infonet-economy

Distortions in memory impose important bounds on rationality but have been largely disregarded in economics. While it is possible to learn, it is more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to unlearn. This retention effect lowers individual utility directly or via reduced productivity, andnadds costs to principal-agent relationships. The imprinting effect states that the more one...

In imperfectly discriminating contests the contestants contribute effort to win a prize but the highest contributed effort does not necessarily secure a win. The contest success function (CSF) is the technology that translates an individual's effort into his or her probability of winning. This paper provides an axiomatization of CSF when there is the possibility of a draw (the...

In dieser Arbeit werden die Auswirkungen des Frauenstimmrechts auf die Staatsausgaben in den Kantonen der Schweiz untersucht. Anhand dieser institutionell bedingten Veränderung des Elektorats studieren wir den Zusammenhang zwischen repräsentierten Bürgerpräferenzen und dem Ergebnis des politischen Prozesses. Da Frauen imnDurchschnitt einkommensärmer sind als Männer, steigt mit ihrer...

The standard solution to adverse selection is the separating equilibrium introduced by Rothschild and Stiglitz. Usually, the Rothschild-Stiglitz argument is developed in a model that allows for two states of the world only. In this paper adverse selection is dis-cussed for continuous loss distributions. This gives rise to the new problem of finding the proper form of an insurance...

Neun Jahre Wettbewerb unter den Krankenversicherungen brachten nicht die erhofften kostendämpfenden Effekte. Schuld daran ist, wie der Autor des folgenden Beitrags darlegt,
eine verfehlte Wettbewerbsregulierung, die dem sogenannten Risikoausgleich zwischen den Krankenversicherern zu wenig Beachtung schenkt.

The paper analyzes the infinite-horizon alternating-offers bargaining game between agents with inequity-averse preferences. Without prior investments,nthe model predicts a shift of the outcome towards equal division. Asymmetricninvestments affect the ex-post bargaining outcome, giving an advantage to the party that contributed more. Under suitable circumstances, this effectnmay...

This paper studies how changes in the two key parameters of unemployment insurance-the benefit replacement rate (RR) and the potential benefit duration (PBD)-affect the duration of unemployment. To identify such an effect we exploit a policy change introduced in 1989 by the Austrian government, which affected various unemployed workers differently: a first group experienced an...

This paper investigates the design of incentives in a dynamic adverse selection framework when agents’ production technologies display learning effects and agents’ rate of learning is private knowledge. In a simple two-period model with full commitment available to the principal, we show that whether learning effects are over- or under-exploited crucially depends on whether learning...

People spend more and more time commuting and often find it a burden.nAccording to economics, the burden of commuting is chosen when compensated eithernon the labor or on the housing market so that individuals' utility is equalized. However, inna direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium, we find that people with longerncommuting time report systematically lower...