infonet-economy

Obese individuals have been shown to exhibit abnormal sensitivity to rewards and reward-predicting cues as for example food-associated cues frequently used in advertisements. It has also been shown that food-associated cues can increase goal-directed behavior but it is currently unknown, whether this effect differs between normal-weight, overweight, and obese individuals. Here, we…

Women are known to have stronger prosocial preferences than men, but it remains an open question as to how these behavioural differences arise from differences in brain functioning. Here, we provide a neurobiological account for the hypothesized gender difference. In a pharmacological study and an independent neuroimaging study, we tested the hypothesis that the neural reward system…

This paper establishes a measure of bilateral differences in values using 857 questions from the World Values Survey. We explore the determinants of value distance, linking it to geography as well as the historical relatedness of populations across 90 countries. Furthermore, we explore the explanatory power of value distance for the diffusion of technological development.

In der Neuroökonomie werden bisweilen auch Gedanken manipuliert. Das weckt Abwehrreflexe. Der Neuroökonom Christian Ruff sieht aber wenig Missbrauchspotenzial.

How does government debt affect long-run economic growth? A prominent strand of theoretical literature suggests that government debt has a negative effect on growth. Another strand argues that government debt can foster growth by enhancing the supply of liquid assets or collateral. We empirically investigate the liquidity channel of government debt and apply the difference-in-…

Creditor countries and international organizations continue to disagree whether Greece should receive additional official debt relief, and if so how much. This paper first shows that these disagreements can be attributed to competing assumptions about Greece's future capacity to repay, particularly about economic growth and the fiscal primary balance. It next evaluates the…

Abrahamsen, Yngve; Abberger, Klaus; Chatagny, Florian; Dibiasi, Andreas; Eckert, Florian; Funk, Anne Kathrin; Graff, Michael; Hälg, Florian; Iselin, David; Mikosch, Heiner; Neuwirth, Stefan; Rathke, Alexander; Sandqvist, Anna Pauliina; Sarferaz, Samad; Siegenthaler, Michael; Simmons-Süer, Banu; Stücker, Anne; Studer, Dominik

The paper shows that international government borrowing from multilateral development banks is countercyclical while international government borrowing form private sector lenders is procyclical. The countercyclicality of official lending is mostly driven by the behavior of the World Bank (borrowing from regional development banks tends to be acyclical). The paper also shows that…

Over the last decade, the economic linkages between Switzerland and the rest of the world have been transformed. First, merchanting and the chemical industry account for an increasing share of international trade, with chemicals exports expanding robustly in recent years despite the European crisis and the strong Swiss franc. Second, the nature of international financial integration…