There is little doubt that the step towards a monetary union in Europe will increase both the distortionary effects of existing differences in national tax systems and the intensity of tax competition for internationally mobile commodity and factor tax bases. This paper discusses selected issues...

The decomposition of a given time series into trend, seasonal component, and irregular component is formulated as a minimization problem. The trend is chosen such that it is as smooth as possible; the seasonal component is chosen such that it exhibits a seasonal pattern as stable as possible; and...

People tend, in many ways, to behave like the others they see around them. This note´shows that such reference group behavior tends to reinforce incentives (economic or other) that influence individuals directly only marginally. The workings or such incentives is augmented what might be called...

These notes, published in 1981, introduce the concept of the social multiplier: If the behavior of agents is positively influenced by what members of their reference group do, this enhances the power of economic incentives.

A labor market is considered that is characterized by job competition over job ladders. Firms paying more for comparable jobs can attract workers with better background characteristics (with general human capital) and will lose fewer trained workers (with general and firm-specific human...

We analyze explicit and implicit contracts in a repeated principal-agent model with observable but only partially contractable actions of the agent. It is shown that the set of implementable actions may increase or decrease if additional actions become contractable.

This paper analyzes how takeovers, various takeover defenses, and golden parachutes affect the value of target companies using an incomplete contracts framework. The author considers a raider who can improve the efficiency of production and appropriate rents of stakeholders of the company....