7 Acknowledgments First of all I would like to thank my adviser Charles B. Blankart for his guidance, criticism and great support during the development of this work. I also want to thank my second adviser Helmut Gründl for his insightful remarks. I am grateful to my former colleagues from the School of Business and Economics at Humboldt-University, Lisa Bruttel, Erik Fasten, Christoph Gorgas, Stephanie Kettler, Simon Margraf, Christoph Priesmeier, Robert Schmidt and especially Gerrit Köster for many helpful ideas and suggestions. Special thanks also to Guido Raddatz for long and illuminative discussions and to Michaela Blankart for her humorous and amicable encouragement whenever it was needed. Thanks are also due to Ulrich Kamecke and Peter S. Zweifel for helpful comments and to Ken Heigh for checking my language. I am thankful for the comments I received from participants of the Annual Meeting of the European Public Choice Society in Durham 2005 and in Turku 2006; of the 5th International Conference on Health Economics, Management and Policy in Athens 2006; and of the Annual Congress of the Verein für Socialpolitik in Bayreuth 2006. Financially support by the Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Gesellschaft an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin e.V. is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to express my gratitude to my parents Myoung-Soo and Horst Wolf and to my sister Yvonne for their endless understanding and encouragement at all times. Finally, I am forever indebted to Kirsten whose patient love enabled me to complete this work. 8