Dieser Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie Wissenschaft als Wissenschaft in einer Gesellschaft wirksam werden kann, wenn die Ideen der öffentlichen Meinung über die Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten der Gesellschaftspolitik entscheiden. Die These dieses Beitrags lautet, dass Ludwig von Mises‘...

Dieser Beitrag enthält drei Kurzartikel. Der erste behandelt die Wirtschaftspolitik, der zweite die Soziale Sicherung. Der dritte skizziert den Ansatz der Ökonomischen Ethik, ein Forschungsprogramm, das in jüngster Zeit auch unter der Bezeichnung "Ordonomik" vorangetrieben wird. Eingerahmt...

In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that a country's national income depends on its labor productivity, which in turn hinges on the division of labor. But why are some countries able to take advantage of the division of labor and become rich, while others fail to do so and remain poor?...

I discuss the role of economic theory in empirical work in development economics with special emphasis on general equilibrium and political economy considerations. I argue that economic theory plays (should play) a central role in formulating models, estimates of which can be used for...

We mailed letters to non-existent business addresses in 159 countries (10 per country), and measured whether they come back to the return address in the US and how long it takes. About 60% of the letters were returned, taking over 6 months, on average. The results provide new objective...

A majority of the world democracies are far from the benchmark of representative democracy. This paper presents a model of political transitions based on a minimalist conception of the democratic state, i.e. a form of government solely characterized by competitive elections. We show that the...

We posit the problem of an autocrat who has to allocate access to the executive positions in his inner circle and define the career profile of his own insiders. Statically, granting access to an executive post to a more experienced subordinate increases political returns to the post, but is more...

The future looked bright for Argentina in the early twentieth century. It had already achieved high levels of income per capita and was moving away from authoritarian government towards a more open democracy. Unfortunately, Argentina never finished the transition. The turning point occurred in...

What is it about federal governance that makes it so attractive to economists, political philosophers, and legal scholars and is there any evidence that would suggest all this attention is warranted? Proponents see federalism as a means to more efficient public and private economies, as the...