Contributions in Merlin

We study the impact of reputational incentives in markets characterized by moral hazard problems. Social preferences have been shown to enhance contract enforcement in these markets, while at the same time generating considerable wage and price rigidity. Reputation powerfully amplifies the positive effects of social preferences on contract enforcement by increasing contract efficiency substantially. This effect is, however, associated with a considerable bilateralisation of market interactions, suggesting that it may aggravate price rigidities. Surprisingly, reputation in fact weakens the wage and price rigidities arising from social preferences. Thus, in markets characterized by moral hazard, reputational incentives unambiguously increase mutually beneficial exchanges, reduce rents, and render markets more responsive to supply and demand shocks.

Incomplete consumption risk sharing implies that the market risk premium is high in times of lack of risk sharing and vice versa. In the time period from 1980 to 2007, this implication of incomplete consumption risk sharing for the market price of risk is not mirrored in excess returns on stocks but in returns on real estate both in the Euro Area and in the U.S. This finding thus casts doubt on the common practice to approximate the market return by a stock index return in empirical tests of the Sharpe-Lintner capital asset pricing model. However, cross-sectional asset pricing tests suggest that there are fundamental differences between the Euro Area and the U.S. in this respect. The return on real estate does not add any explanatory power for domestic or foreign asset returns in excess of a stock index return in the U.S. The opposite reasoning applies to the Euro Area. Finally, this paper shows that the distinction between rather global and country-specific pricing factors does not seem to be important for the pricing of excess returns on foreign currencies.

This paper examines the role of other-regarding and time preferences for ncooperation in the field. We study the preferences of fishermen whose main, and often only, nsource of income stems from using a common pool resource (CPR). The exploitation of a nCPR involves a negative interpersonal and inter-temporal externality because individuals who nexploit the CPR reduce the current and the future yield for both others and themselves. nAccordingly, economic theory predicts that more cooperative and more patient individuals nshould be less likely to exploit the CPR. Our data supports this prediction because fishermen nwho exhibit a higher propensity for cooperation in a laboratory public goods experiment, and nthose who show more patience in a laboratory time preference experiment, exploit the fishing ngrounds less in their daily lives. Moreover, because the laboratory public goods game exhibits nno inter-temporal spillovers, measured time preferences should not predict cooperative nbehavior in the laboratory. This prediction is also borne out by our data. Thus, laboratory npreference measures are useful to capture important dimensions of field behavior.

We analyze task allocation and randomization in Principal Agent models. We identify a new rationale that determines the allocation of tasks and show that it can be optimal to assign tasks that are very different to one agent. Similar to randomization, the reason to assign several tasks to one agent is to mitigate the effect of the participation constraint. We show that the allocation of tasks can be used as a substitute if randomization is not feasible.

The search for economically e?cient policy instruments designed to promote the diffusion of renewable energy technologies in liberalized markets has led to the introduction of quota-based tradable ‘green’ certi?cate (TGC) schemes for renewable electricity. However, there is a debate about the pros and cons of TGC, a quantity control policy, compared to guaranteed feed-in tariffs, a price control policy. In this paper we contrast these two alternatives in terms of social welfare, taking into account that electricity markets are not perfectly competitive, and show that the price control policy dominates the quantity control policy in terms of social welfare.

Homeownership rates in suburbs are much higher than in central cities. This paper shows that the systematic difference between homeownership rates causes suburbanization. We consider an economy with several regions: the central city, where most households rent, and the suburbs, where most own. Households migrate and vote on local policies. Renters do not consider the effect of policies on house prices. Therefore, renter dominated central cities provide public goods inefficiently and have high taxes and high debt. Since house prices are lower in the central city, few houses are built and households migrate to the suburbs as houses depreciate. The durability of houses has two effects: it provides owners with incentives to vote for efficient policies and it makes inefficient policies sustainable.

The corporate governance structure of monasteries is analyzed to derive new insights into solving agency problems of modern corporations. In the long history of monasteries, some abbots and monks lined their own pockets and monasteries were undisciplined. Monasteries developed special systems to check these excesses and therefore were able to survive for centuries. These features are studied from an economic perspective. Benedictine monasteries in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and German speaking Switzerland have an average lifetime of almost 500 years and only a quarter of them broke up as a result of agency problems. We argue that this is due to an appropriate governance structure, relying strongly on the intrinsic motivation of the members and on internal control mechanisms.

Advertisements provide consumers with knowledge about private products, whereas political information is required to provide voters with knowledge of public issues. Modern information technologies and globalisation are increasing the exposure of individuals to information. Goods advertising is competing with political information for people's attention. This paper presents a politico-economic equilibrium model in which the tension between private and public agendas can be analysed. It is shown that in an information-rich society, international goods market integration tends to reduce the quality of public policy. Complementing economic integration with political integration can increase the gains from globalisation, though not in all cases.

We consider an economy where decision maker(s) do not know the true production function for a public good. By using Bayes rule they can learn from experience. We show that the economy may learn the truth, but that it may also converge to an inefficient policy where no further inference is possible so that the economy is stuck in an information trap. We also show that our results are robust with respect to experimentation.

When agents are liquidity constrained, two options exist — borrow or sell assets. We compare the welfare properties of these options in two economies: in one, agents can borrow (issue inside bonds) and in the other they can sell government bonds (outside bonds). All transactions are voluntary, implying no taxation or forced redemption of private debt. We show that any allocation in the economy with inside bonds can be replicated in the economy with outside bonds and that the converse is not true. Moreover, under best policies, the allocation with outside bonds strictly Pareto dominates the allocation with inside bonds.