According to the game-theoretic model of monetary policy, inflation is the consequence of time-inconsistent behavior of the monetary authority. The inflation bias can be eased by handing over the responsibility for monetary policy to an independent central bank and appointing a...

Based on an extended version of a time-inconsistency model of monetary policy we show that the degree of effective monetary policy conservatism can be uncovered by studying to what extent central banks react to real disturbances. By estimating central bank reaction functions in moving and...

We show that, in a two-stage model of monetary policy with stochastic policy targets and asymmetric information, the transparency regime chosen by the central bank does never coincide with the regime preferred by society. Independent of society's endogenous choice of delegation, the central bank...

Die Häufigkeit von Naturkatastrophen hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten deutlich zugenommen. Vor diesem Hintergrund gewinnt die Frage an Bedeutung, welche ökonomischen Konsequenzen mit dem Auftreten von Naturkatastrophen verbunden sind. In der Literatur werden sowohl Argumente für positive als...

This article focuses on the role of unionized members of the parliament. Referring to the famous study by Freeman and Medoff (1984) and considering the more recent literature we first review unions' political power at the example of the US. We conclude that trade unions have not been very...

The lack of internationally comparable capital stock data has been a major obstacle to empirical studies of the contribution of the capital stock to economic growth. In this paper, we provide estimations of aggregate capital stocks for 103 countries in 2010. Depending on data availability the...

While most economists agree that the recent worldwide financial crises evolved as a consequence of the US house price bubble, the related literature yet failed to deliver a consensus on the question when exactly the bubble started developing. The estimates in the literature range in between 1997...

Are preferences exogenously given? Or do individual tastes and values evolve endogenously within a particular socio-economic environment? In this paper, we make use of a natural experiment to analyse the role of inflation experiences and institutions in the formation of individual inflation...

Successful innovation is a precondition for economic prosperity. While various potential determinants of innovative activity have been considered, little empirical evidence is yet available for the influence of firm governance issues. This paper aims at filling this gap in the literature by...

The appellate review system is intended to serve as an efficient remedy for imperfect judicial decision making. However, it can fulfill this task only when appeals are filed solely due to bad verdicts and are ex-ante unpredictable based on factors that are exogenous to the judge. Using data from...