Education: Ability, Class Attendance, Mobility and the Bologna Process” empirically analyzes determinants of students’ success at university. Administrative student data as well as survey data collected at Göttingen University, Germany are used....