Adding Household surveys to the behavioral economics toolbox: Insights from the SOEP Innovation Sample

By Urs Fischbacher, Levent Neyse, David Richter and Carsten Schröder  

Experiments are a major tool in the toolbox of behavioral economists.…

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Coase and Cap-and-Trade: Evidence on the Independence Property from the European Carbon Market

By Aleksandar Zaklan

Cap-and-trade has become a popular approach to mitigating environmental externalities. It promises cost-effectiveness: by…

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Climate Policy Shouldn’t Ignore Asset Stranding

By Angelika von Dulong, Alexander Gard-Murray, Achim Hagen, Niko Jaakkola, and Suphi Sen

Ambitious climate policy measures threaten assets across the…

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Changes In Risk Attitudes Vary Across Domains Throughout The Life Course

By Neil Murray, Levent Neyse and Carsten Schröder

Risk attitudes refer to an individual's inclination towards taking or avoiding risks. Some people…

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Online Trade Platforms: Hosting, Selling, or Both?

By Simon Anderson and Özlem Bedre-Defolie

Many digital platforms, like Amazon, both host third-party products and sell their own products: they…

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Consumer Deception Through Greenwashing: High Share of Unverified and Non-Credible Information on the Sustainability of Products in Fashion Online Retail

By Maike Gossen and Felix Bießmann

Not having any sustainable options when buying a product online should no longer be an excuse for unsustainable…

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Anchoring Bias Influences Strategies Too

By Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel and Gyula Seres

Anchoring bias is one of the most attested cognitive processes influencing judgment. The idea was…

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How Communication Makes the Difference Between a Cartel and Tacit Collusion: A Machine Learning Approach

By Maximilian Andres, Lisa Bruttel, and Jana Friedrichsen

Around the world, competition law generally prohibits firms from joining agreements that…

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Optimal Discounts in Green Public Procurement

By Olga Chiappinelli and Gyula Seres

Public procurement—the purchasing of goods, works, and services by governments and other public…

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How Platform Business Models could Boost the Energiewende

By Timm Teubner and Tobias Menzel 

Platform business models have disrupted many industries in recent years. At Airbnb’s IPO in December 2020, the…

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Information Security Management in ICT and non-ICT Sector Companies: A Preventive Innovation Perspective

By Mona Mirtsch, Knut Blind, Claudia Koch and Gabriele Dudek

Companies are increasingly relying on information and communication technology (ICT),…

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Competing Sales Channels with Captive Consumers

By David Ronayne and Greg Taylor

Many goods and services can be purchased either through a seller's direct channel, e.g., their own store or…

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The Role of Ukrainian Workers in the EU

By Jana Hamdan

On February 24, 2022, Russian forces began their first attacks in a war on Ukraine. Since then, more than 4.2 million refugees have…

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Can Economic Decisions be Predicted by Finger Lengths? A Lesson on Researcher Degrees of Freedom

By Levent Neyse

Over the last decade, there has been a number of studies investigating this odd question. According to a number of biology and…

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20 Years of the Riester Pension - Germany Needs a Reform of Private Retirement Provision

By Johannes Geyer, Markus M. Grabka, and Peter Haan

The German Federal Government introduced the Riester pension in 2002 with the goal of…

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Price Comparison Websites

By David Ronayne

Over the past two decades, a flourishing industry of price comparison websites (PCWs) has emerged. The sites command billions of…

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COVID-19 and Pro-Sociality: How do Donors Respond to Local Pandemic Severity, Increased Salience, and Media Coverage?

By Maja Adena and Julian Harke

Locally occurring natural catastrophes seem to increase international solidarity. However, the…

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Effectiveness, Spillovers, and Well-Being Effects of Driving Restriction Policies

By Aleksandar Zaklan, Luis Sarmiento, and Nicole Wägner

Air pollution is a well-known source of welfare losses, primarily arising from negative…

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Why People Fail to See their Dominant Strategy in Strategy-Proof Auctions

By Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch and Yves Breitmoser

Decision-making in strategic interaction is typically challenging because figuring out…

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How Do Family History and Parental Narratives Affect Discrimination between Children?

