Analysis of the Constitutional Treaty of the European Union shows that there is a serious discrepancy between the voting power gradient of Member States computed by the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf indices. Given the lack of compelling arguments to choose between these indices on purely axiomatic...

The consequences of consolidating EU representation at the IMF Executive Board by regrouping the 27 Member States into two EU constituencies, euro area and non-euro area, are discussed. In particular we contrast voting power as proposed by Penrose-Banzhaf (PBI) and Shapley-Shubik (SSI), and...

We show that the level of trust and reciprocity in an intercultural trust game experiment between Austrian and Japanese subjects differs from the results of an intracultural experiment run in the respective countries among compatriots. Austrian subjects show significantly higher levels of trust...

Using James Buchanan's "Samaritan's Dilemma" as a basic example, this paper analyses the problems that have to be solved if strategic behavior is necessary to escape from dilemma situations by changing the opponents' incentives. These problems are addressed within one-shot games as well as...

This paper examines the perspectives of Russian gas exports to Western Europe and the strategic options of the CIS gas transiting countries, namely Ukraine and Belarus. The development of a new transit corridor through Belarus (the Yamal-Europe pipeline), depriving Ukraine of its former...

This paper analyzes the recent mergers in the oil industry. Oil is assumed to be a homogeneous good which is produced by a small number of firms with different unit costs. Merger formation is endogenously explained as a result of cooperative decisions. We show that the mergers are amongst very...

This paper prices the risk of climate change by calculating a lower bound for the price of a virtual insurance policy against climate risks associated with the business as usual (BAU) emissions path. In analogy with ordinary insurance pricing, this price depends on the current risk to which...

This paper analyzes endogenous merger formation in oligopolistic markets where firms have different unit production costs. We reformulate the merger model, introduced by Barros (1998), by employing the core as cooperative equilibrium concept. We show that, depending on the size asymmetry in the...

Economic institutions determine prospects for growth and development. This paper examines necessary conditions for an economy to support institutions that implement markets. Agents differ in land holdings, skill, and power. A competitive market assigns land to the skilled, not necessarily to the...

The discussion about employee representation on supervisory boards has received much attention from scholars and politicians around the world. We provide new insights to this ongoing debate by employing power indices from game theory to examine the real power of employees on boards and its...