Optimal voting rules have to be adjusted to the underlying distribution of preferences. However, in practice there usually is no social planner who can perform this task. This paper shows that the introduction of a stage at which agents may themselves choose voting rules according to which they...

The effects of different institutional arrangements for the central bank are examined in the presence of economic shocks and uncertainty about the central banker's and the medianvoter's inflation target. A contract which is based on self-imposed monetary target announcements proves to be...

Two signaling games of monetary policy are considered: game one examines the effect of hysteresis on the labor market on the results of the repeated monetary policy game. Disciplinary effects of reputation disappear in presence of hysteresis. The second game compares weifare effects of monetary...

Why do large European banks lobby for monetary union? We show in a game-theoretic model that monetary union can trigger a change in the structure of the market for international banking transactions with asymmetric effects on profits: large banks are induced to cooperate internationally and gain...

Traditional political economy models of taxation fail to explain why there is so little redistribution of wealth despite significant wealth inequalites. This is for two reasons: (1) The median voter approach cannot deal with a multidimensional policy-space and (2) wealth taxation affects...

This paper explores the effects of inheritance taxation and income taxation on the growth rate in an endogenous growth model with altruistic parents. Human capital is accumulated according to the Standard Lucas specification. The government raises taxes in order to finance a non-productive...

Does redistribution increase inequality? Is inequality harmfiil for growth? Both questions have recently been addressed in a number of single-tax models. In this paper, I examine the relationship between policy, growth and inequality when income and wealth can be taxed at different rates. In the...

Am 3. Juli 2009 verabschiedete die Bundesregierung das Bad-Bank-Gesetz mit dem Ziel, die Bankbilanzen zu entlasten und eine drohende Kreditklemme abzuwenden Für Falko Fecht European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel, und Hans Peter Grüner, Universität Mannheim, Ist dieses Modell nicht...

We show how decentralized individual investments can efficiently allocate capital to innovating firms via equity crowdfunding. We develop a model where consumers have privately known consumption preferences and may act as investors. Consumers identify worthwhile investments based on their own...