https://hdl.handle.net/10419/111755 Fri, 13 Nov 2026 20:41:07 GMT 2026-11-13T20:41:07Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/251220 Title: Tax Amnesties and the Insurance Effect: An Experimental Study Authors: Koch, Christian; Müller, Cornelius Abstract: Many countries grant exemption from legal prosecution under certain conditions, allowing for voluntary disclosures regarding tax evasion. Empirically, tax amnesties appear most successful when accompanied by an increase in enforcement efforts because they help evaders to adjust to the new circumstances. Time-limited amnesties are often repeated or in some countries even permanent. Anticipated tax amnesties can, however, serve as an insurance against a rise in the detection probability, potentially leading to less and not more tax compliance. We test the relevance of this insurance effect in an experimental tax game and disentangle it from an effect on tax morale, i.e., non-pecuniary motives to comply. We ftnd that the former effect indeed decreases overall tax compliance by about 7-10 percent, showing its relevance for the design of tax policies. A high predictability of amnesties may work to their detriment. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10419/251220 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/112979 Title: Public Debt, Bailouts and Common Bonds Authors: Kalamov, Zarko; Staal, Klaas Abstract: We look at a model where countries of di fferent size provide local public goods with positive spillovers. Matching grants can induce socially-e fficient expenditure levels, but countries can induce bailouts. We consider the characteristics of these bailouts in a subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium and how these characteristics are a ffected by the introduction of common bonds. Partial substitution of common for sovereign bonds has two implications. First, it lowers the average and marginal borrowing costs of countries, which may be eligible for bailouts. This eff ect leads to higher borrowing in these countries irrespective of their bailout expectations. Second, the lower borrowing costs mitigate the incentives of countries to induce a bailout and, therefore, constrain parameter set for which a soft budget constraint equilibrium exists. Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10419/112979 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/112966 Title: The El Farol Problem Revisited Authors: Böhm, Volker Abstract: This note shows that in a large class of El Farol models the failure of agents to find rational prediction rules which stabilize is not due to a non-existence of perfect rules, but rather to the failure of agents to identify the correct class of predictors from which the perfect ones can be chosen. What appears as a need to search for boundedly rational predictors originates from the non existence of stable confirming self-referential orbits induced by predictors selected from the wrong class. Specifically, it is shown that, within a specified class of the model and due to a structural non-convexity (or discontinuity), symmetric Nash equilibria of the associated static game may fail to exist generically depending on the utility level of the outside option. If they exist, they may induce the least desired outcome while, generically, asymmetric equilibria are uniquely determined by a positive maximal rate of attendance. The sequential setting turns the static game into a dynamic economic law of the Cobweb type for which there always exist nontrivial epsilon-perfect predictors implementing epsilon-perfect steady states as stable outcomes. If zero participation is a Nash equilibrium of the game there exists a unique perfect predictor implementing the trivial equilibrium as a stable steady state. In general, Nash equilibria of the one-shot game are among the $\epsilon-$perfect foresight steady states of the dynamic model. If agents randomize in an i.i.d. fashion over indifferent decisions the induced random Cobweb law together with recursive predictors becomes an iterated function system (IFS). There exist unbiased predictors with associated stable stationary solutions for appropriate randomizations supporting nonzero asymmetric equilibria which are not mixed Nash equilibria of the one-shot game. However, the least desired outcome remains as the unique stable stationary outcome for epsilon=0 if it is a Nash equilibrium of the static game. Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10419/112966 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/113146 Title: Political conflict, child mental health, and cognitive development Authors: Jürges, Hendrik; Schwarz, Alexandra Abstract: Children living in the occupied Palestinian territories are exposed to poverty as well as continued physical and psychological violence and human rights violations, leading to low levels of mental health compared to children in Western countries. We use test score and survey data on approximately 4,000 students in grades 5 to 9 in the West Bank to study the effect of poor mental health on cognitive development. We show that low cognitive test scores are significantly linked with measures of mental health such as the Birleson depression self-rating scale or the parent-rated Strengths and Difficulties (SDQ) scores also after controlling for a wide range of potential confounders. Using self-reported exposure to potentially traumatizing events related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as instruments for the prevalence of mental health problems, we find evidence for a causal link between mental health and cognitive development. Since our estimators identify the effect only for those whose exposure to potentially traumatizing events has impaired their mental health (non-resilient types), we find IV estimates that are substantially larger than OLS estimates. We conclude that physical and psychological violence related to political conflict harms children's mental health and thus impairs their cognitive development. Although in the long run, addressing the underlying causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is preferable, the results of this study call for short-term measures to improve the mental health and thus the cognitive ability of Palestinian children, such as increased availability of psychiatric counseling in schools and communities. Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10419/113146 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z