Suchergebnisse

Der Beitrag untersucht die Interaktion zwischen Gewerkschaften, die Löhne aushandeln, und Politikern, die die Höhe der Arbeitslosenversicherungsbeiträge und des Arbeitslosengeldes bestimmen. Wenn Politiker sich nicht für eine zukünftige Politik verpflichten, werden Beiträge und Leistungen im Verhältnis übermässig hoch. Das Ergebnis ist geringe Beschäftigung und niedrige Produktion. Die Wahl eines Politikers, der konservativer ist als der Durchschnittswähler mag zwar das Glaubwürdigkeitsproblem lösen, auf der anderen Seite könnte die Lohnflexibilisierung zu einer Abschwächung des Glaubwürdigkeitsproblems führen. Durch den Schleier der Ignoranz betrachtet, zeigt sich das Glaubwürdigkeitsproblem möglicherweise als ein Segen und nicht als Fluch. (ICCÜbers)

A political leader's temptation to deny costly debts to past supporters is a central moral-hazard problem in politics. This paper develops a game-theoretic model to probe the consequences of this moral-hazard problem for leaders who compete to establish political regimes. In contests for power, absolute leaders who are not subject to third-party judgments can credibly recruit only limited support. A leader can do better by organizing supporters into a court which could cause his downfall. In global negotiation-proof equilibria, leaders cannot recruit any supporters without such constitutional checks. Egalitarian norms make recruiting costlier in oligarchies, which become weaker than monarchies. The ruler's power and limitations on entry of new leaders are derived from focal-point effects in games with multiple equilibria. The relationships of trust between leaders and their supporters are personal constitutions which underlie all other political constitutions.

While there has been much fanfare about the early outcomes of telecommunications reform in Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu, less attention has been given to the regulatory challenges these countries encountered in the early stages of the reform programs. This study examined the role and effectiveness of independent regulators through comparative case study analyses of the three countries, based on insights drawn from semi-structured interviews with telecommunications officials, operators, regulators and users. It found that the early regulatory reforms in the Pacific showed evidence of 'regulatory capture' through legislative amendments and political influences on the operation of the office of the regulator. Further, the reliance of independent regulators on the national parliament's budget appropriation and the lack of technical and financial resources imposed burdens on the independent regulators. On the other hand, the study found that the legal contractual agreement-the deed of settlement-signed between governments and the incumbent telecommunications operators and competition from new entrants provided immediate policy certainty to the reform process and catalysed the finalisation of the reform package.

In this paper, we present a monetary policy game in which the central bank has a private forecast of supply and demand shocks. The public needs to form its inflationary expectations and can make use of central bank announcements. However, because of the credibility problem that the central bank faces, the public will not believe a precise announcement. By extending the arrangement proposed by Garfinkel and Oh (1995) to a model that includes private information about both demand and supply shocks, we investigate the feasibility of making imprecise credible announcements concerning the rate of inflation. Klassifikation:E52;E58