Von der Inflationsphobie bis zur „schwarzen Null“

The article examines some of the key statements of the supply-side economic theory that rejects debt-financed government investment programs for stabilizing high employment. It turns out that supply-side objections are not empirically proven. Subsequently, the author attempts to explain why nevertheless the supply-side paradigm stubbornly remains the prevailing theory in economics. It shows that the mechanisms of deliberative democracy in the economic decision-making in Germany do not work.     

Counter-intuitive effects of domestic law enforcement policies in the United States

In spite of the increase in domestic law enforcement policies in the U.S. drug related crime has followed a non-monotonic trend and cocaine and heroin prices, instead of increasing, have been dropping or remained stable over time. All this in a context of an increase in these drugs’ consumption during the 1980s and a small decrease during the 1990s. This paper provides an explanation to these counter-intuitive effects of domestic law enforcement policies. We model how drug lords respond to this type of policy within a conflict framework over the control of distribution activities for illegal drugs, which is novel. The model predicts drug distribution activities, drug prices and drug consumption. These predictions appear to be consistent with the empirical evidence in the United States.