Adaptive grids for the estimation of dynamic models

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - This paper develops a method to flexibly adapt interpolation grids of value function approximations in the estimation of dynamic models using either NFXP...     

Inequality,role reversal and cooperation in multiple group membership settings

Experimental Economics - We investigate the role of endowment inequality in a local and global public goods setting with multiple group membership and examine the effect of temporal role reversal...     

Political credit cycles

This paper tests the existence of political credit cycles, the positive comovement between credit and elections. While several single‐country studies point to the existence of this relationship, the link between electoral cycles and credit expansion has seen little exploration at the multicountry level. Using a comprehensive dataset covering bank and non‐bank credit in 165 countries from 1960 to 2013, we show that both government and private credit significantly increase in election years. This finding suggests the possibility that politicians use not only fiscal and monetary policy to court voters, but also implement credit policies such as interest rate subsidies and tax breaks for debt to enhance credit growth. We also find that a higher degree of financial openness weakens the frequency and magnitude of political credit cycles; yet, the conditional effect of financial openness is stronger for developing countries than developed economies.     

Ein innovativer Regulierungsansatz zur Belebung des Wettbewerbs im Schienenpersonenfernverkehr

Wirtschaftsdienst - Im Schienenpersonenfernverkehr bestehen trotz Bahnstrukturreform weiterhin hohe Markteintrittsbarrieren. Der Wettbewerb im Nah- und Schienengüterverkehr ist im Vergleich...     

Does value chain integration dampen producer price developments? Evidence from the European Union

We draw on trade theory to empirically explore the effects of value chain integration on producer price dynamics. Using the EU as an example of an integrated area, we construct measures of backward and forward linkages with intra‐ and extra‐EU trading partners at the country‐sector level. We find that especially upstream integration and EU accession dampen inflation. The results for downstream integration indicate a price‐increasing relationship. We propose novel EU integration indicators and offer insights to both theory and applied research. We also add to the policy debate on the price effects of (dis‐)integration of EU countries.     

Favor prevalence in emerging markets: A multi-level analysis

Favors are a medium of exchange for social capital. Social capital creates social, political, and economic benefits for individuals, organizations, communities, and societies around the world. Favors promote cooperation between individuals and are used to bond individual actors with other individuals, groups, communities, and institutions. Favors are prevalent in business in emerging markets because of the presence of institutional voids, limited social and geographic mobility, and strong reciprocity norms. Favors create benefits and liabilities for business organizations and their networks. They produce outcomes beyond the favor exchange process that can be characterized as productive or perverse. Despite their prevalence and importance, favors and their dynamics are not well understood. We explore the antecedents, content, process, and consequences of favors. We conclude our multi-level analysis of favors with a discussion of the “breakeven” point for favors—the point where favors tip from having a positive effect to having a negative effect on organization performance. We present an integrated framework to explain the dynamics of favors in emerging market business contexts, and develop propositions to guide future research.     

Anticipating the futures of nanotechnology: Visionary images as means of communication

Reports of the current success and future potential of nanotechnological innovation in the field of medicine are frequently illustrated with images depicting speculative and futuristic visions. Based on a case study of visionary images of nanorobots and mini-submarines in the human body in popular science magazines, the business press and daily and weekly newspapers, this paper demonstrates that, despite their weak reference to current developments in nanomedicine, these images serve as a means of communication for the 'exchange' of expectations between the discourses of science, economy and the mass media.

Through a systems-theoretical and discourse-analytical examination of the dynamics of discourse-networks surrounding these images, the investigation focuses on a certain mediality of futuristic visual images which has been rather neglected in recent Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Technology Assessment. The 'communicative spaces' suggested by visionary images enable productions of meaning for the current potential of nanotechnological innovations in and between various discourses. The dynamics of expectations within the communication processes can be reconstructed according to the variations of discourse-specific (i.e. scientific) evaluations of the depicted visions, which in turn can be described as the recursive processing of other (i.e. economic and mass medial) evaluations.     

Pigouvian Taxes in General Equilibrium with a Fixed Tax Redistribution Rule

This paper establishes existence of a first-best emission tax in a general equilibrium model with pollution, when the redistribution rule of the tax income is chosen fixed and independently of the Pigouvian tax rate. It is known that under standard convexity assumptions each Pareto efficient allocation can be implemented by simultaneously choosing a Pigouvian tax rate and an appropriate lump sum redistribution of income. In real politics, however, tax redistribution schemes are often restricted to a small feasible set. Nonetheless we show that for any given lump sum redistribution rule, being continuous in overall tax income, an emission tax rate exists that leads to a Pareto efficient equilibrium.