The current debate on trade liberalization is accompanied by an increased concern about environmental and food safety issues leading to frictions of different country groups under the World Trade Organization (WTO). This discussion paper aims at shedding more light on some of the issues in the...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown far more rapidly than trade during the last two decades. As with the other prominent features of globalisation, FDI is controversial. The impact of FDI on labour markets has been of growing concern, particularly, for source countries. The deterioration...

Why do some countries establish their own national eco-labeling programs and some do not? In this paper, we provide both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence suggesting that the answer to this question can shed new light on three questions that have taken center-stage in the trade and...

We study the joint role of altruism and impatience, and the impact of evolution in the formation of long-term time preferences and in the determination of optimal consumption and optimal bequests. We show how the consumption paths of dynasties relate to altruism and to impatience, and we reason...

This paper raises several issues concerning productivity analysis. An attempt is made to demonstrate the usefulness of a micro-based approach to productivity analysis which challenges some basic assumptions of conventional analyses based on aggregate production functions. With the help of a...

We propose a new microeconomic explanation for the divergent experiences of economies in forming human capital. We suggest that the positive effect of a longer life expectancy on human capital formation arises from two separate effects: a life expectancy effect and a prolonged intergenerational...

Empirical analysis of rural credit market failure has been of key scientific and political interest in recent years. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of various methods for measuring credit rationing of farms employed in the literature. Furthermore, based on a common analytical...

In einem empirischen und drei theoretischen Aufsätzen befassen sich die Autoren des vorliegenden Bandes mit verschiedenen Aspekten der Steuerhinterziehung.Friedrich Schneider liefert eine umfassende Schätzung des Umfangs der Schattenwirtschaft in allen Erdteilen sowie eine Übersicht über die...

Rudolf Oster gibt eine umfassende Übersicht über die Auswirkungen von Umlagen im Finanzausgleich zwischen den Kommunen. Die weiteren Beiträge behandeln Auswirkungen der Gewinnbesteuerung. Christian Keuschnigg zeigt, daß Investitionen im Inland gehemmt werden können und Kapital ins Ausland...

We calculate the equilibrium fraction of cooperators in a population in which payoffs accrue from playing a single-shot prisoner's dilemma game. Individuals who are hardwired as cooperators or defectors are randomly matched into pairs, and cooperators are able to perfectly find out the type of a...