Several devices in designing composite indicators for policy monitoring and benchmarking are discussed: weighting and scaling of variables, hierarchical organization, handling rank-based variables, relief tables, survey simulation techniques which combine normative and empirical data. Some...

We study the optimal design of information nudges for present-biased consumers who have to make sequential consumption decisions without exact prior knowledge of their long-term consequences. For arbitrary distributions of risk, there exists a consumer-optimal information nudge that is of cutoff...

Macroeconomists often prefer monetary policy to fiscal policy as a tool to stabilize business cycles. Fiscal policy is typically only effective with a lag, and results in permanent deficits with higher nominal interest rates and distortionary taxes. In addition, a high marginal propensity to...

We analyze a unique survey dataset to examine the (micro)foundations of capital allocation in firms. Firms employ systems of interconnected measures to counteract agency problems, including layers of approval, divisional budgets, reporting requirements, and compensation schemes. When making...

The current trends in the capital/labor split and the impacts thereof on the growth of inequality are one of the main concerns of national governments, European Commission and international organizations like UN, ILO, IMF, OECD and WB. These trends are usually studied at the macro level of...

Cost-sharing is regarded as an important tool to reduce moral hazard in health insurance. Contrary to standard prediction, however, such requirements are found to decrease utilization both of efficient and of inefficient care. I employ a simple model that incorporates two possible explanations -...

The voting method described in [Tangian 2017b] has been experimentally approbated during the 2016 election to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Student Parliament [Tangian 2017c]. Under this election method, the voters cast no votes but are asked about their preferences on the policy...

The paper estimates the policy representation of 34 German parties that participate in the 2017 Bundestag (federal) election. For this purpose, the party positions on 31 topical issues are compared with the results of recent public opinion polls. Then we construct the party indices of popularity...

The paper estimates the policy representation of 34 German parties that have participated in the 2017 Bundestag (federal) election. For this purpose, the party positions on 31 topical issues are compared with the results of recent public opinion polls. Then we construct the party indices of...

Agents in a finite two-sided market make costly investments and are then matched assortatively based on these investments. Besides signaling complementary types, investments also generate benefits for partners. We shed light on quantitative properties of the equilibrium investment behavior. The...