The regulator of a natural monopoly that sets a two-part tariff and whose marginal cost is stochastic will generally want the price to vary less than marginal cost when the lump-sum charge in the tariff is fixed. A trade-off exists between efficient pricing and an optimal allocation of risk....

The paper shows how commodity taxes can provide insurance to consumers when the producer price is volatile. Specific and ad valorem taxes have differing roles. The optimal specific tax is positive when demand has some elasticity. The optimal ad valorem rate is zero when demand is unit-elastic,...

Sufficient conditions are developed for third-degree price discrimination by a monopolist serving all markets to reduce and raise social welfare.  Welfare falls if the demand function in the market whose price is higher with discrimination is at least as convex as that in the other market (at...

The paper assesses the welfare effects of different ways of allocating input price risk between a regulated utility, consumers and speculators in a futures market. A risk-averse utility setting a fixed retail price requires a price that exceeds expected marginal cost, unless an efficient futures...

The effects of demand shifts on output, price and profits in imperfectly competitive industries with no entry or exit are derived. Four types of demand shift are modelled: additive and multiplicative shifts of the demand and inverse demand functions. Necessary and sufficient conditions for...

The welfare effects of third-degree price discrimination are known to be negative when demand functions are linear, marginal cost is constant and all markets are served. This paper shows that discrimination lowers welfare for a more general class of demand functions. Demand varies across markets...

This paper presents simple conditions for monopoly third-degree price discrimination to have negative or positive effects on aggregate consumer surplus.  Consumer surplus is often reduced by discrimination, for example when total welfare (consumer surplus and profits) falls.  Surplus increases...

There has been a dramatic surge in Islamic participation and values since the 1970s.  We propose a theory of the contemporary Islamic revival based upon two forms of relative deprivation - envy and unfulfilled aspirations.  To analyze these motivations, a behavioral model of religion is...

Game harmony is a generic game property that can be used to predict cooperation in both generic and well-known normal form games. It describes how harmonious (non-conflictual) or disharmonious (conflictual) the interests of players are, as embodied in the payoffs. Pure coordination games are...

It is often claimed that large buyers wield buyer power.  Existing theories of this effect generally assume upstream monopoly.  Yet the evidence is strongest with upstream competition.  We show that upstream competition can yield buyer power for large buyers by generating supplier-level...