Publikationen

Experimente haben in den letzten Jahrzehnten auch in der Ökonomie stark an Bedeutung gewonnen. Diese Experimente befassen sich mit Fragen, die auch in der fortwirtschaftlichen Forschung von Bedeutung sind. So zeichnet sich die Holzproduktion durch Langfristigkeit und die Forstwirtschaft durch die Produktion wichtiger öffentlicher Güter aus. In diesem Artikel wird die experimentelle Methode vorgestellt, es werden für die forstwirtschaftliche Forschung wichtige experimentelle Erkenntnisse, so hinsichtlich Zeitpräferenz und Externalitäten, präsentiert und mögliche Anwendungen zur Untersuchung von Märkten für forstliche Produkte und von Institutionen skizziert.

We consider a signaling model where the senderʼs continuation value after signaling depends on his type, for instance because the receiver is able to update his posterior belief. As a leading example, we introduce Bayesian learning in a variety of environments ranging from simple two-period to continuous-time models with stochastic production. Signaling equilibria present two major departures from those obtained in models without learning. First, new mixed-strategy equilibria involving multiple pooling are possible. Second, pooling equilibria can survive the Intuitive Criterion when learning is efficient enough.

We show that risk-averse hyperbolic-discounting agents can benefit from positive exposure to risk and thus behave as if risk-loving. When the benefits of costly effort are delayed, selecting some risk concerning the outcome of one’s own effort can serve as an intrapersonal commitment device for exerting higher effort, thereby attenuating the negative effect of time-inconsistency. Comparing the effects of time-inconsistency, risk aversion and prudence, we formulate an intuitive condition for risk exposure to be an optimal strategy and discuss several applications of this result.

We use a 15-item self-report questionnaire known as “Faith in Intuition” to measure reliance on intuitive decision making, and ask whether the latter correlates with behavioral biases involving a failure of Bayesian updating. In a first experiment, we find that higher report scores are associated with an increased use of the representativeness heuristic (overweighting sample information). We find no evidence of increased conservatism (overweighting prior information). The results of a second experiment show that more intuitive decision makers rely more often on the “reinforcement heuristic” where successful decisions are repeated even if correctly updating prior beliefs indicates otherwise. However, this effect depends on the magnitude of incentives.

In a two‐period life‐cycle model with ex ante homogeneous households, earnings risk, and a general earnings function, we derive the optimal linear labor tax rate and optimal linear education subsidies. The optimal income tax trades off social insurance against incentives to work. Education subsidies are not used for social insurance, but they are only targeted at offsetting the distortions of the labor tax and internalizing a fiscal externality. Both optimal education subsidies and tax rates increase if labor and education are more complementary, because education subsidies indirectly lower labor tax distortions by stimulating labor supply. Optimal education subsidies (taxes) also correct non‐tax distortions arising from missing insurance markets. Education subsidies internalize a positive (negative) fiscal externality if there is underinvestment (overinvestment) in education because of risk. Education policy unambiguously allows for more social insurance if education is a risky activity. However, if education hedges against labor‐market risk, optimal tax rates could be lower than in the case without education subsidies.

This paper considers the incentives environmental liability creates to improve pollution abatement technology. Our analysis considers technical progress in end-of-pipe abatement and in the production technology used, thereby generalizing the approach taken by Endres et al. (Environ Resour Econ 36:341–366, 2007). We establish that this generalization has drastic repercussions on incentives under negligence liability, while the performance of strict liability is not compromised. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the social desirability of investment in abatement or production technology (or both) decisively determines how ex-ante and ex-post regulation fare with respect to welfare maximization in the case of negligence liability.

This paper introduces the concept of emotions into the standard litigation contest. Positive or negative emotions emerge when litigants either win or lose at trial and depend in particular on the level of defendant fault. Our findings establish that standard results of litigation contests change significantly when emotions are taken into account. We show that emotions may increase or decrease individual and total equilibrium contest effort, introduce an asymmetry into the contest, and reinforce or weaken a plaintiff’s incentives to bring a suit. In addition, we consider how emotions impact on justice.

We use business register data for the United Kingdom to document the importance of the different channels that firms use to adjust their size. We show how the choice of adjustment channel impacts upon firm-level variables such as wages or productivity.

We investigate the welfare implications of unfair incentive contracts in comparison with interactions without contracts. Reciprocal people should cooperate conditionally in the latter situation but punish unfairness by non-cooperation. We confirm that some people do cooperate conditionally in a sequential prisoner's dilemma. Furthermore, some subjects do not cooperate if they face an unfair incentive contract in a similar context. However, there is no correlation between these two types of reciprocity. At an aggregate level, all contracts – no matter how fair they are – improve welfare even if agents are conditionally cooperative.

Psychosocial stress precipitates a wide spectrum of diseases with major public-health significance. The fight-or-flight response is generally regarded as the prototypic human stress response, both physiologically and behaviorally. Given that having positive social interactions before being exposed to acute stress plays a preeminent role in helping individuals control their stress response, engaging in prosocial behavior in response to stress (tend-and-befriend) might also be a protective pattern. Little is known, however, about the immediate social responses following stress in humans. Here we show that participants who experienced acute social stress, induced by a standardized laboratory stressor, engaged in substantially more prosocial behavior (trust, trustworthiness, and sharing) compared with participants in a control condition, who did not experience socioevaluative threat. These effects were highly specific: Stress did not affect the readiness to exhibit antisocial behavior or to bear nonsocial risks. These results show that stress triggers social approach behavior, which operates as a potent stress-buffering strategy in humans, thereby providing evidence for the tend-and-befriend hypothesis.

