Eine Politik der Verringerung der Arbeitslosigkeit über mehr Flexibilität des Arbeitsmarktes stößt auf den Widerstand der Arbeitsplatzbesitzer als Verlierer entsprechender Maßnahmen. Wie könnten die Interessen der Insider in ein Reformpaket einbezogen werden?

Reformen haben – auch wenn sie sich langfristig positiv auf die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung auswirken – nicht immer den Rückhalt bei den Wählern, der bei rein ökonomischer Betrachtungsweise wünschenswert wäre. Wie lassen sich „unliebsame“ Reformen besser „verkaufen“? Was sollten...

Optimal voting rules have to be adjusted to the underlying distribution of preferences. However, in practice there usually is no social planner who can perform this task. This paper shows that the introduction of a stage at which agents may themselves choose voting rules according to which they...

The effects of different institutional arrangements for the central bank are examined in the presence of economic shocks and uncertainty about the central banker's and the medianvoter's inflation target. A contract which is based on self-imposed monetary target announcements proves to be...

Why do large European banks lobby for monetary union? We show in a game-theoretic model that monetary union can trigger a change in the structure of the market for international banking transactions with asymmetric effects on profits: large banks are induced to cooperate internationally and gain...

Traditional political economy models of taxation fail to explain why there is so little redistribution of wealth despite significant wealth inequalites. This is for two reasons: (1) The median voter approach cannot deal with a multidimensional policy-space and (2) wealth taxation affects...

This paper explores the effects of inheritance taxation and income taxation on the growth rate in an endogenous growth model with altruistic parents. Human capital is accumulated according to the Standard Lucas specification. The government raises taxes in order to finance a non-productive...

Does redistribution increase inequality? Is inequality harmfiil for growth? Both questions have recently been addressed in a number of single-tax models. In this paper, I examine the relationship between policy, growth and inequality when income and wealth can be taxed at different rates. In the...

Gegenwärtig werden viele Vorschläge diskutiert, das Arbeitslosengeld II (»Hartz IV«) zu reformieren: Die Bezugsdauer des Arbeitslosengeldes I könnte verlängert werden, man könnte die Zuverdienstmöglichkeiten ausweiten oder Hartz IV sogar komplett durch ein Bürgergeld ersetzen. Wie sind...

Optimal voting rules have to be tailored to the underlying distribution of preferences. This paper shows that the introduction of a stage at which agents may themselves choose voting rules according to which they decide in a second stage may increase the sum of individuals’ payoffs if players...