By Kai Barron, Heike Harmgart, Steffen Huck, Sebastian O. Schneider, and Matthias Sutter

Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 over…

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Trade Sanctions can Harm Cooperation on Climate Protection

By Achim Hagen and Jan Schneider

A promising approach in international climate policy, which is also discussed in the context of the EU Green Deal,…

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A Green COVID-19 Recovery of the EU Basic Materials Sector: Identifying Potentials, Barriers and Policy Solutions

Concentration in the EU: Where is it Increasing and Why?

By Pauline Affeldt, Tomaso Duso, Klaus Gugler, and Joanna Piechucka

An increasing body of empirical evidence documents trends of rising…

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Matching Code and Law: Achieving Algorithmic Fairness with Optimal Transport

By Meike Zehlike, Philipp Hacker, and Emil Wiedemann

Discrimination by algorithms is increasingly perceived as a societal and legal problem. In…

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How Do We Stop Digital Market Monopolies?

By Özlem Bedre-Defolie and Rainer Nitsche

New research which was conducted by BCCP Senior Fellow Özlem Bedre-Defolie

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Unlocking Online Reputation: On the Effectiveness of Cross-Platform Signaling in the Sharing Economy

By Timm Teubner, Marc T. P. Adam, and Florian Hawlitschek

Digital platforms are now pervasive in our daily lives, with two-sided markets emerging…

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Exposure to Inequality May Cause Under-Provision of Public Goods: Experimental Evidence

By Pablo-Brañas Garza, Elena Molis, and Levent Neyse

Economic inequality is usually associated with the unequal distribution of personal income or…

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How Minimum Wages and Consumer Preferences for Fair Treatment of Workers Interact

By David Danz, Dirk Engelmann, and Dorothea Kübler

The behavior of firms with respect to ethical issues, such as the treatment of workers or the…

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How Does a Nationwide Alcohol Ban Affect Injury-Related Mortality?

The Leniency Rule Revisited: Experiments on Cartel Formation with Open Communication

By Maximilian Andres, Lisa Bruttel, and Jana Friedrichsen

In most countries, agreements that are designed to distort competition, e.g. in the form…

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Risk Segmentation in the German Health Insurance Market

By Shan Huang and Martin Salm

With the Covid-19 pandemic placing additional financial burdens on health…

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Taxes on Unhealthy Food and Externalities in the Parental Choice of Children's Diet

By Zarko Kalamov and Marco Runkel

Childhood obesity is widespread in many countries. In the OECD, the prevalence of obesity among children is…

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Hidden Discrimination: The Importance of Identifying and Addressing all Forms of Discrimination

Antisocial Online Behavior Detection Using Deep Learning

By Elizaveta Zinovyeva, Wolfgang Karl Härdle, and Stefan Lessmann

The shift of communication to online platforms not only brings social and economic…

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Political Corruption in the Execution of Public Contracts

By Olga Chiappinelli

Public procurement - the purchasing of works, goods, and services by governments and other public authorities – accounts for…

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Transparency and Trust in Artificial Intelligence Systems

By Philipp Schmidt, Felix Biessmann and Timm Teubner

Many of us use Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems based on Machine Learning (ML) every day.…

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Did Border Controls Help?

By Matthias Eckardt, Kalle Kappner and Nikolaus Wolf

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Google/Fitbit Merger will Monetise Health Data and Harm Consumers

Patents, Data Exclusivity and the Development of New Drugs

By Fabian Gaessler and Stefan Wagner

With more than 100 vaccines against COVID-19 currently being developed across the world, a debate has been…

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Airbnb and Rents: Evidence from Berlin

By Tomaso Duso, Claus Michelsen, Maximilian Schaefer, and Kevin Ducbao Tran

Short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, are often suspected of causing…

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Online Advertising can Help NGOs Increase Donations

By Maja Adena and Anselm Hager

Online fundraising is on the rise. Until recently, however, little was known about whether advertisements on Facebook…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: The Face Mask Debate: Do we Need to be Afraid of Risk Compensation?

