We attempt to consolidate (at least in part) the vast literature on oil shocks and stock returns by decomposing the influence of oil shocks into two channels of effect: ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’. Using a simple empirical asset pricing model it is shown that oil shocks can affect stocks not...

To solve the corruption problem, its root causes should first be diagnosed and factors supporting it should be determined. One of the important facilitators of corrupt transactions are intermediaries, who make corrupt dealings less risky, thereby increasing corruption. Even worse, there are...

The paper suggests that casting the choice problem in terms of alternative time-consuming activities can foster the fruitful cross-fertilization between economics and psychology along the lines suggested by Scitovsky in the Joyless Economy. The first part emphasizes how mainstream, utility-based...

Using four waves of the European Social Survey (179,273 individuals from 29 countries) the authors analyze the association of reduction of income inequality (redistribution) with subjective wellbeing. Their results provide evidence that people in Europe are negatively affected by income...

In this paper, the authors develop a new estimation method that is suitable for censored models with two high-dimensional fixed effects and that is based on a sequence of least squares regressions, yielding significant savings in computing time and hence making it applicable to frameworks in...

The authors introduce a simple model of public preferences on poverty assistance. Their focus is on the roles played by the socioeconomic status of a potential welfare recipient and the stereotypes about his/her ethnic group in shaping taxpayers' preferences on appropriate assistance. The model...

It is a matter of debate in how far credit ratings contribute to allocative efficiency or to excessive volatility of asset prices and cross-border capital flows. Yet it is generally taken for granted that ratings play a significant role in the transnationalization of financial relations. This...

This paper is a comment on the analysis of the German security industry by Stuchtey and Skrzypietz (2014). The comment focuses on two issues. Firstly, it argues that it is advantageous for the research agenda of the authors to conceptualize security as a human need and not as an economic good....

Discounted utilitarianism and the Ramsey equation prevail in the debate on the discount rate on consumption. The utility discount rate is assumed to be constant and to reflect either the uncertainty about the existence of future generations or a pure preference for the present. The authors...

This paper reviews some of the economic experimental evidence on conformism. There is nothing to match the early psychology experiments where subjects were often swayed by the behaviour of others to an extraordinary degree, but there is plenty of evidence of conformism. This seems built-in to...