Cheap Talk in the Classroom

In this paper, I o¤er a theoretical explanation of the robust gender differences in educational achievement distributions of school children. I consider a one shot cheap talk game with two different types of senders (biased teachers and fair teachers), two types of receivers ("normal" and "special" pupils) and uncertainty about the sender type on the side of the receiver. I demonstrate that the group of pupils who, in expectation, get either too much or too little encouragement will have less top achievers and a lower average achievement than the group of pupils who get a more accurate feedback message, even if the prior talent distribution is the same for both groups of pupils.Cheap talk, Education, Discrimination, Gender

The Bologna Process: How student mobility affects multi-cultural skills and educational quality

We analyze the two goals behind the European Bologna Process of increasing student mobility: enabling graduates to develop multi--cultural skills and increasing the quality of universities. We isolate three effects: 1) a competition effect that raises quality; 2) a free rider effect that lowers quality; 3) a composition effect that influences the relative strengths of the two previous effects. The effects lead to a trade--off between the two goals. Full mobility may be optimal, only when externalities are high. In this case, student mobility yields inefficiently high educational quality. For more moderate externalities partial mobility is optimal and yields an inefficiently low quality of education.Student mobility, Quality of higher education, Multi--cultural skills, Bologna Process

Winners and Losers of Early Elections: On the Welfare Implications of Political Blockades and Early Elections

We develop a dynamic model of political competition. Each party has a policymotivated ideological wing and an office-motivated opportunistic wing. A blockade arises if inner-party conflict stops policy implementation. We use this model to study whether early elections should be used to overcome a blockade. They have the advantage that urgent decisions are no longer delayed, and the disadvantage that unsuccessful governments gain additional time in office. This may give rise to a time inconsistency. Voters are in favour of a constitution without early elections. However, in the middle of a political crisis, they are willing to abandon it.early elections, political blockades, ideological rigidities

Migration of the Highly Skilled: Can Europe catch up with the US?

We develop a model to analyze the determinants and effects of an endogenous imperfect transferability of human capital on natives and immigrants. The model reveals that high migration flows and high skill-transferability are mutually interdependent. Moreover, we show that high mobility within a Federation is necessary to attract highly skilled immigrants into the Federation. We study in how far and in what way the European public policy behind the Bologna and the Lisbon Process can contribute to higher mobility in Europe.human capital, migration, transferability, public policy

Winners and Losers of Early Elections: On the Welfare Implications of Political Blockades and Early Elections

We develop a dynamic model of political competition. Each party has a policymotivated ideological wing and an office-motivated opportunistic wing. A blockade arises if inner-party conflict stops policy implementation. We use this model to study whether early elections should be used to overcome a blockade. They have the advantage that urgent decisions are no longer delayed, and the disadvantage that unsuccessful governments gain additional time in office. This may give rise to a time inconsistency. Voters are in favour of a constitution without early elections. However, in the middle of a political crisis, they are willing to abandon it.early elections, political blockades, ideological rigidities

The Bologna Process: How Student Mobility Affects Multi-Cultural Skills and Educational Quality

We analyze the two goals behind the European Bologna Process of increasing student mobility: enabling graduates to develop multi cultural skills and increasing the quality of universities. We isolate three effects: 1) a competition effect that raises quality; 2) a free rider effect that lowers quality; 3) a composition effect that influences the relative strengths of the two previous effects. The effects lead to a trade off between the two goals. Full mobility may be optimal, only when externalities are high. In this case, student mobility yields inef- ficiently high educational quality. For moderate externalities partial mobility is optimal and yields an inefficiently low quality of education.Student mobility, Quality of higher education, Multicultural skills, Bologna Process

A strategic mediator who is biased into the same direction as the expert can improve information transmission

This note reconsiders communication between an informed expert and an uninformed decision maker with a strategic mediator in a dis- crete Crawford and Sobel (1982) setting. We show that a strategic mediator may improve communication even when he is biased into the same direction as the expert. The mediator improves communica- tion, however, only if some information transmission is possible with unmediated communication.Communication, Information, Cheap talk, Mediation

A strategic mediator who is biased into the same direction as the expert can improve information transmission

This note reconsiders communication between an informed expert and an uninformed decision maker with a strategic mediator in a discrete Crawford and Sobel (1982) setting. We show that a strategic mediator may improve communication even when he is biased into the same direction as the expert. The mediator improves communication, however, only if some information transmission is possible with unmediated communication. -- In dieser Note wird die Kommunikation zwischen einem informierten Experten, einem strategischen Mediator und einem uninformierten Prinzipal in einer diskreten Umgebung à la Crawford und Sobel (1982) untersucht. Wir zeigen, dass ein strategischer Mediator die Kommunikation sogar dann verbessern kann, wenn sein Bias und der Bias des Experten gleichgerichtet sind. Diese Verbesserung der Kommunikation setzt jedoch voraus, dass bereits die Kommunikation ohne Mediator Informationstransmission ermöglicht.Communication,Information,Cheap talk,Mediation

Ideology Without Ideologists

Generally, Democrats do not increase military spending, and Republicans do not raise welfare payments. Mostly, ruling politicians stick to the manifesto of their party. The current paper provides a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon that does not assume politicians or voters to be ideologists. I explore an environment where both voters and politicians always prefer the policy that is adequate to the world state but contradicts the party manifesto over the policy that is in line with the manifesto but not adequate. I find that nevertheless, the inefficient manifesto-driven policy will often result from their interaction. Besides, I show that a high degree of agreement between the politician in office, his party basis and the voter makes efficient, informed policy rare or even impossible. But if homogeneity of convictions within parties is high, swing voter behavior can solve the problem.Information transmission, signalling, ideology, intra-party politics, political opinion.

The Bologna Process

We analyze the two goals behind the European Bologna Process of increasing student mobility: enabling graduates to develop multi–cultural skills and increasing the quality of universities. We isolate three effects: 1) a competition effect that raises quality; 2) a free rider effect that lowers quality; 3) a composition effect that influences the relative strengths of the two previous effects. The effects lead to a trade–off between the two goals. Full mobility may be optimal, onlywhen externalities are high. In this case, student mobility yields inefficiently high educational quality. For moderate externalities partial mobility is optimal and yields an inefficiently low quality of education