This paper reviews the response of the European stock markets to the Brexit referendum. We analyze the correlation of market indices, stock volatility and the special role of stocks from the financial sector. While the impact of the vote was very similar for the stock markets in France, Germany...

We study the rent-seeking behaviour of political parties in a proportional representation system, where the final policy choice of the parliament is a weighted average of parties' policy positions, weights being their vote shares. We find that parties' policy preferences and their rent levels...

Unified growth theory predicts that the timing of the fertility transition is a key determinant of contemporary comparative development, as it marks the onset of the take-off to sustained growth. Neoclassical growth theory presupposes a take-off, and explains comparative development by...

Self-employment rates differ widely across industries and across racial and ethnic categories. The former is relatively easy for economists to explain while the latter differences are more difficult. Self-employment is rare in industries for which production is characterized by substantial...

We investigate whether elected members of the United Nations Security Council receive favorable treatment from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), analyzing panel data on the level of conditionality attached to (a maximum of) 314 IMF arrangements with 101 countries over the period of 1992 to...

We generalize a trade model with firm-specific heterogeneity and R&D-based growth to allow for an endogenous education decision of households and an endogenously evolving population. Our framework is able to explain cross-country differences in living standards and trade intensities by the...

The present paper seeks to explain the pattern of income redistribution in a globalised world of increased market income inequality and lower costs of factor mobility. In some countries, larger market income inequality has been met by an increased redistributive effort, thus keeping the...

We investigate the effects of demographic change and human capital accumulation on trade and productivity of domestic firms. In so doing we integrate a micro-founded education and fertility decision of households into a model of international trade with firm heterogeneity. Our framework leads to...

Germany could have reached Kyoto protocol obligations earlier if German solar investments would be relocated to Sicily. Additional benefits of emission savings and energy production should rise up to 72%. Nevertheless German solar power plants 2008 counted for 20 % of the financial benefits...