EconStor Community: University of Erfurt, Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213
University of Erfurt, Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences2024-03-29T11:42:48ZDesign a contract! : A simple principal-agent problem as a classroom experiment
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/23944
Title: Design a contract! : A simple principal-agent problem as a classroom experiment
Authors: Gächter, Simon; Königstein, Manfred
Abstract: We present a simple classroom principal-agent experiment that can effectively be used as a teaching device to introduce important concepts of organizational economics and contracting. In a first part, students take the role of a principal and design a contract that consists of a fixed payment and an incentive component. In the second part, students take the role of agents and decide on an effort level. The experiment can be used to introduce students to the concepts of efficiency, incentive compatibility, outside options and participation constraints, the Coase theorem, and fairness and reciprocity in contracting.2006-01-01T00:00:00ZThe German Federal Court of Audit's observations of and comments on tax administration and tax compliance
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/23945
Title: The German Federal Court of Audit's observations of and comments on tax administration and tax compliance
Authors: Schöbel, Enrico
Abstract: Auditing institutions, such as the German Federal Court of Audit (BRH), provide information on public revenue and public spending. The question of how to increase tax compliance has been of frequent interest. Unfortunately, information from German taxpayers? declaration behaviour (beyond the official income statistics and tax statistics) was neither systematically collected, nor otherwise made accessible for systematic research. However, the BRH selectively observes taxpayers? and tax administrators? behaviour and, on the basis of its audit experiences, comments on tax enforcement and tax compliance. Such recommendations are not just increasingly given by the BRH, but also increasingly considered in political decision making processes. Although the findings are not a representative sample of the German taxpayers? behaviour, they make up available information on tax compliance behaviour in Germany and, therefore, are worth discussing in light of modern economic theories of tax compliance. The reported facts are an appropriate foundation of case studies.2006-01-01T00:00:00ZThe Stochastics of Threshold Accepting: Analysis of an Application to the Uniform Design Problem
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/23940
Title: The Stochastics of Threshold Accepting: Analysis of an Application to the Uniform Design Problem
Authors: Winker, Peter
Abstract: Threshold Accepting (TA) is a powerful optimization heuristic from the class of stochastic local search algorithms. It has been applied successfully to different optimization problems in statistics and econometrics, including the uniform design problem. Using the latter application as example, the stochastic properties of a TA implementation are analyzed. We provide a formal framework for the analysis of optimization heuristics like TA, which can be used to estimate lower bounds and to derive convergence results. It is also helpful for tuning real applications. Based on this framework, empirical results are presented for the uniform design problem. In particular, for two problem instances, the rate of convergence of the algorithm is estimated to be of the order of a power of -0.3 to -0.7 of the number of iterations.2005-01-01T00:00:00ZThe convergence of optimization based estimators : theory and application to a GARCH-model
https://hdl.handle.net/10419/23941
Title: The convergence of optimization based estimators : theory and application to a GARCH-model
Authors: Winker, Peter; Maringer, Dietmar
Abstract: The convergence of estimators, e.g. maximum likelihood estimators, for increasing sample size is well understood in many cases. However, even when the rate of convergence of the estimator is known, practical application is hampered by the fact, that the estimator cannot always be obtained at tenable computational cost. This paper combines the analysis of convergence of the estimator itself with the analysis of the convergence of stochastic optimization algorithms, e.g. threshold accepting, to the theoretical estimator. We discuss the joint convergence of estimator and algorithm in a formal framework. An application to a GARCH-model demonstrates the approach in practice by estimating actual rates of convergence through a large scale simulation study. Despite of the additional stochastic component introduced by the use of an optimization heuristic, the overall quality of the estimates turns out to be superior compared to conventional approaches.2005-01-01T00:00:00Z