Basic Bidding Formats: Characteristics and Differences

In standard auction theory, the ‘revenue equivalence theorem’ asserts that the outcomes of the elementary allocation methods coincide. However, bidding processes differ fundamentally with regard to the decision situation of the participants: Is it at all imperative to take into consideration the number of competitors (‘stochastic’ strategy) or not (‘deterministic’ course of action)? Furthermore, established auction theory neglects the operating modes of procurement alternatives under uncertainty. Apart from the lacking knowledge how many rivals have to be beaten, tenderers regularly are ignorant of the buyer’s reserve price. Then it is even more tentative to calculate an offer based on probability theory. Consequently, the suppliers’ propensity to collude increases.

What are the Determinants of Public Support for Climate Policies? A Review of the Empirical Literature

Climate change is one of the most challenging problems of our times. To be effective, climate policies need to receive citizens’ approval. The objective of this article is to examine both the extent of individuals’ support for different climate policies and key determinants of policy support. To this end, an overview of the related empirical literature is provided. The article shows that the empirical literature on public climate policy support is very diverse in terms of concepts, measures of policy support and empirical approaches. Moreover, the bulk of the existing empirical literature has a strong U.S. focus. The article concludes that public support for climate policies is rather a matter of climate change beliefs and party identification, and not primarily a question of socio-demographic background. The article also offers suggestions for future research as well as policy recommendations.

Desert Locust Invasions and Child Health: Evidence from the Republic of the Niger

This study assesses the extent to which the invasions of desert locust swarms affect child health in the Republic of the Niger. We discover that children exposed to the invasions tend to be shorter for their age, thinner for their age, and thinner for their height. In particular, a one standard deviation increase in the affected area (around 200 ha) is associated with a 0.019 standard deviation reduction in height-for-age, 0.029 standard deviation decrease in weight-for-age, and 0.020 standard deviation decrease in weight-for-height z-score. Given the long-lasting irreparable consequences of poor health in early life throughout the life cycle, the study calls for prompt and effective efforts to prevent the adverse effects of the desert locust swarm invasions.

Third-Party Monitoring and Risk Management: A Literature Review

Although risk management is prevalent in organizations, agency theory studies on contractual relationships in firms fail to address it. Risk reduction is mostly discussed within the context of monitoring, understood as insight into the activities of subordinates. Hence, this literature review discusses 18 main analytical studies on monitoring, reviewing whether they can be reinterpreted as depicting risk management, thereby allowing for the transfer of gained insights. Accordingly, only Meth, B. (1996). Reduction of outcome variance: optimality and incentives. Contemp. Account. Res. 13: 309–328 and Dürr, O., Nisch, M., and Rohlfing-Bastian, A. (2020). Incentives in optimized teams for projects with uncertain returns. Rev. Account. Stud. 25: 313–341, can be reinterpreted as such, bearing the following risk management implications: (1) risk management is vital for firms, as firm’s risk affects employee incentive contracts, firm’s utility, and optimal firm size; (2) risk attitudes of risk managers are crucial for designing incentive contracts, with incentives necessary for more (less) risk-averse agents to encourage risk-taking (risk reduction); and (3) risk management should be delegated as a task separate from other managerial activities. The other studies do not depict risk management. Therefore, many research subjects remain open, such as organizing risk management in hierarchies, delegating risk management as a task and incentivizing it when a firm’s outcome is unavailable for contracting, and establishing the connection between the performance measures and the risk of a firm.

Reassessing the Literature on the Relationship Between Financial Structure and Economic Growth

This paper surveys the literature, particularly the empirical literature, that examines the association between financial structure and economic growth. The studies are divided into two groups depending on their research focus and research design. Whereas both strands of literature contribute to our understanding of the relationship between financial structure and growth and may also inform each other, the fundamental difference in their research questions means that they should be treated separately rather than together. Despite this difference, the two strands of literature share a common weakness: i.e. they overlook the interactions between banks and stock markets, which may lead to biased estimations.

Insurance Against Extreme Weather Events: An Overview

Extreme weather events increasingly threaten the economic situation of households and enterprises around the world. Insurance against extreme weather events is among the climate change adaptation instruments that are currently discussed by the policy community. This overview paper provides a synopsis of the state of research on insurance against extreme weather events, outlining advantages and limitations inherent in three main types of insurance: indemnity-based insurance, index-based insurance, and insurance-linked securities. The paper discusses issues related to insurance uptake, distributional effects, misleading incentives and potentially negative side effects, as well as the role of the state.

Austerity Effects on National Output and Income Inequality: A Systematic Literature Review

Fiscal sustainability issues over rising national debt concerns and the consequent expansionary fiscal retrenchment hypothesis has fuelled the contentious austerity vis-à-vis stimulus debate which has spawned a large empirical literature of conflicting findings on the economic effects of austerity – with particular emphasis revolving around equity and distributional issues. In this paper we attempt to summarise the growing literature on the recent developments regarding the theoretical as well as empirical approaches on national output and distributional aspects of austerity. By exploring the existing evidence in the literature on the effect of consolidation programs, we offer a more holistic overview of the subject matter through a synthesis of the extant literature and, by so doing, propose directions for future research pertinent to both academic researchers and policymakers.

Strategic Welfare Policies with Migration: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Evidence

We test the welfare magnet hypothesis for Europe. We modify the existing theoretical frameworks assuming that: (a) welfare services, intended as the output of welfare expenditure, not the poor’s income or social expenditure, enter the median voter’s utility function; (b) preferences depend on the position of the median voter in the income distribution; and (c) the total amount of welfare services provided may differ from the amount needed to finance them, because of inefficiencies in the transfer process. We then test the welfare magnet hypothesis for 22 European countries by estimating a reaction function corresponding to the generic form adopted by the literature, but using the variables inspired by the model. We find evidence of a positive strategic interaction among countries, which suggests a downward bias in the choice of the protection level because of welfare competition. The level of social protection also positively depends on GDP, the redistributive attitudes of residents and their weight in the population, vis-à-vis the migrants’ share, and the efficiency of social expenditure.