infonet-economy

This paper aims at showing the relevance of procedural utility for economics: people do not only care about outcomes, as usually assumed in economics, they also value the processes and conditions leading to outcomes. The psychological foundations of procedural utility are outlined and it is discussed how the concept differs from other related approaches in economics, like outcome...

In present day Germany, one in seven children is raised in a single parent household. We investigate the effect of single parenthood on children’s educational attainment, measured by the school track at the age 14, using ordered probit models. We study whether the effect of living in single parenthood during early or late childhood differs. Finally, we ask whether the family effect...

This paper investigates whether the increase in assets flowing into the hedge fund industry diminishes returns and, in particular, whether larger hedge funds underperform smaller hedge funds, as is often conjectured, owing to limited capacity in certain hedge fund strategies. The impact of fund sizes is analysed with respect to fund returns, standard deviations, Sharpe ratios and...

Over the last twenty years many countries have enacted and begun using antidumping legislation. These laws seek, amongst other goals, to deter injurious dumping. In this paper I describe some of the consequences for corporate decision-making and for the political economy of reforms if antidumping laws succeed in deterring dumping in the first place. Understanding these potential...

The paper presents a simple model to study the effects of rumours on markets. Agents in our economy communicate with their local neighbours which gives rise to the possible spread of a rumour. As the rumour affects beliefs of the agents the evolution of the rumour has a direct impact on market outcomes. Our results show that if the rumour dies out long-run equilibrium prices...

The basic distinction made in this volume compares “economic value”, expressed in monetary terms, to “cultural value”, reflecting cultural, aesthetic and artistic significance.nThis paper makes a different distinction which is rarely made explicit but which is ofncentral importance to the decision process in cultural policy. On the one hand, “value” is attached to the economic...

This contribution seeks to answer two related questions. First, what is the purpose of social health insurance? Or put in slightly different terms, what are the reasons for social (or public) health insurance to exist, even to dominate private health insurance in most developed countries? And second, what are the limits of social health insurance? Can one say that there is "too...

This paper measures and decomposes the differences in earnings distributions between public sector and private sector employees in Germany for the years 1984-2000. Two decomposition methods are used: Oaxaca decomposition using quantile regression and the decomposition proposed by Machado and Mata (2002). Both indicate that the public sector wage premium is highest at the lower end of...