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The paper addresses the question whether voters would favor a restriction on capital exports to the East, and if so, to what extent. In a two country framework, it is shown that an unrestricted capital outflow is not optimal, in the traditional sense of a social welfare maximizing benevolent dictator. Furthermore, capital export may lead to unemployment and a loss of output in the exporting country if a minimum wage constraint comes into effect. Nevertheless, it may still be optimal to encounter a certain loss in employment and production because of a positive factor terms of trade effect. The preferences of individuals who are differently endowed with 'capital and labor depend on their endowment ratio: E.g., an individual whose capital-labor endowment ratio exceeds the figure for the economy will prefer less-than-optimal curbing of capital outflow. If the policy concerning capital exports is decided upon via majority voting, it is the median voter's optimal policy that is finally adopted. This implies that the restriction on capital exports would presumably be tighter than in the traditional understanding of a benevolent dictator.

Traditional explanations for the existence of barter trade have only very limited explanatory power. In particular, barter trade can neither overcome liquidity shortages nor make up for marketing deficiencies. It is argued that barter trade makes sense only in the presence of interventions in national and international markets. Owing to its opaque and selective character, this archaic and highly inefficient form of trade enables a certain degree of flexibility in rigid situations to be regained which are maintained for various political reasons. Barter trade may help to unload surplus production, caused by domestic price controls; it can act as a selective devaluation, when the domestic currency is overvalued and windfall profits can be obtained via barter by underpricing of a cartel's official price. Finally, barter trade enables the evasion of taxes and tariff liabilities. Hence it follows that this form of trade may be regarded attractive for decision-makers, given the underlying distortions as a parameter.

"Inhalt / Contents" -- "Guest Editorial: Special Issue on Corruption at the Grassroots-level What Can We Know About Corruption?" -- "Abhandlungen/Original Papers" -- "Corruption and Productivity: Firm-level Evidence" -- "Bribing Behaviour and Sample Selection: Evidence from Post-Socialist Countries and Western Europe" -- "Determinants of Willingness to Bribe: Micro Evidence from the Educational Sector in China" -- "Religious Loyalty and Acceptance of Corruption" -- "Group Decision Making in a Corruption Experiment: China and Germany Compared

AbstractWe analyze the differences in the socioeconomic profiles between suicide terrorists and 'regular' militants using a dataset of 1596 militants (including 209 suicide terrorists) from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). We find that suicide terrorists are better educated, younger, less likely to be married or have children, and less likely to live in the Gaza strip than their non-suicide counterparts. Moreover, although the profiles of Hamas and PIJ militants are distinctively different, the suicide terrorists are very similar to one another.

Does globalization lead to environmental degradation? What is the role of democracy for environmental performance and do left-wing governments really care more about the environment? Using a comprehensive measure of environmental performance, we test these three hypotheses for a panel of 134 countries for the period 2007-2016. Our findings show that globalization leads to better environmental performances. Interestingly, this result is predominantly driven by social, not by economic or political globalization. Although we find evidence that left-wing governments perform better than right-wing governments, it is centrist governments that have the highest environmental performance. The political system, i.e. democracy, turns out insignificant in all specifications.

This paper argues that corruption in Russia is systemic in nature. Low wage levels of public officials provide strong incentives to engage in corruption. As corruption is illegal, corrupt officials can be exposed any time, which enforces loyalty towards the powers that be; thus corruption is a method of governance. We trace the systemic corruption back to the Mongolian empire and demonstrate its persistence to the current regime. We show the geographic distribution of contemporary corruption within Russia, survey the literature on the causes, consequences, and cures of corruption in Russia, and discuss entry points to fighting it.