Using Allensbach survey data about how people look forward to the coming year, we construct true ex post-forecasts and compare them with the forecasts produced by the German Council of Economic Experts and by the Economic Research Institutes. Then, we perform rationality tests for these forecast...

Increasing fuel extraction costs and global temperatures make it likely that in the medium-term future, technological or political measures against global warming will be implemented. In assessments of current climate policy, possible medium-term future developments, such as backstop...

In this paper we deal with two questions, (i) what are the origins of the current financial crisis, and (ii) what did economists contribute, or why did economists fail to provide a convincing answer for the origins of the crisis, and possible solutions to overcome it? Apparently, the economics...

In this paper it is asked whether it is meaningful to state a ‘right to work’ as a basic human right to be written down in the constitution, for example, whether working time should generally be reduced, and whether those who do not have (or find) a job should get a guaranteed minimal...

The weak rationality principle is not an empirical statement but a heuristic rule how to proceed in social sciences. It is a necessary ingredient of any understanding’ social science in the Weberian sense. In this paper, first this principle and its role in economic theorizing is discussed. It...

After presenting some casual evidence about the difference between economists and the rest of the population, first the survey and experimental evidence which has been presented on this topic during the last 20 years is discussed. But can these results really be transferred to real world...

The basic idea behind this paper is that voters have to be able to distinguish the positions of the parties. Following Weber’s Law this depends on the relative distance with respect to their own optimal position. Using such a measure a model of voter participation is developed which allows for...

We look at the relation between democracy and perceived subjective well-being, taking also into account the impact of income and culture. After briefly reviewing the empirical results for Switzerland, we re-estimate this relationship allowing for the relative income position of individuals and...

In 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that each execution saves more than 70 lives. This example is used to show how easy it is, using simple or advanced econometric techniques, to produce results that do or do not support the deterrence hypothesis. Moreover, we also...