In the course of history, a large number of politicians have been assassinated. Rational choice hypotheses are developed and tested using panel data covering more than 100 countries over a period of 20 years. Several strategies, in addition to security measures, are shown to significantly reduce the probability of politicians being attacked or killed: extended institutional and governance quality, democracy, voice and accountability, a well functioning system of law and order, decentralization via the division of power and federalism, larger cabinet size and strengthened civil society. There is also support for a contagion effect.
This paper explored the determinants of survival in a life and death situation created by an external and unpredictable shock. We are interested to see whether pro-social behaviour matters in such extreme situations. We therefore focus on the sinking of the RMS Titanic as a quasi-natural experiment do provide behavioural evidence which is rare in such a controlled and life threatening event. The empirical results support that social norm such as “women and children first” survive in such an environment. We also observe that women of reproductive age have a higher probability of surviving among women. On the other hand, we observe that crew members used their information advantage and their better access to resources (e.g. lifeboats) to generate a higher probability of surviving. The paper also finds that passenger class, fitness, group size, and cultural background matter.
Die Benediktinerklöster weisen im Vergleich zu anderen Institutionen eine ungewöhnlich lange Lebensdauer auf. Unsere empirische Untersuchung aller je existierenden Benediktinerabteien in Bayern, Baden-Württemberg und der Deutschschweiz zeigt, dass ein durchschnittliches Kloster fast 500 Jahren alt wird. Kombiniert mit dem Befund, dass nur rund ein Viertel der Klosterschliessungen auf Führungsversagen zurückzuführen ist, darf auf eine Organisationsform mit ausserordentlicher Langlebigkeit und Stabilität geschlossen werden. Dies ist nicht nur religiösen und kirchlichen Ursachen zuzuschreiben. Die Entwicklung einer ganz eigen geprägten Führungsstruktur, oder Governance, trägt wesentlich zur Erfolgsgeschichte dieser Institutionen bei. Ein ausgefeiltes System von internen und externen Kontrollmechanismen verhindert Missbrauch und Fehlverhalten von Äbten und Mönchen und fördert damit die Überlebensfähigkeit der Abteien.nIn diesem Beitrag folgt der empirischen Analyse eine detaillierte Betrachtung der benediktinischen Governance und deren Erfolgsfaktoren. Im Schlussabschnitt wird dargelegt, warum monastische Führungsprinzipien auch über das Klosterwesen hinaus Relevanz besitzen. Der Aufsatz wurde aus einer psychologisch ökonomischen Perspektive heraus verfasst:1 der erste Autor ist Betriebswirtschafter, der zweite Volkswirtschafter. Diese Herangehensweise, welche die in der Corporate Governance herausgebildeten Begrifflichkeiten aufnimmt, bedeutet in keiner Weise, dass Abteien auf rein wirtschaftliche Institutionen reduziert werden sollen.
The empirical failure of the uncovered interest rate parity condition seems to be the reflection of risk premia on foreign currencies. After the formation of foreign currency portfolios according to interest rate differentials or forward discounts, recent studies suggest that either consumption- or currency return-based pricing factors explain the cross-section of foreign currency portfolio returns. The contribution of this paper is twofold. It shows that the returnbased explanation applies to foreign currency portfolios sorted from the perspective of a Euro Area investor. Secondly, the main results of this paper suggest that the decisive pricing factor, the so called carry trade premium, mirrors business cycle related risks. Times of relatively large amounts of uninsured Euro Area consumption growth risk are associated with an expected increase of the carry trade premium.
The paper re-examines Sweden’s price level targeting during the 1930s which is regarded as a precursor of today’s inflation targeting. According to conventional wisdom the Riksbank was the first central bank to adopt price level targeting as the guideline for its activities, although in practice giving priority to exchange rate stabilisation over price level stabilisation. On the basis of econometric analysis (Bayesian VAR) and the evaluation of new archival sources we come to a more skeptical conclusion. Our results suggest that it is hard to reconcile the Riksbank’s striving for a fixed exchange rate with the claim that it adopted price level targeting. This finding has implications for the prevailing view of the 1930s as a decade of great policy innovations.
Incomplete consumption risk sharing implies that the market risk premium is high in times of lack of risk sharing and vice versa. In the time period from 1980 to 2007, this implication of incomplete consumption risk sharing for the market price of risk is not mirrored in excess returns on stocks but in returns on real estate both in the Euro Area and in the U.S. This finding thus casts doubt on the common practice to approximate the market return by a stock index return in empirical tests of the Sharpe-Lintner capital asset pricing model. However, cross-sectional asset pricing tests suggest that there are fundamental differences between the Euro Area and the U.S. in this respect. The return on real estate does not add any explanatory power for domestic or foreign asset returns in excess of a stock index return in the U.S. The opposite reasoning applies to the Euro Area. Finally, this paper shows that the distinction between rather global and country-specific pricing factors does not seem to be important for the pricing of excess returns on foreign currencies.
Preference reversals occur when different (but formally equivalent) elicitation methodsnreveal conflicting preferences over two alternatives. This paper shows that when people have fuzzy preferences i.e. when they choose in a probabilistic manner, their observed decisions can generate systematic preference reversals. A simple model of probabilistic choice and valuation can account for a higher incidence of standard (nonstandard) preference reversals for certainty (probability) equivalents and it can also rationalize the existence of strong reversals. An important methodological contribution of the paper is a new definition of a probabilistic certainty/probability equivalent of a risky lottery.
Homeownership rates in suburbs are much higher than in central cities. This paper shows that the systematic difference between homeownership rates causes suburbanization. We consider an economy with several regions: the central city, where most households rent, and the suburbs, where most own. Households migrate and vote on local policies. Renters do not consider the effect of policies on house prices. Therefore, renter dominated central cities provide public goods inefficiently and have high taxes and high debt. Since house prices are lower in the central city, few houses are built and households migrate to the suburbs as houses depreciate. The durability of houses has two effects: it provides owners with incentives to vote for efficient policies and it makes inefficient policies sustainable.
We analyze task allocation and randomization in Principal Agent models. We identify a new rationale that determines the allocation of tasks and show that it can be optimal to assign tasks that are very different to one agent. Similar to randomization, the reason to assign several tasks to one agent is to mitigate the effect of the participation constraint. We show that the allocation of tasks can be used as a substitute if randomization is not feasible.
This paper examines the role of other-regarding and time preferences for ncooperation in the field. We study the preferences of fishermen whose main, and often only, nsource of income stems from using a common pool resource (CPR). The exploitation of a nCPR involves a negative interpersonal and inter-temporal externality because individuals who nexploit the CPR reduce the current and the future yield for both others and themselves. nAccordingly, economic theory predicts that more cooperative and more patient individuals nshould be less likely to exploit the CPR. Our data supports this prediction because fishermen nwho exhibit a higher propensity for cooperation in a laboratory public goods experiment, and nthose who show more patience in a laboratory time preference experiment, exploit the fishing ngrounds less in their daily lives. Moreover, because the laboratory public goods game exhibits nno inter-temporal spillovers, measured time preferences should not predict cooperative nbehavior in the laboratory. This prediction is also borne out by our data. Thus, laboratory npreference measures are useful to capture important dimensions of field behavior.
