Career concerns in a simple experimental labour market

We experimentally investigate a simple version of Holmström's career concerns model in which firms compete for agents in two consecutive periods. Profits of firms are determined by agents’ unknown ability and the effort they choose. Before making second-period wage offers firms are informed about first-period profits. In a different treatment firms additionally learn the abilities of agents. Theory suggests high first-period equilibrium effort in the hidden ability treatment but no effort elsewhere. However, we find that effort tends to be higher in the revealed ability treatment and therefore conclude that transparency does not weaken, but strengthen career concerns incentives.     

Material efficiency and economic-environmental sustainability. Results of simulations for Germany with the model PANTA RHEI

Based on empirical evidence, the paper discusses the impact of a consulting and information program for the improvement of material productivity with regard to economic and environmental targets for Germany. The instrument used in the analysis is the integrated economic-environmental model PANTA RHEI, which is parameterized econometrically. The paper presents the model and shows in a baseline forecast that without policy changes, sustainability will be violated in both the economic and the environmental dimensions. This applies to the latter particularly with regard to land use and material consumption. The alternative simulation that introduces a consulting and information program for the improvement of material productivity yields a win-win result: growth rates of GDP and employment are rising, the public debt is reduced, and material consumption is much lower than in the baseline and remains at the actual level, which means that a decoupling of growth and material consumption is possible.     

Taxation and consumption: evidence from a representative survey of the German population

Using a representative survey of the German population, this article studies self-reported individual consumption responses to a recent exogenous payroll tax reduction. About 55% of the respondents report that they spend the extra money, indicating considerable potential for tax changes to affect consumption and economic activity. Our analysis of the socio-demographic and economic covariates of consumption responses suggests, among other effects, that interest rates are related to consumption responses to tax changes, and that households with higher income have a higher propensity to consume.     

Public funding for innovation and the exit of firms

This paper focuses on the effect public subsidies for innovation have on the exit of firms. Utilizing Finnish firm level data I employ a kernel matching approach to eliminate the selection bias of public funding and estimate the counterfactual. As a robustness check a treatment model is estimated. Public funding for innovation exhibits a significant effect reducing the probability of exit. Distinguishing between exit by merger and exit by closure shows that public funding has a significant effect on the former. No significant effect on the latter can be found.     

Central bank communication and correlation between financial markets: Canada and the United States

We study the correlation between pairs of bond and stock markets in Canada and the United States between January 1998 and December 2009 in the framework of diagonal-BEKK models. Our research question is whether monetary policy actions and communications by the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve significantly affect the conditional co-movement of financial markets (i) within Canada and (ii) between Canada and the United States. We find that central bank communication significantly increases the correlation of financial markets within and across the two countries and is particularly important for the correlation of Canadian and US long-term interest rates.     

The study of futures, and the analysis of power

This study attempts to find out in which direction global power distribution is shifting. This is expected to shed light on the chances we have to build a democratic, ecologically sustainable and socially just world future society. The paper raises and explores, to some extent, three questions: (1) Who is the emerging global ruling class, and does it develop some sort of class consciousness? (2) What are the means used by the global ruling class in the class struggle? and (3) What are likely consequences for the future of global society?