By Jana Friedrichsen and Yiming Liu

Over the course of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, strict lockdown policies have proved effective in slowing down the…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: Financial Resilience and the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Importance of Financial Literacy in Times of Crisis

By Jana Hamdan and Melanie Koch

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Earn More Tomorrow: Overconfidence, Income Expectations, and Consumer Indebtedness

By Antonia Grohmann, Lukas Menkhoff, Christoph Merkle, and Renke Schmacker

Overborrowing is a problem in many advanced economies. According to the…

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Merger Efficiency Gains: Evidence from a Large Transport Merger in France

By Ariane Charpin and Joanna Piechucka

Many industries are seeing an increase in market concentration, leading to a discussion on the effectiveness…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: Expectations and Covid-19 Policy Announcements

By Peter Haan, Andreas Peichl, Annekatrin Schrenker, Georg Weizsäcker and Joachim Winter

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Der Staat darf den Wettbewerb am Himmel nicht verzerren

Von Tomaso Duso

Dieser Artikel erschien am 04.05.2020 als Gastbeitrag im Tagesspiegel.

Die Corona-Pandemie hat den Luftverkehrssektor mit voller…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: Will Covid-19 Set the Stage for New Mergers in the Digital World? Time for Antitrust Authorities to Lend Special Attention to the Role of Data.

By Maximilian Schäfer

There is little doubt that the consequences of the lockdown induced by the Covid-19 pandemic would have been magnified in the…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: The Emission Drop due to Covid-19 does not Substitute for Climate Policy

By Aleksandar Zaklan

The measures taken by governments worldwide to slow the spread of COVID-19 have led to a drop in economic activity, with a…

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Don’t Expect Too Much - High Income Expectations and Over-Indebtedness

By Melanie Koch, Theres Klühs, and Wiebke Stein

Consumer over-indebtedness is a growing problem globally. The economic and social consequences are…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: Lotteries over Time

By Georg Weizsäcker

On March 4, the film studios MGM and Universal announced the postponement of the new James Bond film’s release (“No Time To Die”)…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: Health and Recessions

By Peter Haan

The coronavirus pandemic and the related shutdown of the society and economy will lead to a severe recession in most countries. It is…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: The Importance of (Non-Selective) Testing for Understanding the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

By Shan Huang

 Every day, we are confronted with new numbers on SARS-CoV-2 infection cases. We eagerly use these numbers to analyze recent…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: Euro Bonds and Moral Hazard

By Zarko Kalamov

The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures have hit many economic sectors and brought about the need for strong…

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BSE Insights on the Corona Crisis: A Prime Example of Policy Uncertainty

By Georg Weizsäcker

Many of the economic and societal impacts of SARS-CoV-2 are connected to a single policy measure: the “shutdown” that enforces…

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Only One Room Left! How Scarcity Cues Affect Booking Intentions on Hospitality Platforms

By Timm Teubner and Antje Graul

It is one of the oldest tricks in the book. While looking for accommodation on platforms such as Booking.com or…

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The More the Merrier? On the Optimality of Market Size Restrictions

By Colin von Negenborn - Version in Deutsch

Competition is commonly thought of as both economically and politically desirable, ensuring efficiency…

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We Value Your Privacy: Behavior-Based Pricing Under Endogenuous Privacy

By Friederike Heiny, Tianchi Li, and Michel Tolksdorf

In an age of Big Data and large-scale information acquisition, the EU General Data Protection…

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Green Public Procurement: Climate Provisions in Public Tenders Can Help Reduce German Carbon Emissions

