infonet-economy

The G20’s principal task of reviving global economic growth has never been easy – it is harder now that world trade is contracting. World trade growth isn’t slowing down – the latest available monthly data compiled for this report suggests that it has been falling in volume and value terms through 2015. On average G20 exports have fallen 4.5% since world trade peaked in value in...

Theoretical and empirical work on banking emphasizes the role of banks in overcoming information asymmetries and agency problems between borrowers and lenders. This paper investigates the importance of bank ownership in determining the sorts of customers that a bank serves, and consequently, the sorts of information problems a bank lender chooses to address. Using survey data for...

Critical Infrastructure (CI) provision is characterized by privatization of CI providers, transnational risks and a changing role of the state. We describe two paradigmatic systems of state liability with a view to CI liability, namely Germany as a fault system and Switzerland as a strict liability system. Both are unsatisfactory and not well adapted to the modern realities and...

Sauberes Wasser, Sicherheit, gute Schulen - den wichtigsten Pfeiler der Sozial- und Familienpolitik nehmen wir gar nicht richtig wahr.

In order to increase overall transparency on key operational information, power transmission system operators publish an increasing amount of fundamental data, including forecasts of electricity demand and available capacity. We employ a fundamental model for electricity prices which lends itself well to integrating such forecasts, while retaining ease of implementation and...

We study the exposure of mortgage borrowers in Switzerland to interest rate, income and house price risks and examine how the households' choice of risky mortgages is related to individual interest rate expectations and risk-aversion. Our analysis is based on a unique data set of household mortgage applications from September 2012 until January 2014. Our assessment of risk...

Die Grenzabschöpfungen im Finanzausgleich stellen implizite Minimalsteuersätze für Gemeinden oder Kantone dar. Steigende Durchschnittsabschöpfungen implizieren weit höhere Grenzabschöpfungen.