We report on two field experiments on Approval Voting conducted during actual state and federal elections in Germany. Voters provided approval ballots both for named district candidates and for state parties. The data reveal significant discrepancies in the outcomes under the official method and Approval Voting. Further, our analysis suggests that currently used voting methods do a poor job of representing the electorate’s preferences. As a consequence, some recurring features of the political landscape in a given country might be, in part, an artifice of the employed voting method.

Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden die herkömmliche Verwendung des Begriffs der Rationierung im Gesundheitswesen als „Vorenthaltung notwendiger Leistungen“ kritisch hinterfragt und sein Verhältnis zum Begriff der Priorisierung geklärt. Im Weiteren werden verschiedene Formen der Rationierung, insbesondere „harte“ versus „weiche“ sowie „implizite“ versus „explizite“ Rationierung dargestellt und ihre Vor- und Nachteile diskutiert. Am Ende beziehen wir diese Begriffsklärung auf die Situation in Deutschland und diskutieren inhaltliche und prozedurale Fragen einer möglichen expliziten Rationierung in der GKV. Damit soll ein Beitrag dazu geleistet werden, eine längst überfällige offene Debatte über die Knappheit und Verteilung von Gesundheitsleistungen in Deutschland zu initiieren.

Two hypotheses relate to the globalization–welfare state nexus: the efficiency hypothesis predicts that globalization reduces government sector size and governments' capacity to finance the welfare state. The compensation hypothesis, in contrast, predicts that globalization induces a higher demand for social insurance which results in an extended welfare state. Empirical evidence on the globalization–welfare state nexus is mixed. The evidence is re‐examined by investigating a yearly panel dataset of 186 countries for the 1970–2004 period. This paper uses data compiled by the Penn World Tables on government sector size and employs the Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF—Swiss Economic Institute) index of globalization. The results show that globalization increased government sectors around the world. Social globalization especially had a positive influence. Globalization‐induced effects were stronger in Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries. Overall globalization and economic globalization reduced the relative price of government expenditures. These findings suggest that globalization does not jeopardize the welfare state at all.

Using the POLITY IV and Freedom House indices, Rowley and Smith (Public Choice 139(3–4):273, 2009) found that countries with Muslim majorities enjoy less freedom and are less democratic than countries in which Muslims are a minority. Because the POLITY IV and Freedom House indices have been criticized on several grounds, I reinvestigate Rowley and Smith’s finding using the new Democracy-Dictatorship data from Cheibub et al. (Public Choice 143(1–2):67, 2010). The empirical results confirm that countries with Muslim majorities are indeed less likely to be democratic.

This paper considers the case in which potential victims affect each other by taking care. Analyzing standard liability rules, we show that the rule of strict liability with a defense of contributory negligence is in the best position to induce the efficient outcome, i.e., this liability rule ensures efficiency if victims affect each other negatively, that is care by one victim increases the accident exposure of other victims. This rule also makes attainment likely if victims affect each other positively, that is if care by one victim decreases the accident exposure of other victims. In contrast, other standard liability rules fail to induce first-best care.

The author examines the extent to which mothers are willing to trade wages for non-wage job attributes within the context of maternity leave. The key aspect of this framework is that mothers can decide whether and when to return to their guaranteed job. In contrast to previous studies that analyze the job search of employed workers, in this framework one does not need to observe the wage/amenity offer process. It is the first study of its kind to estimate mothers' marginal willingness to pay (MWP) for job amenities directly. The author derives the MWP for job amenities from duration data and uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the Qualification and Career Survey to estimate mothers' leave-length decisions by a discrete duration method. The MWP for amenities is inferred through the estimated response of the leave length with respect to the amenities and the wage. Results indicate that mothers are willing to sacrifice a significant fraction of their wage to reduce hazards and to enjoy a flexible work schedule.

We investigate the role of incentives set by a parent firm for competition among its subsidiaries. In a Cournot experiment, four subsidiaries of the same parent operate in the same market. Parents earn a specific share of the joint profit, and can choose how to distribute the remaining surplus (or loss). Results show that parents allocating profits equally among their subsidiaries reach outcomes close to collusion. However, almost half of the parent firms employ a proportional sharing rule instead. These groups end up with profits around the Cournot level.

We introduce a novel mechanism to eliminate endgame effects in repeated prisoner’s dilemma experiments. In the main phase of a supergame our mechanism generates more persistent cooperation than finite horizon or random continuation rules. Moreover, we find evidence for cooperation-enhancing “active/reactive” strategies which concentrate in the initial phase of a supergame as subjects gain experience.

Using a symmetric two-player prisoners’ dilemma as base game, each player receives a signal for the number of rounds to be played with the same partner. One of these signals is the true number of rounds R while the other is R − 5. Thus both players know that the game has a finite end. They both know that the opponent knows this, but the finite end is not commonly known. As a consequence, both mutual defection and mutual cooperation until the second last round are subgame perfect equilibrium outcomes. We find experimental evidence that many players do in fact cooperate beyond their individual signal round.