This study was prepared by Beate Schirwitz while she was working at the Ifo Institute's Dresden Branch. It was completed in February 2012 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Law, Management, and Economics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in July 2012. It focuses on a...

Empirical Welfare Maximization (EWM) is a framework that can be used to select welfare program eligibility policies based on data. This paper extends EWM by allowing for uncertainty in estimating the budget needed to implement the selected policy, in addition to its welfare. Due to the...

Nonlinear estimation of the gravity model with Poisson/negative binomial methods has become popular to model international trade flows, as it permits a better accounting for large numbers of zero flows. Nevertheless, as trade flows are not independent of each other due to spatial...

This paper provides a systematic review of the literature that employs stochastic frontier analysis to measure the efficiency of higher education institutions. The overview opens with a look at the general development of the literature, before emphasis is laid on the methodical aspects. Focus is...

This paper investigates the impact of individual bank fundamental variables on stock market returns using data from a panel of 235 European banks from 1991 to 2005. The sample period marks a significant transition in the European banking sector, characterized by higher competition, lower profit...