We study Pareto optimal tax and education policies when human capital upon labor market entry is endogenous and individuals face wage uncertainty. Though optimal labor distortions are history-dependent, i.e. depend on income and education, simple policy instruments can yield the desired...

Laut ökonomischer Standardtheorie sollen Arbeitsanreize mittels Geldzahlungen vermittelt werden. Materielle Anreize in nicht-monetärer Form sind demgegenüber weniger effizient, sind aber dennoch weit verbreitet. Auszeichnungen in Form von Titeln, Orden, Medaillen und Ehrungen (Preisen) wurden...

In dieser Arbeit werden die Auswirkungen des Frauenstimmrechts auf die Staatsausgaben in den Kantonen der Schweiz untersucht. Anhand dieser institutionell bedingten Veränderung des Elektorats studieren wir den Zusammenhang zwischen repräsentierten Bürgerpräferenzen und dem Ergebnis des...

Command-and-control measures, despite their inefficiencies, are still the standard in environmental policy. This might be due to the fact that command-and-control instruments prevent monetary redistribution between sectors and households and leave property rights on remaining pollution with the...

Given the USA`s refusal to ratify there is little hope for the Kyoto agreement on curbing CO2 emissions. This paper thus pledges for a national energy policy beyond Kyoto based on local external effects stemming from the combustion of fossil fuels. Due to varying external effects a national...

This paper analyzes the impact of inequality on growth when technical progress is driven by innovations and consumers have hierarchic preferences. Inequality has an impact on growth because it affects the structure and the dynamics of demand. Redistribution from very rich to very poor consumers...

In der Sozialversicherung gelten Risikoselektionen als unerwuenscht, weil sie die Gefahr mit sich bringen, dass der einheitliche Risikopool in der Sozialversicherung aufgespalten und die sozialpolitisch gewuenschten Umverteilungsstroeme zwischen den Versicherten reduziert werden. Der Beitrag...

This paper calculates the impact of Active Labour Market Programmes through the use of three new indicators measuring the application performance of the unemployed. These indicators can be measured repeatedly and therefore allow the usage of Panel Regression methods, cancelling out any...

In this paper, we suggest a novel approach to program evaluation that allows identification of the causal effect of a training program on the likelihood of being invited to a job interview under weak assumptions. The idea is to measure the program-effects by pre- and post-treatment data that are...

This paper studies differences in inequality perceptions, distributional norms, and redistributive preferences between East and West Germany. As expected, there are substantial differences with respect to all three of these measures. Surprisingly, however, differences in distributional norms are...