Despite widespread acknowledgment of the climate crisis, ambitious climate action remains constrained by competing visions of socio-ecological transformation (SET). Drawing on critical state theory, which conceptualizes the state as a "strategic terrain" where social forces struggle over...

International environmental agreements (IEAs) often condition entry into force on ratification by a minimum number of countries, yet deep environmental commitments frequently face strong domestic political resistance. We study how IEA breadth, through minimum ratification thresholds (MRTs), and...

Nuclear energy is a technology that has long been subject to controversy, shaped by major global events, shifting public opinion and volatile policy agendas. Among industrialised democracies, Italy is a particularly distinctive case. Following a pioneering role in the 1950s and an ambitious,...

Im Nachgang zur Bundestagswahl 2025 wurden im Frühjahr 2025 im IW-Personalpanel 1.071 Personalverantwortliche und HR-Experten befragt, welche personalpolitisch relevanten Themen die neue Bundesregierung in den ersten 100 Tagen angehen sollte und was sie tun sollte, um bessere Rahmenbedingungen...

The Education for Climate Coalition is a flagship initiative of the European Education Area and the Green Deal hosted by the European Commission. As a community of practice, it enriches both the Council recommendation on learning for the green transition and sustainable development and the...

In symmetric games with externalities across coalitions, we investigate how three players form coalitions using two solutions: 𝐧∗, which is a focal prediction of coalition structure in a class of noncooperative coalitional bargaining games, and equilibrium binding agreements, which...

This is the second out of four papers on the 2025 German federal elections continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 Bundestag elections. We estimate the policy representation ability of the 29 parties that participated in the 2025 elections and of the 2025 Bundestag. For this...

This paper analyzes the pricing dynamics of product warranties by developing a three-player hierarchical game model involving a manufacturer, an independent service agent, and a consumer. The model provides a scenario where the manufacturer and the agent form a coalition to coordinate pricing...

We analyze the endogenous formation of patent pools among three patent owners and the associated welfare effects. Under a condition of synergistic three-patent combination, either a unique symmetric equilibrium or infinitely many asymmetric equilibria can arise when patents are fragmented. By...

We investigate power indices for simple games with precoalitions which distribute power among players in an external and an internal step. We extend an existing approach which uses the Public Good index both on the external level in the quotient game as well as on the internal level for...

The well-known cooperative game solution core, with its strict stability requirement, provides no solution for non-balanced games. Subiza et al. (2025) relaxes the stability concept of the core and proposes δ-stable set, a non-empty solution for every essential TU-game. However, their approach...

We examine fiscal policies and parliamentary activities of minority governments in the German states. Our sample includes the 16 German states over the period 1981-2024. The results show that minority governments implemented similar fiscal policies to majority governments. Minority governments...

We study coalition formation with externalities under voluntary, non-binding participation. Motivated by climate agreements, where standard modeling predicts small, inefficient coalitions, we propose a new solution concept - the self-enforcing stable set. It synthesizes the self-enforcing logic...

The Education for Climate Coalition is a flagship initiative of the European Education Area and the Green Deal hosted by the European Commission. As a community of practice, it enriches both the Council recommendation on learning for the green transition and sustainable development and the...

Countries increasingly form alliances to collectively impose sanctions. However, the resulting impact of such coordination remains unclear. Analyzing the 2014 wave of sanctions against Russia over 400,000 simulations with a quantitative trade model, this report demonstrates that multilateral...

In this paper, we explore the reproducibility of the König et al. (2022) paper on the timing of bill initiation under coalition governments and validate its scope condition by expanding the analysis to an additional government and country, namely the United Kingdom's Conservative-Liberal...

We examine democratic public-good provision with heterogeneous legislators. Decisions are taken by majority rule and an agenda-setter proposes a level of the public good, taxes, and subsidies. Members are heterogeneous with respect to their benefits from the public good. We find that, depending...