Quantitative partielle- oder allgemeine Gleichgewichtsmodelle stellen in der angewandten Ökonomie ein wichtiges Instrument zur Politikfolgenabschätzung dar. Aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht wird an diesen Modellen ihre mangelnde Transparenz sowie ihre Abhängigkeit von empirisch wenig gesicherten...

The scientific production system is of ultimate importance for the way how humans address global challenges. Recently, scholars have begun to voice concerns about structural inefficiencies within this system, as e.g. the replication crisis, the p-value debate or the identification of various...

Economists use partial and general equilibrium trade simulation models to estimate the impact of changes in domestic policies and international trade rules. During the WTO Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations economists have produced many different estimates of the gains that would result...

Large-scale foreign investments in African farmland are rising and may contribute to agricultural productivity growth and economic development. However, host countries sometimes have to wait longer for the economic benefits to arrive than initially expected. In this respect, the timing of...

Applied general and partial equilibrium models are widely used tools for ex ante analysis of trade policy changes. However, simulation results seem to exhibit significant variation across publications, and the often criticised 'black box' character of applied trade models makes meaningful...

Recent empirical studies argue that the implementation of quality standards among agricultural exporters has the character of a fixed cost. However, this can be misleading if fixed costs are only understood in terms of required investments. Instead, we argue that standard adoption is the result...