infonet-economy

We use a credible regression discontinuity design to estimate causal education effects. Pupils in the Swiss education system had to pass a centrally organized exam that classified them into different levels of secondary school, and that ultimately determined their educational degree. A major feature of this exam was the local randomization around the classification threshold due to…

Within the context of the neoclassical growth model I investigate the implications
of (initial) endowment inequality when the rich have a higher marginal savings rate than the poor. More unequal societies grow faster in the transition process, and therefore exhibit a higher speed of convergence. Furthermore, there is divergence in consumption and lifetime wealth if the rich…

The increase of fuel extraction costs as well as of temperature will make it likely that in the medium-term future technological or political measures against global warming may be implemented. In assessments of a current climate policy the possibility of medium-term future developments like backstop technologies is largely neglected but can crucially affect its…

L'accréditation est un système que l'on retrouve dans le monde entier et dont le but est d'établir et de maintenir une infrastructure compétente d'organismes d'évaluation de la conformité, reconnue internationalement. Ce qui sonne d'abord comme une affaire d'experts techniques se révèle en fait une infrastructure fondamentale pour l'économie…

The ability of voters to use the available electoral instruments is crucial for the functioning of democracies. The paper shows that voters consider the institutional environment when making electoral decisions. Voters recognize that executives who face binding term limits (i.e., "lame ducks") have incentives to deviate from the preferences of voters because these…

For the Asia-Pacific region, this paper estimates the impact of "green" crisis-era measures on energy intensity of imports and the extent of discrimination of these policies against foreign suppliers. Testable predictions are derived from Eaton and Kortum (2002). The results are surprising: "Green" measures whose purpose of implementation was not driven by the…

In political economics, the impact of institutions on income redistribution is mainly studied by comparing different forms of representative democracy. In this article, we analyze the influence of direct democratic institutions on redistribution first focusing on welfare and nonwelfare spending using yearly panel data for Swiss cantons. Then, we estimate a model, which explains the…