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Power Utility Maximization in Constrained Exponential Lévy Models
(2009)arXivWe study power utility maximization for exponential L\'evy models with portfolio constraints, where utility is obtained from consumption and/or terminal wealth. For convex constraints, an explicit solution in terms of the L\'evy triplet is constructed under minimal assumptions by solving the Bellman equation. We use a novel transformation of the model to avoid technical conditions. The consequences for q-optimal martingale measures are ...Working Paper -
How much do journal titles tell us about the academic interest and relevance of economic research?
(2009)Working PaperUnlike in other disciplines, research output in economics is commonly measured based on the journal titles in which an author has published. Here, I examine how much output measures based on journal titles tell us about the academic interest and relevance of economic papers as measured by citation frequency. Using data from the 2008 Handelsblatt ranking of economists in German speaking countries and interdisciplinary citation data from ...Working Paper -
On the Relation Between Income Inequality and Happiness: Do Fairness Perceptions Matter?
(2009)KOF Working PapersIn this paper, we revisit the association between happiness and inequality. We argue that the perceived fairness of the income generation process affects this association. Building on a two-period model of individual life-time utility maximization, we predict that persons with higher perceived fairness will experience higher levels of life-time utility and are less in favor of income redistribution. In societies with a high level of actual ...Working Paper -
Tax contracts and elections
(2009)Economics Working Paper SeriesIn this paper we examine the impact of tax contracts as a novel institution on elections, policies, and welfare. We consider a political game in which three parties compete to form the government. Parties have policy preferences about the level of public-good provision and benefit from perks when in office. A government raises taxes for both purposes. We show that tax contracts yield moderate policies and lead to lower perks by avoiding ...Working Paper -
Quasi-morphisms on Free Groups
(2009)arXivLet F be the free group over a set of two or more generators. In [2] R. Brooks constructed an infinite family of quasi-morphisms F -> R such that an infinite subfamily gives rise to independent classes in the second bounded cohomology H2b(F,R), which proves that this space is infinite dimensional, cf. [7]. We give a simpler proof of this fact using a different type of quasi-morphisms. After computing the Gromov norm of the corresponding ...Working Paper -
How long do external capital constraints matter?
(2009)KOF Working PapersStart-ups mostly have only limited internal financing. Post-entry performance should thus strongly depend on the availability of new external capital. In this study we analyze the impact of financial constraints on the performance of Swiss start-ups. Since we use cohort data, we have for some start-ups data at different points in time. This allows us to analyze whether the effect of the availability of external capital on firm performance ...Working Paper -
From knowledge to added value
(2009)KOF Working PapersThe innovation value chain (IVC) divides the innovation process into three separate links or activities: knowledge gathering, knowledge transformation and knowledge exploitation. Here, we report a comparative panel data analysis of the IVC in Ireland and Switzerland. Both economies are small, very open and depend significantly on innovation to maintain competitive advantage. In recent years, however, R&D and innovation growth in Ireland ...Working Paper -
Do Competitively Acquired Funds Induce Public Research Institutions to Behave Efficiently?
(2009)KOF Working PapersThis paper analyzes the effect of public and private third-party funds on the efficiency of departments of Swiss public research institutions. Estimating an output distance function assuming that labor is used to produce master students and scientific publications, we find no statistically significant effect of private or public third-party funding on research efficiency. However, once we include technology transfer as an additional output, ...Working Paper