A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

This paper studies tax policy interaction among local governments for both mobile and immobile tax bases. We exploit exogenous changes in the local tax setting of German municipalities due to participation in state debt reduction programs to learn about the size, scope and nature of strategic...

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state’s education...

I study the passthrough of regulated ad valorem pharmacy markups and reduced Value Added Tax (VAT) rates to pharmaceutical retail prices in Finland. My reduced form evidence shows that pharmaceutical manufacturers respond to a decrease in regulated pharmacy markups by increasing their wholesale...

We test the predictions of the sticky information model using a survey dataset by comparing shoppers' accuracy in recalling the prices of regulated and comparable unregulated products. Because regulated product prices are capped, they are sold more than comparable unregulated products, while...

Since its introduction, the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has been struggling with an oversupply of emission allowances and a highly volatile allowance price. One reason for the price decline is technological progress and ist demand-reducing effect, which is only partially taken...

The paper analyzes under what circumstances policymakers experiment with policies with uncertain outcomes, when they prefer to imitate policies initiated in other countries, and when they prefer to coordinate policies internationally. Policymakers have private costs of active policies and...

The paper analyzes under what circumstances policymakers experiment with policies with uncertain outcomes, when they prefer to imitate policies initiated in other countries, and when they prefer to coordinate policies internationally. Policymakers have private costs of active policies and...

We develop a numerical model that simulates the evolution of a virtual population with an incentive and ability-based wage, capital yield from savings, social welfare system, and total income subject to taxation and political turnovers. Meta-heuristics, particle swarm optimization (PSO) in...

Der generelle X-Faktor ist neben dem Effizienzvergleich ein wesentliches Element im Kontext einer Anreizregulierung, die Wettbewerb simulieren will. Der generelle X-Faktor übernimmt dabei die Funktion, dass Netzbetreiber wie Unternehmen im Wettbewerb durch technischen Fortschritt bedingte...

Italian environmental laws set targets for separate waste collection (SWC) in a top-down public decision-making approach. This study uses quarterly data (2002Q1-2019Q1) on the 103 Italian provinces to investigate whether the targets activate a yardstick competition (YC) mechanism in SWC....

This paper studies the pricing incentives of a monopolist constrained by a revenue cap endogenously determined by her costs in a so-called base year. Such regulation is employed, among others, to govern electricity distribution operators in Germany. We show that the revenue cap may incentivize...

In 2022, energy prices in the European Union reached record highs, accompanied by a significant increase in fuel prices. In response, the Hungarian government imposed a price cap on retail fuel prices from November 15, 2021 to December 6, 2022. This study empirically examines the effect of the...

Unlike in previous crises, the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought a crisis affecting all population groups, all economic sectors and all jurisdictions in the Philippines, as elsewhere. The impact of the COVID-19 vary across localities, however, partly due to differences in local government responses...

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfareenhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

This paper studies tax policy interaction among local governments for both mobile and immobile tax bases. We exploit exogenous changes in the local tax setting of German municipalities due to participation in state debt reduction programs to learn about the size, scope and nature of strategic...

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

A capped volatility swap is a forward contract on an asset’s capped, annualized, realized volatility, over a predetermined period of time. This paper presents data-driven machine learning techniques for pricing such capped volatility swaps, using unique data sets comprising both the strike...

Fuel price caps are one of the potential regulatory tools for controlling wholesale electricity prices when fuel prices are volatile. In this paper, we introduce a theoretical model to study the effects of such caps on firms’ bidding behavior and clearing prices in spot market auctions. We...

A price cap on Russian crude oil, at 60 USD/barrel, was implemented in December 2022. Using parsimonious modeling and detailed Russian oil-field data, this paper studies the price cap’s impact on the Russian economy, global winners and losers and how a cap at different levels affects these...

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfareenhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

This paper presents an approach for resilience incentives in the regulation of electricity network operators. Resilience is the ability of the power system to deal quickly and efficiently with large-scale and long-lasting power interruptions. It comprises two related aspects: minimizing the...

Die wirtschaftliche Replizierbarkeit von Endkundenprodukten marktbeherrschender Unternehmen ist eine der Voraussetzungen für eine flexiblere Entgeltregulierung von Breitbandvorleistungen. Diese wird anhand des Economic Replicability Test (ERT) überprüft. Im Rahmen des ERT prüft die nationale...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the introduction, in October 2018, of maximum thresholds ("caps") on debit card interchange fees for domestic payment cards in Brazil. We investigate the behavior of card issuers' revenues from debit and credit card interchange fees, the merchant...

This paper by David Robinson, Angel Arcos, Michael Tennican and Fernando Núnez offers an independent assessment of certain key economic effects of the Iberian Exception (IE), the common name for legal measures affecting the Iberian power market that were introduced in June 2022 by the Spanish...

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many countries have pledged to end or restrict their oil and gas imports to curtail Moscow's revenues and hinder its war effort. Thus, the European ministers agreed to trigger a cap on the gas price. To detect the importance of the price cap for gas, we...