infonet-economy

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…

This paper proposes that aesthetic inquiry can convey emotional knowledge related to sustainability topics, which is different from scientific inquiry that conveys facts and analysis. Sustainability is an emotionally charged theme of study and people often have difficulty in grappling with its complexity. We provide a method of artbased learning that can help people to understand and…

The decomposition of gender or ethnic wage gaps into explained and unexplained components (often with the aim to assess labor market discrimination) has been a major research agenda in empirical labor economics. This paper demonstrates that conventional decompositions, no matter whether linear or non-parametric, are equivalent to assuming a (probably too) simplistic model of…

Socio-economic shocks during early childhood are predicted to have detrimental short- and long-run consequences for children's development. We examine this hypothesis using a specific shock: housing damages caused by a super-typhoon. Comparing children, who lived in the same district, but only some experienced housing damages, we can isolate the real-estate shock from any…

The success or failure of a business hinges in the first place on the model that forms the basis of its commercial activities. Business models are needed in all kinds of enterprises. Often these models are not scrutinized with the necessary depth. In situations of high planning uncertainty, e.g., when starting a new business, the lack of data tools to assess the sustainability of…