Some have observed that individuals perform worse after being promoted. The Peter Principle, which states that people are promoted to their level of incompetence, suggests that something is fundamentally misaligned in the promotion process. This view is unnecessary and inconsistent with the...

This paper studies how social pressure affects the behavior of soccer referees. We make use of an attractive source of exogenous variation in the number of spectators at matches. Due to recent hooligan violence, the Italian government has implemented a regulation that forces some soccer teams to...

Rising income inequality is an anglo Saxon problem. For most of the other OECD countries, earnings dispersion is rather persistent. Vertical mobility is to be taken into account. The paper also looks at the relationship of income inequality, growth and employment. It elaborates the point that...

Wie sich in einer Volkswirtschaft die Arbeitslosigkeit entwickelt, läßt sich vielfältig illustrieren. In diesem Papier werden einige Schaubilder und Tabellen dargestellt, die wichtige Aspekte der Entwicklung der Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland beinhalten.

Europe’s labor is not competitiveness taking unemployment as the relevant indicator. The paper looks at other indicators such as job creation, productivity and unit labor costs and skills. It analyzes the reasons for the lack of competitiveness including a low degree of wage differentiation,...

A common problem of regional policy is the distribution of funds to regional units. To follow the specific purpose of this budgeting process in a rational way this is often done in a formula allocation on the basis of official statistics. In the paper this is shown with the example of funds for...

Measures of Active Labor Market Policy are widely used in European countries, but despite many econometric evaluation studies no conclusive cross-country evidence exists regarding what program works for what target group under what (economic and institutional) circumstances?. This paper results...

Due to incomplete contracts, efficiency of an organization depends on willingness of individuals to take non-selfish actions, e.g., cooperate when there is no incentive to do so, or punish inefficient actions by others. Organizations also constitute a social boundary, or group. We investigate...

This paper studies the impact of incentives on worker self-selection in a controlled laboratory experiment. In a first step we elicit subjects' productivity levels. Subjects then face the choice between a fixed or a variable payment scheme. Depending on the treatment, the variable payment is...

Analyzing the neutrality of referees during twelve German premier league (1st Bundesliga) football seasons, this paper documents evidence that social forces influence agents' preferences and decisions. Those, who are appointed to be impartial, tend to favor the home team as they systematically...