The US, one of the oldest democracies in the world, needs to face deficiencies in its electoral system. The first one has to do with the so-called 'Electoral College.' Ruled by the majority principle, it may lead to almost paradoxical results: a candidate may win far less than 50 percent of the...

Portugal's high public debt, its weak economic growth and its great attractiveness for foreign tourists are legend. Less well known is its unstable system of public pensions. This article addresses the underlying economic and political reasons, such as poor labour productivity, low real wages,...

Zu den langfristigen Bestimmungsgründen der Umlaufgeschwindigkeit des Geldes: Ein sektoraler Ansatz Bei der Erforschung der u.a. von Bordo/Jonung festgestellten Trendwenden in der Umlaufgeschwindigkeit sowie der beobachteten Schwankungen der Geldnachfrage standen bisher monetäre Erklärungen...

In this paper, we defend the idea of the potential existence of equilibrium in personal income distribution in Germany. This concept can be motivated by two different approaches: One is a status theory put forward by Gerold Blümle, the other is a sort of hybrid variant of the prospect theory,...

Ob die Marktform des Monopsons am Arbeitsmarkt vorliegt, ist fur die Frage des Für oder Wider des Mindestlohns von essentieller Bedeutung. Denn in der kurzfristigen Analyse kann, insofern monopsonistische beziehungsweise oligopsonistische Strukturen am Arbeitsmarkt nachgewiesen werden, die...

The Target imbalances within the Eurozone can be interpreted as a sign of a missing balance of payments adjustment mechanism for the member countries. As the Eurozone lacks a fiscal union, in economic theory it is more an exchange rate union or a system of fixed exchange rates than a monetary...

In this paper, the authors present a new concept of the 'modified output gap' based on the New Keynesian Phillips curve and on the Beveridge curve. In the first part of the paper, both mentioned curves are derived analytically. In doing so, we identify key parameters for the shift of the...

Beharrungsinflation und "heterodoxe" Stabilisierungspolitik: Erfahrungen aus Argentinien, Brasilien und Israel Ursächlich für Beharrungsinflation (inertial inflation) ist der Verteilungskonflikt, während vor allem Indexierungspraktiken ihre Existenz "garantieren". Dominiert die...