infonet-economy

We study private communication between jury members who have to decide
between two policies in a majority vote. While interests of all agents are perfectly aligned, only some agents ("experts") receive a private noisy signal about which policy is correct. Each expert can, but need not, recommend a policy to her audience of "non-experts" prior to the vote. We...

Some eight years on from the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006 it seems clear that this measure has achieved little in the way of substantive change in the credit rating industry. The new law did not prevent the series of rating failures that have contributed to the global financial crisis that started in summer 2007.

What lies at the heart of this regulatory...

The fact that collateral whose function is to secure repayment via its attributed low credit and liquidity risk is traded prominently in a "shadow" banking environment may still go unnoticed. This article analyzes the role of credit rating agency (CRA) ratings in the construction of collateral using the example of sovereign ratings as eligibility criterion for sovereign...

This paper investigates the average effects of (firm-provided) workplace health promotion measures in form of the analysis of sickness absenteeism and health circles/courses on labour market outcomes of the firms' employees. Exploiting linked employer-employee panel data that consist of rich survey-based and administrative information on firms, workers and regions, we apply a...

We explore how public opinion polls affect candidates' campaign spending in political competition. Generally, polls lead to (more) asymmetric behavior. Under a majority rule there always exists an equilibrium in which the initially more popular candidate invests more in the campaign and thereby increases her lead in expectation: polls create momentum. When campaigning is very...

Based on the Canadian National Population Health Survey we estimate the effects of individ-ual sports and exercise on individual labor market outcomes. The data covers the period from 1994 to 2008. It is longitudinal and rich in life-style, health, and physical activity in-formation. Exploiting these features of the data allows for a credible identification of the effects as well as...

We use individual U.S. commercial bank balance sheet and income statement information
to develop stylized facts about bank portfolio choices in both the cross section and over
time. We then estimate the structural parameters of a quantitative model of bank portfolio
choices (new loans, liquid investments and endogenous failure) that are made in the presence
of...

Does after-school care provision promote mothers' employment and balance the allocation of paid work among parents of schoolchildren? We address this question by exploiting variation in cantonal (state) regulations of after-school care provision in Switzerland. To establish exogeneity of cantonal regulations with respect to employment opportunities and preferences of the...