infonet-economy

This presentation reviews the economic interventions by governments and central banks in response to the 2007-2009 financial and economic crisis.

In the area of trade policy, we find that protectionism has increased substantially, with governments targeting in particular the products of declining industries and financial services. Nevertheless, spiralling protectionism as in...

Die Kosten für Transporte dürfen mittelfristig wieder ansteigen, weil viele Logistiker im Zuge der Wirtschaftskrise ihre Kapazitäten nach unten anpassen. Die 3. Ausgabe der Logistikmarktstudie von Universität St.Gallen und GS1 Schweiz zeigen, welchen Einfluss die Entwicklung des Schweizer Aussenhandels auf die Logistikbranche hat.

Die in den letzten Jahren veröffentlichten Studien zur Anbieterkonzentration auf dem Markt für Abschlussprüfungen in Deutschland stellten ein hohes Maß an Konzentration fest. Die vorgelegten Arbeiten beschränkten sich dabei i.d. R. auf eine statische oder komparativ-statische Analyse und damit auf eine Konzentrationsmessung einzelner Jahre. Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrags ist eine...

This paper investigates the merger wave hypothesis for the US and the UK employing a Markov regime-switching model. Using quarterly data covering the last 30 years, for the US, we identify the beginning of a merger wave in the mid 1990s but not the much-discussed 1980s merger wave. We argue that the latter finding can be ascribed to the refined methods of inference offered by the...

This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment on network formation among heterogeneous agents. The experimental design extends the Bala-Goyal (2000) model of network formation with decay and two-way flow of benefits by introducing agents with lower linking costs or higher benefits to others. Furthermore, agents' types may be common knowledge or private information. In...

Although the real exchange rate–real interest rate (RERI) relationship is central to most open economy macroeconomic models, empirical support for the relationship is generally found to be rather weak. In this paper we re-investigate the RERI relationship using bilateral US real exchange rate data spanning the period 1978–2007. Instead of testing one particular model, we build on...

We identify a consumer bias with regard to different sources of debt-financing. Less salient debt may generate psychological benefits. This should be weighed against the possible economic costs of a suboptimal capital structure, but low levels of financial literacy make it unlikely that all households perceive the full economic costs. As a result there is a bias in favour of less...

This paper identifies simple conditions for monotone comparative statics of a unique equilibrium in the Akerlof-Wilson model. Separate conditions apply to trade volume and price. Trade volume increases when supply becomes both stronger and more elastic. In contrast, price decreases when supply becomes both stronger and less elastic. An application to the interbank market suggests...