Many comparisons of the performance of public and private producers use a public/private ownership dummy variable to capture cost differences in cross section data. This is appropriate if the producer choice is random. The dummy variable model is, however, logically inconsistent if the producer...

In this project, we analyze whether the arts can mitigate negative impacts of social distancing and isolation on mental health and wellbeing, ease the burden of closed day-care and school facilities on families, and preserve attitudes of solidarity and trust. Using the SOEP-CoV questionnaire, we...

This paper develops a procedure for estimating parameters of a cross-sectional stochastic frontier production function when the factors of production suffer from measurement errors. Specifically, we use Fuller's (1987) reliability ratio concept to develop an estimator for the model in Aigner et...

Several European countries have followed the United States in introducing prospective payment for hospitals with the expectation of achieving cost efficiency gains. This article examines whether theoretical expectations of cost efficiency gains can be empirically confirmed. In contrast to...

The US banking industry offers a unique, natural and fertile environment to study geography's effects on banks' behavior and performance. The literature on banks' operating performance, while extensive, says little about the influence of spatial interactions on banks' performance. We compute and...

We test the hypotheses that zombie firms are less productive and have lower employment growth and lower gross investment ratios than non-zombie firms in the same industry sector and that they are a source of contagion for the latter. Ever since Caballero et al. (2008), it has been taken for...

In this paper we provide firm-level evidence on the role of resource misallocation for total factor productivity development in Austria. We apply the indirect approach of measuring misallocation via the dispersion in marginal products within narrowly defined industries of Hsieh and Klenow (2009)...

Recent studies in psychology and neuroscience offer systematic evidence that fictional works exert a surprisingly strong influence on readers and have the power to shape their opinions and worldviews. Building on these findings, we study 'Potterian economics', the economic ideas, insights, and...

The official intention of the UNESCO World Heritage List is to protect the global heritage. However, the existing List is highly imbalanced according to countries and continents. Historical reasons, such as historical GDP, population, and number of years of high civilization, have a significant...

A statistical analysis of the UNESCO World Heritage List is presented. The World Heritage Convention intends to protect global heritage of outstanding value to mankind, but there has been great concern about the missing representativity of the member countries. There is a strongly biased...