Does the death penalty save lives? A surge of recent interest in this question has yielded a series of papers purporting to show robust and precise estimates of a substantial deterrent effect of capital punishment. We assess the various approaches that have been used in this literature, testing...

We investigate the determinants of the support for cannabis legalization finding a causal effect of personal experience with cannabis use. Current and past cannabis users are more in favor of legalization. We relate this to self-interest and inside information about potential dangers of cannabis...

When penalties for first-time offenders are restricted, it is typically optimal for the lawmaker to overdeter repeat offenders. First-time offenders are then deterred not only by the (restricted) fine for a first offense, but also by the prospect of a large fine for a subsequent offense. Now...

In a model in which firms can go bankrupt because of adverse market shocks or antitrust fines, we find that even large corporate fines may not be able to induce deterrence. Managerial penalties are thus needed. If the policy may be changed according to the state of the business cycle, then the...

We analyse the impact of increased immigration on labour market outcomes of natives in Germany using a dataset of county-level variables for the late 1980s. We study two measures of immigration, the change in the share of foreigners between 1985 and 1989, and one-year gross and net flows of...

In this Paper, an explicit micro scenario is developed which yields a well-defined aggregate job-matching function. In particular, a stochastic model of job-matching behaviour is constructed in which the system steady state is shown to be approximated by an exponential-type matching function, as...

There are few studies on occupational choices in Germany, and second-generation occupational choice and mobility is even less investigated. Such research is important because occupations determine success in the labour market. In a country like Germany occupations also reflect a general...

We introduce the idea that informational cascades can explain the observed regularity that emigrants from the same locations also tend to choose the same foreign locations. Thus informational cascades generates herd behaviour. Herd behaviour is compared with the network externalities explanation...

Conventional methods for analysing worker flows often focus on gross flows or transition probabilities. This is not necessarily informative for identifying the scale of labour ‘adjustment’ in an economy in the sense of the expansion and decline of industries. We develop a method that relates...