What can subjective reports of financial difficulties add to our understanding about the role of liquidity constraints in the demand for college education? Liquidity constraints in education may lead to inefficient skill allocations and perpetuate imbalances in the distribution of economic...

How important are liquidity constraints in the demand for college education in the U.S.? Who is most likely to be affected? Persistent credit constraints can lead to inefficient skill allocations and, given the wide gap between college and high school earnings, can work to perpetuate imbalances...

Abstract While the large disparities in educational attainment by socioeconomic status in the United States point towards the importance of credit constraints, there is no consensus in the economic literature regarding their pervasiveness. To evaluate how subjective information can enhance our...

In explaining economic phenomena, economic analysis concentrates on selected influences and fixes the host of other factors under a ceteris paribus clause. This view, which goes back to Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), is developed in the first part of the book. Aggregation is viewed as a particular...

Life annuities provide a guaranteed income for the remainder of the recipient’s lifetime, and therefore, annuitization presents an important option when choosing an adequate investment strategy for the retirement ages. While there are numerous research articles studying annuities from a...

Even 50 years after Modigliani/Miller’s irrelevance theorem, the basic question of how firms choose their capital structure remains unclear. This survey paper aims at summarizing and discussing corresponding recent developments in empirical capital structure research, which, in our view, are...

In 2003, Swiss Re introduced a mortality-based security designed to hedge excessive mortality changes for its life book of business. The concern was apparently brevity risk, i.e., the risk of premature death. The brevity risk due to a pandemic is similar to the property risk associated with...

New approaches in health care, such as e.g. Integrated Delivery Systems, affect the role and tasks of medical suppliers. More and more, medical suppliers are incorporated into the process of guiding patients to medical specialists and hospitals and thus managing the course of disease. In this...

The aim of this paper is to explain consulting failure from a systems-theoretical perspective and to provide a new framework for analysing consultant–client relationships. By drawing on Luhmann’s systems theory, clients and consultants are conceptualised as two autopoietic communication...

This paper analyses a model of vertical product differentiation with one incumbent and one entrant firm. It is shown that if firms can produce only one quality level welfare in this entry game can be lower than in monopoly. This is the case if qualities are strategic complements because the...