By Olga Chiappinelli, Friedemann Gruner, and Gustav Weber

Given the large impact of their purchases, governments and other public authorities can…

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The Benefit of the Doubt: Willful Ignorance and Altruistic Punishment

By Robert Stüber - Version in Deutsch

A majority of people are willing to punish others for violating certain social norms. The willingness to punish…

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Fighting Climate Change with Disclosure? The Real Effects of Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Emission Disclosure

By Benedikt Downar, Jürgen Ernstberger, Hannes Rettenbacher, Sebastian Schwenen, and Aleksandar Zaklan

Mitigating climate change is one of the major…

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BCCP Director Özlem Bedre-Defolie awarded ERC Starting Grant

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a coveted Starting Grant to BCCP Director and Senior Fellow Özlem Bedre-Defolie, Associate Professor…

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The Rising Longevity Gap by Lifetime Earnings - Distributional Implications for the Pension System

By Peter Haan, Daniel Kemptner and Holger Lüthen

In most OCED countries, life expectancy has been strongly increasing over the last decades.   At the…

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Review: BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2019

Focusing on regulatory challenges in digital markets, in particular the rise of corporate power, the fourth annual Conference and Policy Forum of the…

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Battling Antibiotic Resistance: Can Machine Learning Improve Prescribing?

By Michael A. Ribers and Hannes Ullrich - Version in Deutsch

Antibiotic resistance is a major health policy challenge. As resistance has developed to…

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Beliefs as a Means of Self-Control? Evidence from a Dynamic Student Survey

By Tobias König, Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch and Georg Weizsäcker - Version in Deutsch

The development of a behavioral model capturing how…

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Panic Induced by an Epidemic can Drastically Affect Everyday Life

By Kai Barron, Luis F. Gamboa and Paul Rodriguez-Lesmes

Confronted by a widespread epidemic (e.g. Dengue, Ebola or Zika virus), people must decide…

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Diffusion of Compliance in Neighborhood Networks

By Francescos Drago, Friederike Mengel and Christian Traxler

Measures that induce people to comply with laws can encourage others in their…

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25 Years of European Merger Control

By Pauline Affeldt, Tomaso Duso and Florian Szücs

Competition policy, i.e. the design and enforcement of competition rules ensuring that companies…

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Static or Dynamic Efficiency: Horizontal Merger Effects in the Wireless Telecommunications Industry

By Michał Grajek, Klaus Gugler, Tobias Kretschmer and Ion Mişcişin

In this paper, BCCP Senior Fellow Michał Grajek and his co-authors Klaus Gugler, T…

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How Mobility of R&D Workers Opens New Avenues

By Stefan Wagner and Martin C. Goossen

R&D employees moving from one employer to another is a frequent, yet controversial, event. On the one hand,…

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BlackRock or Blockdrug? Common Ownership Reduces Market Entry of Generic Drugs

By Albert Banal-Estanol, Melissa Newham, and Jo Seldeslachts

Investors’ holdings in multiple firms give rise to what is known as “common ownership.”…

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Donations over Time are Substitutes but Habit Formation is also Important

By Maja Adena and Steffen Huck

 

There are numerous ways to encourage charitable giving, ranging from simple solicitations to complex incentive…

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Moderne Schlachthöfe unter der Lupe

Von Jana Friedrichsen, Steffen Huck, Amanda Coulson-Drasner, Paula Ellguth, Marjam Fels und Jana Hamdan

Rund 750 Millionen Tiere werden in…

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Kommissarin Vestager hat die Alstom-Siemens Fusion gestoppt: Wenn man Recht hat und dazu noch für Europa alles richtig macht

Von Tomaso Duso

Es war der innigste Wunsch der Politik: Die Zugsparten der Giganten Alstom und Siemens sollten heiraten. Der französische…

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Special Focus: Privacy

Personal data protection has surged to the center of the policy debate, leading to the introduction of the EU General Data Protection Regulation…

