Employment Protection: The Case of Limited Enforceability

This paper shows that the effects of employment protection critically depend on its enforcement. For this purpose, we capture evasion of employment protection via market exit in a setting of monopolistic competition. We find that the number of firms entering the market depends on firing costs only in the case of imperfect enforcement of employment protection. Furthermore, the possibility to circumvent firing restrictions by exiting the market mitigates the adverse efficiency effects of employment protection and can reverse the sign of the change in employment associated with an increase in firing costs.employment protection, evasion, market entry and exit

On the Interaction of Individual and Collective Crime

This paper shows that increasing the sanction on collective crime may increase its prevalence. This situation arises when individuals can commit crimes both individually and as part of a collective. Our result is based on an interdependence between detection probabilities where detection of an individual crime may result in the uncovering of the collective crime as well.Law enforcement, Crime, Collective Crime

Emotions in Litigation Contests

This paper introduces the concept of emotions into the standard litigation contest. Positive (negative) emotions emerge when litigants win (lose) at trial and are dependent 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.emotions, litigation contest, trial, defendant fault

Market Liberalization, Regulatory Uncertainty, and Firm Investment

Motivated by the German postal market, this paper analyzes the effects of regulatory uncertainty about labor costs for investment into a liberalized market. We distinguish between the external investment margin (market entry) and the internal investment margin (technology) and establish that regulatory uncertainty affects these margins differently, encouraging market entry but discouraging investment at the internal margin. As a consequence, the impact of regulatory uncertainty on competition in liberalized markets is the result of these two countervailing forces.regulatory uncertainty, investment, market entry, minimum wage

Recht und Ökonomie aus Sicht der Wirtschaftswissenschaften

Diese Arbeit soll einen Einblick in die "Ökonomische Analyse des Rechts" als einer wirtschafswissenschaftlichen Disziplin geben und aktuelle Entwicklungen in diesem Forschungsbereich aufzeigen. Zu diesem Zweck wird zunächst auf den für die moderne ökonomische Analyse des Rechts grundlegenden Aufsatz von Ronald Coase (1960) eingegangen. Anschließend werden auf Basis der These rational handelnder, eigennütziger Akteure die Anreizfunktionen rechtlicher Regelungen untersucht. Die vorhergesagten Verhaltensreaktionen können im nächsten Schritt bei Darlegung der zugrundeliegenden Zielvorstellungen zu einer wohlfahrtsgeleiteten Auswahl von rechtlichen Regeln oder zum Design optimaler Regeln herangezogen werden. Neben diesem klassischen (mikroökonomischen) Vorgehen werden unter anderem die Überprüfung der entwickelten Hypothesen anhand fortgeschrittener ökonometrischer Methoden, die experimentelle Forschung sowie der Einbezug der Erkenntnisse der Verhaltensökonomik als aktuelle Entwicklungen in der ökonomischen Analyse des Rechts beschrieben

Employment protection: the case of limited enforceability

This paper shows that the effects of employment protection critically depend on its enforcement. For this purpose, we capture evasion of employment protection via market exit in a setting of monopolistic competition. We find that the number of firms entering the market depends on firing costs only in the case of imperfect enforcement of employment protection. Furthermore, the possibility to circumvent firing restrictions by exiting the market mitigates the adverse efficiency effects of employment protection and can reverse the sign of the change in employment associated with an increase in firing costs

Energy security: a transatlantic challenge?

"The EU and the USA are facing similar threats to their energy supply. Both of them have published strategies to deal with that topic. While the US energy supply is still somewhat self-reliant, the Europeans have to import most of their needs from abroad. Especially the Eastern European member states are almost completely dependent on energy imports from Russia. The author compares the energy data of both regions and offers a closer look on future trends in energy policy. Although there is much commonness on a general level, common action will be rare. But still a transatlantic energy partnership may be the point of origin for a large-scale regime on sustainable energy security. Florian Baumann is research assistant at the Center for Applied Policy Research (C·A·P) in Munich and member of the project's working group "EU-Enlargement and Transatlantic Relations"." [author's abstract