We analyze the impact of the Network Enforcement Act, the first regulation which aims at restraining hate speech on large social media platforms. Using a difference-in- differences framework, we measure the causal impact of the German law on the prevalence of hateful content on German Twitter....

Do contributions to online content platforms induce a feedback loop of ever more user-generated content or will they discourage future contributions? To assess this, we use a randomized field experiment which added content to some pages in Wikipedia while leaving similar pages unchanged. We find...

The transition from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy requires that the Saudi population dramatically increases its level of human capital. This paper argues that noncognitive skills may be a bottleneck in the formation of human capital and proposes a policy to indirectly strengthen...

This paper challanges the view that weak work norms in generous welfare states makes them economically unsustainable. I develop a dynamic model of family-transmitted values that has a laissez-faire equilibrium with strong work norms coexisting with a social-insurance equilibrium with weak work...

Interpersonal relations are shaped by the judgements associated with the social categories that individuals perceive in their social contacts. I develop a model of how those judgments form based on a theory of symbolic values. The model depicts the interaction between two values, one associated...

History shows militarily dominant states that pursue imperialism, relying on their might to extort resources from weaker states. Occasionally, the latter revolt and the dominant state suffers some casualties. This paper explores imperialism along steady-growth paths. If the dominant state...

I investigate the effect of open source on standardization outcomes in a market with positive network externalities. In a closed source world, it seems reasonable to assume that the probability of a standard being chosen is positively correlated with its quality. Open source may weaken or invert...

Why do retail consumers look for P2P financial intermediation? Are internetbased peer-to-peer (P2P) loans a substitute for or a complement to bank loans? In this study we answer these questions by comparing P2P lending with the nonconstruction consumer credit market in Germany. We show that P2P...

The paper reviews the evidence on the challenges of digitalization for direct (corporate profit) and indirect (consumption) taxation. Based on both anecdotal and empirical evidence, we evaluate ongoing developments at the OECD and European Union level and argue that there is no justification for...

We analyze platform competition where user data is collected to improve adtargeting. Considering that users incur privacy costs, we show that the equilibrium level of data provision is distorted and can be inefficiently high or low: if overall competition is weak or if targeting benefits are...