Nudges, i.e., low-cost interventions that steer people's behavior without compromising their freedom of choice, are the key contribution of 'Libertarian Paternalism' (LP) to public policy. They typically work through either harnessing or responding to people's cognitive biases and heuristics -...

Environmental policies are increasingly informed by behavioral economics insights. 'Green nudges' in particular have been suggested as a promising new tool to encourage consumers to act in an environmentally responsible way, such as choosing renewable energy sources or saving energy. While there...

In the rental residential building stock, the landlord-tenant-dilemma is a well-known barrier to investments in energy efficiency and exacerbated where rent control limits the possibility to raise rents to finance landlords' investments. Some jurisdictions, like Germany, allow landlords to...

Although both in US antitrust and European competition law there is a clear evolution to a much broader application of rule of reason (instead of per-se rules), there is also an increasing awareness of the problems of a case-by-case approach. The error costs approach (minimizing the sum of...

That institutions matter is widely accepted among economists and so are social norms as an important category of informal institutions. Social norms matter in many economic situations, but in particular for markets. The economic literature has studied the interrelation between markets and social...

Mit der Implementierung des Bestellerprinzips - wer den Makler beauftragt, muss ihn auch bezahlen - hat der Gesetzgeber einen Wechsel der Zahllast für die Courtage vom Mieter zum Vermieter vorgenommen. Ob die intendierte Entlastung der Mieter gelingt, hängt maßgeblich vom Grad der...

The Condorcet Jury Theorem is derived from the implicit assumption that jury members only commit one type of error. If the probability of this error is smaller than 0.5, then group decisions are better than those of individual members. In binary decision situations, however, two types of error...

According to expressive law theories, expression of values is an important function played by the law. Expressive laws affect behavior, not by threatening sanctions or promising rewards, but by changing individual preferences and tastes and, in some cases, by affecting social norms and values....

The share of renewable energies in the electricity sector ('green' electricity production) relative to overall electricity supply has been growing steadily over the last years in most industrialized countries. This expansion was due to economic support either by subsidies or quota requirements...