We contrast and compare three ways of predicting efficiency in a forced contribution threshold public good game. The three alternatives are based on ordinal potential, quantal response and impulse balance theory. We report an experiment designed to test the respective predictions and find that...

We provide a general theoretical characterization of how technology choice affects the long-run elasticity of substitution between capital and labour. While the shape of the technology frontier determines the long-run growth path and the long-run elasticity, adjustment costs in technology choice...

The recent increase in the breath of computational methodologies has been matched with a corresponding increase in the difficulty of comparing the relative explanatory power of models from different methodological lineages. In order to help address this problem a universal information criterion...

This paper evaluates the effects of policy interventions on sectoral labour markets and the aggregate economy in a business cycle model with search and matching frictions. We extend the canonical model by including capital-skill complementarity in production, labour markets with skilled and...

We present a model of transnational terrorism where two countries, home and foreign, face a terrorist threat based in the foreign country. The home country chooses how much to invest in defending itself or in reducing terrorist resources either indirectly by subsidising the foreign country or by...

DSGE models are typically estimated assuming the existence of certain structural shocks that drive macroeconomic fluctuations. We analyze the consequences of introducing nonfundamental shocks for the estimation of DSGE model parameters and propose a method to select the structural shocks driving...

The present paper aims to test a new model comparison methodology by calibrating and comparing three agent-based models of financial markets on the daily returns of 18 indices. The models chosen for this empirical application are the herding model of Gilli & Winker, its asymmetric version by...

Self-help groups (SHGs) are the most common form of microfinance in India. We provide evidence that SHGs, composed of women only, undertake collective actions for the provision of public goods. Using a theoretical model, we show that an elected official, whose aim is to maximise re-election...

Using a Mortensen-Pissarides search-and-matching framework, this paper investigates the importance of search frictions in determining the welfare and distributional effects of tax reforms that re-allocate the tax burden from capital to labour income. Calibrating the model to the UK economy, we...

This paper proposes an explanation for observed differences in the business cycle volatility of employment and unemployment across a sample of OECD countries. Using an incomplete markets variant of the fair wage real business cycle model, increases in the gross replacement rate of public...