https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/19292 Mon, 27 Apr 2026 15:27:34 GMT 2026-04-27T15:27:34Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/19812 Adaptation, anticipation-bias and optimal income taxation Aronsson, Thomas; Schöb, Ronnie Adaptation is omnipresent but people systematically fail to correctly anticipate the degree to which they adapt. This leads individuals to make inefficient intertemporal decisions. This paper concerns optimal income taxation to correct for such anticipation-biases in a framework where consumers adapt to earlier consumption levels through a habit-formation process. The analysis is based on a general equilibrium OLG model with endogenous labor supply and savings where each consumer lives for three periods. Our results show how a paternalistic government may correct for the effects of anticipation-bias through a combination of time-variant marginal labor income taxes and savings subsidies. Furthermore, the optimal policy mix remains the same, irrespective of whether consumers commit to their original life-time plan for work hours and savings decided upon in the first period of life or re-optimize later on when realizing the failure to adapt. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/19812 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/19759 Anglo-Dutch premium auctions in eighteenth-century Amsterdam Bochove, Christiaan van; Boerner, Lars; Quint, Daniel This paper studies Anglo-Dutch premium auctions used in the secondary market for financial securities in eighteenth-century Amsterdam, Europe's financial capital at the time. An Anglo-Dutch premium auction consists of an English auction followed by a Dutch auction, with a cash premium paid to the winner of the first round regardless of the second-round outcome. To rationalize the introduction and continued use of this auction format, we need to determine whether bidding behavior was consistent with equilibrium play. We model this auction format theoretically, and show that the likelihood of a bid in the second round should be higher when there is greater uncertainty about the value of the security being sold. We then test this prediction on data from 16,854 securities sold at auction on 469 days over an 18-year period in the late 1700s; using several different proxies for the uncertainty of a given security's value, we find support for this theoretical prediction. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/19759 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/20115 Are remittances a substitute for credit? Ambrosius, Christian The assumption that remittances are a substitute for credit has been an implicit or explicit theoretical foundation of many empirical studies on remittances. This paper directly tests this assumption by comparing the response to health-related shocks among national and transnational households using panel data from Mexico for 2002 and 2005. While the occurrence of serious health shocks that required hospital treatment doubled the average debt burden of exposed households compared to the control group, households with nuclear family members (a parent, child, or spouse) in the US did not increase their debts due to health shocks. This finding is consistent with the view that remittances respond to households’ demand for financing emergencies and make them less reliant on debt-financing. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/20115 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/19918 Are remittances a ‘catalyst’ for financial access? Ambrosius, Christian In policy discussions, it has frequently been claimed that migrants’ remittances could function as a ‘catalyst’ for financial access among receiving households. This paper provides empirical evidence on this hypothesis from Mexico, a major receiver of remittances worldwide. Using the Mexican Family Life Survey panel (MxFLS) for 2002 and 2005, the results from the fixed effects logit model show that receiving remittances is strongly correlated with the ownership of savings accounts and, to some degree, with the availability of borrowing options. These effects are more important for rural households than for urban households and are more important for microfinance institutions, than for traditional banks. Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/19918 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z