Payment service providers passed the transaction tax on to their clients in several steps and to a significant degree, both in the spring, upon introduction of the tax, and in the autumn, when the rates of tax were raised. For cash withdrawals and bank transfers, the tax was typically passed on...

The aim of this work is to arrive at a better understanding of the underlying reasons for the slow adoption of electronic payment instruments in Italy. Our findings indicate that a pivotal role in explaining Italy’s lag in abandoning cash is played by development factors, such as innovative...

We estimate a model of household use of alternative payment instruments (cash and bank cards) using a new dataset from a survey of Russian households. In our model, household preferences are determined by the perceived attributes of these instruments, and hence their choice regarding payment...

An intriguing problem in stochastic growth theory is as follows: even when the return on investment is arbitrarily high near zero and discounting is arbitrarily mild, long run capital and consumption may be arbitrarily close to zero with probability one. In a convex one-sector model of optimal...

The standard approach to modelling consumption/saving problems is to assume that the decisionmaker is solving a dynamic stochastic optimization problem However under realistic descriptions of utility and uncertainty the optimal consumption/saving decision is so difficult that only recently...

This paper introduces a method for solving numerical dynamic stochastic optimization problems that avoids rootfinding operations. The idea is applicable to many microeconomic and macroeconomic problems, including life cycle, buffer-stock, and stochastic growth problems. Software is provided.

That climate policies are costly is evident and therefore often creates major fears. But the alternative (no action) also has a cost. Mitigation costs and damages incurred depend on what the climate policies are; moreover, they are substitutes. This brings climate policies naturally in the realm...

Korruption ist ein globales Phänomen, das vor allem für viele Entwicklungsländer als Wachstumsbremse wirkt. Der Beitrag zeigt, wie man mittels eines einfachen industrieökonomischen Modells die Wirkungsmechanismen der Korruption analysieren kann. Korruption hält Unternehmen vom Markteintritt...

Dieser Beitrag setzt sich mit dem Verhältnis von Schattenwirtschaft und Korruption auseinander. Es wird insbesondere die Frage untersucht, welche Rolle die Schattenwirtschaft in korrupten Ökonomien spielt. Die Schattenwirtschaft begrenzt letztendlich die Macht korrupter Institutionen, indem...

This paper introduces a method for solving numerical dynamic stochastic optimization problems that avoids rootfinding operations. The idea is applicable to many microeconomic and macroeconomic problems, including life cycle, buffer-stock, and stochastic growth problems. Software is provided.