In theory, the incidence of a tax should be independent of the side of the market on which it is levied. This principle of liability-side equivalence underlies virtually all theories of tax incidence. Policy discussions, however, tend to place great emphasis on the legal division of tax payments. We use computerized experimental posted-offer markets to test liability-side equivalence. We find that ...
Typically, laboratory experiments suffer from homogeneous subject pools and selfselection biases. The usefulness of survey data is limited by measurement error and by the questionability of their behavioral relevance. Here we present a method integrating interactive experiments and representative surveys thereby overcoming crucial weaknesses of both approaches. One of the major advantages of our approach ...
We consider a model of an information network where nodes can fail and transmission of information is costly. The formation of paths in such networks is modeled as the Nash equilibrium of an N player routing game. The task of obtaining this equilibrium is shown to be NP-Hard. We derive analytical results to identify conditions under which the equilibrium path is congruent to well known paths such as ...
Many validation studies deal with item-nonresponse and measurement error in earnings data. In this paper we explore motives of respondents for the failure to reveal earnings using the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). GSOEP collects socio-economic information of private households in the Federal Republic of Germany. We explain the evolution of income-nonresponse in the GSOEP and demonstrate the ...
A new method for constructing R&D capital stocks is proposed. Following Schumpeter, the development of R&D capital stocks is modelled as a process of creative destruction. Newly generated knowledge is assumed not only to add to the existing R&D capital stocks but also, by displacing old knowledge, to destroy part of that capital. This is in stark contrast to the perpetual inventory method, which postulates ...
Becker and Murphy (1988) constructed, in a well-known paper, a model of rational addiction in which people solve a dynamic optimization problem, choose an optimal timepath of drug consumption and thereby maximize lifetime utility. The model leads to the hypothesis that future consumption is a significant explanatory variable for present consumption. This paper briefly surveys the empirical studies ...
In the expected-utility theory of the monetary value of a statistical life, the so-called "dead-anyway" effect discovered by Pratt and Zeckhauser (1996) asserts that an individuals' willingness to pay (WTP) for small reductions in mortality risk increases with the initial level of risk. Their reasoning is based on differences in the marginal utility of wealth between the two states of nature: life ...
The German unemployment rate shows strong signs if non-stationarity over the course of the previous decades. This is in line with an insider-outsider model under full hysteresis. We applied a "theory-guided view" to the data using the structural VAR model as developed by Balmaseda, Dolado and López-Salido (2000) allowing for full hysteresis on the labour market. Our identification of the model implies ...