There is a widespread concern that a greater mobility of individuals can undermine any attempt to redistribute income at the local level. In this paper we derive the equilibrium level of redistribution when both the rich and the poor are mobile (although in different degrees) and when each...

Corruption, evasion and the abuse of power (and the possibility thereof) are pervasive features of economic activity. A prominent instance is tax collection. This paper examines the implications of corruptibility and the potential abuse of authority for the effects and optimal design of...

This paper examines the intragenerational redistribution aspect of social security. The level of social security is determined by majority voting between individuals who differ (ex-ante) in their earning ability and life expectancy. Given incentive effects, the voting equilibrium depends on...

Income-based targeting (or means-testing) reduces social security benefits as income rises. This form of targeting entails a well-known incentive distortion; the prospect for the recipients of losing part of their benefits if they were to earn more can deter them to work harder. In this paper,...

We consider a tax enforcement game in which the fiscal authority cannot pre-commit to an inspection policy and its interaction with the taxpayer is modelled as a signalling game. We extend earlier work by allowing for imperfect auditing, non-linear taxation and non-linear penalties. Using the...

In a context where both the poor and the rich are (imperfectly) mobile, this paper compares the Nash equilibrium levels of income redistribution from the rich to the poor when jurisdictions compete either in taxes, in transfers or both. Although taxes and transfers are linked through the...

We analyse a simple model of dynamic moral hazard in which there is a clear and tractable trade-off between static and dynamic incentives. In our model, a principal wants an agent to complete a project. The agent undertakes unobservable effort, which affects in each period the probability that...

This paper analyses a two-player game of strategic experimentation with two-armed bandits.At least one of the arms is risky in the sense that it may not yield a lumpsum payoff. There is payoff externality between the players and they differ in their ability to learn across the risky arm. Either...

A stylized macroeconomic model is developed with an indebted, heterogeneous Investment Banking Sector funded by borrowing from a retail banking sector. The government guarantees retail deposits. Investment banks choose how risky their activities should be. We find that the financial sector can...

We consider a model of financial intermediation with a monopolistic competition market structure. A non-monotonic relationship between the risk measured as a probability of default and the degree of competition is established.