Sin taxes have become a widely suggested policy instrument to discourage the consumption of goods deemed harmful to individuals and society. Using surveys and experiments on a representative sample of the US population, we provide evidence on how individuals think and reason about such...

Im Zuge des fortschreitenden demografischen Wandels werden vermehrt die Rolle und die Bedeutung älterer Menschen für die gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung diskutiert. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht Innovationen durch und für Ältere als einen spezifischen und wichtigen...

Recent proposals for a still missing European deposit insurance scheme (EDIS) argue in favor of a reinsurance framework. In this paper, we use a regime-switching open-economy DSGE model with bank default to assess the relative efficiency of such a scheme. We find that reinsurance by EDIS is more...

We investigate fairness preferences in matching mechanisms using a spectator design. Participants choose between the Boston mechanism or the serial dictatorship mechanism (SD) played by others. In our setup, the Boston mechanism generates justified envy, while the strategy-proof SD ensures...

We investigate fairness preferences in matching mechanisms using a spectator design. Participants choose between the Boston mechanism or the serial dictatorship mechanism (SD) played by others. In our setup, the Boston mechanism generates justified envy, while the strategy-proof SD ensures...

Using a laboratory experiment, we present first evidence that stigmatization through public exposure causally reduces the take-up of an individually beneficial transfer. Our design exogenously varies the informativeness of the take-up decision by varying whether transfer eligibility is based on...

We argue that societies with a stronger tendency towards postmaterialist life goals tilt the tax structure towards personal income taxes and away from corporate taxation. We provide empirical evidence for this correlation in OECD countries. To address endogeneity issues we then use an...

Using a laboratory experiment, we present first evidence that social image concerns causally reduce the take-up of an individually beneficial transfer. Our design manipulates the informativeness of the take-up decision by varying whether transfer eligibility is based on ability or luck, and how...

’Nothing in business excites so much interest in the wider world as the pay of top executives.’ theEconomist wrote in a 2003 article titled ’Fat cats feeding - Executive pay’. Indeed, it seems thatthe dwindling heights to which CEO compensation has risen trigger stronger feelings than...

We augment a standard tax model by concerns about tax equity: people get upset when labour is taxed more heavily than capital. Even the slightest concern for tax equity invalidates the common recommendation for small open economies that capital should remain tax-exempt. This holds for exogenous...