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Paternalistic Taxation of Unhealthy Food and the Intensive versus Extensive Margin of Obesity

By Zarko Kalamov and Marco Runkel

Obesity is one of the most pressing health problems worldwide. For example, in the US more than one third (38.2%)…

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EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager meets BCCP Fellows and Students

On November 19, 2018, EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who has lead the Directorate General for Competition since 2014, visited DIW Berlin and BCCP…

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Frauen werden bei der Ausbildungssuche diskriminiert

Von Dorothea KüblerJulia Schmid und Robert Stüber - Go to English version

Obwohl sich die Arbeitsmarktbedingungen von Männern und Frauen…

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Can a Bonus Overcome Moral Hazard? Experimental Evidence from Markets for Expert Services

By Vera Angelova and Tobias Regner

Expert financial advice can hurt clients if the interests of advisors and clients are not aligned. For instance,…

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How Social Image Concerns Can Reduce Welfare Take-Up

By Jana Friedrichsen, Tobias Koenig, and Renke Schmacker

Non take-up of social benefits is a major challenge for many welfare systems. While a number…

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Gigabit-Netze für alle – ja, aber Prioritäten setzen: Kommentar

In der besten aller möglichen Welten wird es in Deutschland im Jahr 2022 Glasfaser für alle, überall, und keine Funklöcher mehr…

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BCCP Fellow Hannes Ullrich awarded ERC Starting Grant

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a coveted Starting Grant to BCCP Fellow and Coordinator Hannes Ullrich, Research Associate at the DIW…

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Review: BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2018

Focusing on regulatory challenges in digital markets, in particular trust online, the third annual Conference and Policy Forum of the Berlin Centre…

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Softdrinksteuer: Proportionale Steuer ist der vielversprechendste Ansatz

Von Renke Schmacker - Go to English version

Hoher Zuckerkonsum wird vielfach für die hohe und zunehmende Prävalenz von Adipositas, Diabetes Typ II…

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The Effect of Big Data on Recommendation Quality: The Example of Internet Search

By Maximilian Schaefer, Geza Sapi, and Szabolcs Lorincz

Machine learning applications are becoming increasingly important in many industries.…

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Does a Short-Term Increase in Incentives Boost Performance?

By Vera Angelova, Thomas Giebe, and Radosveta Ivanova-Stenzel

Short-term changes in employee incentives are a common way of responding to temporary…

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On the Behavioral Effects of Deadlines – and their Implications for Policy Design

By Christian Traxler

Deadlines are omnipresent and govern important economic decisions at the workplace or in consumer markets. While deadlines are…

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What Smoking Bans tell us about Optimal Product Diversity

By Renaud Foucart

Is it possible that a competitive market fails to supply the type of good or service desired by a majority of people? There is at…

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Ein schlechter Tag für den Wettbewerb in der Luft

Von Tomaso Duso

Mit dem nun besiegelten Verkauf großer Teiler der insolventen Air Berlin an die Lufthansa wurde die Chance vertan, den deutschen…

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Bestechungsbekämpfung mit Montagsmodellen - wie die Spieltheorie einen Keil in die Kollusion treibt

Von Colin von Negenborn

Vielen ökonomischen Problemen liegt zugrunde, dass Informationen ungleich zwischen den beteiligten Akteuren verteilt sind.…

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Die Monsanto-Übernahme durch Bayer – es geht um den Wettbewerb!

Von Tomaso Duso

Die Europäische Kommission hat nun ihre erste Entscheidung getroffen und eine eingehende Prüfung der geplanten Übernahme von Monsanto…

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Einfluss von Qualitätszertifikaten auf das Spendenverhalten

Von Maja Adena und Julian Harke - Go to English version

Die Gesellschaft insgesamt, wie auch die politischen Akteure und Spender im Besonderen,…

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Die höchste Strafe in der Geschichte des EU Kartellrechts: Was bedeutet der Fall Google?

