infonet-economy

This paper addresses the question under which circumstances unemployment can be lower if unions bargain over wages and employment in a general equilibrium framework. Thereby, it turns out that the unemployment rate may negatively depend on the wage rate, if the unemployment compensation scheme contains a constant real term in addition to the replacement ratio component. This is,…

The paper scrutinizes various stylized facts related to the minmax theorem for chess. We first point out that, in contrast to the prevalent understanding, chess is actually an infinite game, so that backward induction does not apply in the strict sense. Second, we recall the original
argument for the minmax theorem of chess – which is forward rather than backward looking. Then…

A substantial number of people exhibit social preferences, which means they are not solely motivated by material self-interest but also care positively or negatively for the material payoffs of relevant reference agents. We show empirically that economists fail to understand fundamental economic questions when they disregard social preferences, in particular, that without taking…

"The purpose of this paper is to give a global characterization of excess demand functions in a two period exchange economy with in-completenreal asset markets. We show that continuity, homogeneity and Walras’ law characterize the aggregate excess demand functions on any compact price set which maintains the dimension of the budget set."

"Tax compliance has been studied in economics by analysing the individual decision of a representative person between paying and evading taxes. A neglected aspect of tax compliance is the interaction of taxpayers and tax authorities. The relationship between the two actors can be understood as an implicit or ""psychological"" contract. Studies on tax evasion…

"This paper studies the role of money in environments where in each meeting there isna double coincidence of real wants. Traders who meet at random finance their purchases through current production, the sale of divisible money or both. It is shown that in the absence of valued money if traders have asymmetric tastes for each other’s good, they produce and exchange…

How are political events reflected in financial asset prices? Break points in sovereign debt prices are analyzed for Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany and Belgium during 1930-1948, using unique data from the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Unlike in countries in-volved in WWII, this market was unregulated. The outbreak of World War II heavily depressed prices of government bonds.…