We describe a mechanism for government taking under uncertainty that provides incentives for governments to make efficient taking decisions and for property owners to use their properties efficiently. We argue that efficiency in takings requires that governments not only pay the value of...

When urban renewal projects require that smaller parcels be assembled into a single large one, owners who hold out for higher prices may either prevent or significantly delay socially efficient redevelopment. Local governments seeking private redevelopment currently have only the choice between...

The efficiency of mechanisms to control CO2 emissions is limited by disagreement about the harm from these emissions. Thus existing emission control mechanisms require negotiated compromise regarding either the efficient price or the level of emissions to be tolerated. As an alternative to...

A decomposition of aggregate labor productivity based on internationally comparable data reveals that a high share of employment and low labor productivity in agriculture are mainly responsible for low aggregate productivity in poor countries. Using a two-sector general-equilibrium model, we...

When three or more individuals with disparate talents form a business partnership, they may find it difficult to agree on how their profits will be divided. This paper explores a rule for dividing the profits that depends only on the partners' estimates of the relative contributions of other...

Transportation improvements tend to raise property values. But how do they affect the two components of property value, land and buildings? We develop a simple model to show that transportation improvements that raise the value of land generally lower the value of existing buildings. Our model...

We trace the developments that led to quadratic voting, from Vickrey's counterspeculation mechanism and his second-price auction through the family of Groves mechanisms and its most notable member, the Clarke mechanism, to the expected externality mechanism, the Groves-Ledyard mechanism, and the...

In the context of the example of a factory whose smoke emissions affect a near-by laundry, Coase (1960) argued for taxing the laundry as well as the factory, while Baumol (1972) argued for taxing only the factory. The literature on bilateral taxation during the past 40 years has not fully...