Three essays in economics

Abstract

This thesis contains three essays in different fields of economics. The first essay is about microfinance and inflation in low-income countries. The second essay examines doping behavior of heterogeneous athletes in an environment of private information. The third essay estimates substitution elasticities for Swiss manufacturing industries between production factors. Chapter 1, entitled “A General Equilibrium Analysis of Inflation and Microfinance in Developing Countries”, analyses the welfare effects of microfinance and inflation in developing countries. Therefore, we introduce a moral hazard problem into a monetary search model with money and credit. We show how access to basic financial services affects households’ decisions to borrow, to save and to hold money balances. The group lending mechanism of the microfinance institution induces peer monitoring, which in turn enables entrepreneurship. Our main result is that there exists an inflation threshold beyond which entrepreneurship collapses. We show that inflation affects the impact of microfinance on social welfare in a nonlinear way. The positive effect of microfinance is largest for moderate rates of inflation and drops substantially for inflation rates above the threshold. Chapter 2, entitled “The Doping Threshold in Sport Contests”, analyzes the doping behavior of heterogeneous athletes in an environment of private information. In a n-player strategic game, modeled as an all-pay auction, each athlete has private information about his actual physical ability and choses the amount of performance-enhancing drugs. The use of doping substances is costly but not further regulated. The main finding of the analysis is the existence of a doping threshold. In our leading case only strong athletes dope. The level of the doping threshold is increasing in the doping costs and decreasing in the prize level. Furthermore, increasing the number of athletes affects the doping decision in two ways. More competition increases the incentives to dope for strong athletes. At the same time, we find a discouragement effect for weak athletes. Chapter 3, entitled “Energy Policy Challenges and the Input Mix in Swiss Manufacturing”, analyses the substitutability patterns of manufacturing industries in Switzerland. Switzerland’s energy policy is faced by unseen challenges owing to the scheduled nuclear phase-out and the continuation of the Kyoto protocol. As a small open economy, effects of unilateral energy policies on manufacturing industries may be especially relevant for Switzerland. However, estimates of sectoral substitution elasticities between input factors used to address important questions in this context do not exist for Swiss manufacturing. We close this gap by using a newly assembled data set covering the period from 1997 to 2008 and by estimating substitution elasticities employing a translog cost function. Moreover, we examine the implications of energy price increases putting emphasis on the input mix in Swiss manufacturing industries.