Von Tomaso Duso und Hannes Ullrich

Nach sieben Jahren und viel Gemunkel ist es raus: Google muss knapp 2,4 Milliarden Euro Strafe wegen des…

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Review: BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2017

Focusing on the regulatory challenges in digital markets, algorithms and platform competition, the second annual Conference and Policy Forum of the…

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The Quantity-Quality Tradeoff in Procurement under Budget Constraints

By Vincent Meisner

In many settings, a procurer has a fixed budget to spend on projects that differ in their value and cost. Under full information,…

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Der freigiebige Verbraucher

In der Ära der Digitalisierung schwindet die Privatsphäre – wie auch der Datenschutz

Von Dorothea Kübler

Zusammenfassung

Ist die Privatsphäre noch…

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New Regulatory Strategies for Data-Driven Markets

The ubiquitous use of advanced data mining technology in consumer markets not only threatens privacy, but it may also…

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Call for Papers: Stubsen und Schubsen (Nudging) - ein neues verhaltensbasiertes Regulierungskonzept

Täglich lässt sich beobachten, dass sich Verbraucherinnen und Verbraucher nicht systematisch ökonomisch rational verhalten. Laut Verhaltensforschung…

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Matching Donations without Crowding Out?

By Maja Adena

Matched fundraising, in which a large donor tops up individual donations according to some scheme, is popular among charitable…

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Should we Enforce Strict Network Neutrality?

By Pio Baake and Slobodan Sudaric

In November 2015 the European Union passed regulation on open internet access providing a legislative answer to the…

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Legal Uncertainty as a Selective Deterrent

By Matthias Lang

Legal uncertainty is prevalent. Consider uncertainty about the legality of a specific action: when taking the action, a firm does…

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How Buyers Avoid a Negative Self-Image when Asked to Donate and What it Means for Fundraisers

How we behave when asked for donations while buying concert tickets online 

By Maja Adena

People like to think about themselves in good terms. When…

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How to Design E-Procurement Systems for Public Procurement under the Threat of Corruption?

By Andreas Asseyer

Many essential goods such as infrastructure, security or health services are provided by public institutions. The consumers of…

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Crowdfunding, Unsicherheit über die Nachfrage am Markt und Moral Hazard

Von Roland Strausz

Zu seiner sich im American Economic Review im Erscheinen befindenden Forschungsarbeit "A Theory of Crowdfunding - A Mechanism…

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Fusion Microsoft und LinkedIn: Die Zusammenführung der Nutzerdaten steht bevor

Ein Gastbeitrag von Nicola Jentzsch im Tagesspiegel

Die nächste Großfusion in der IT-Welt steht vor der Tür: Microsoft hat im Juni den Kauf des…

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Jetzt die Versandapotheken verbieten? Bitte nicht!

Ein Gastbeitrag von Tomaso Duso im Handelsblatt

Der Europäische Gerichtshof (EuGH) hat vergangene Woche die Preisbindung für rezeptpflichtige…

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Was wir über Steuern auf Softdrinks wissen

Von Renke Schmacker

Es wird kontrovers diskutiert, ob Regierungen die Bürger durch fiskalische Konsumsteuerung zu einer gesünderen Lebensweise…

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"Shopping for a better world" only Partially Effective

By Jana Friedrichsen

More and more consumers are turning to ecological and fair trade products. In Germany, sales of organic products amounted to…

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Big Data: a Challenge for Financial Supervisors and Data Protection Authorities

By Nicola Jentzsch

An increasing number of FinTech companies in the EU and the US offer creditworthiness analyses based upon Big Data. Big Data…

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Open Access Policy in Broadband Benefits Consumers

By Mattia Nardotto

Under an open access policy, incumbent broadband providers in all EU countries are required to let new market entrants access…

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Review: BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2016

Focusing on digital markets and consumer privacy, the first annual Conference and Policy Forum of the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP) was…

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