Even relatively poor people oppose high rates of redistribution because of the anticipation that they, or their children, may move up the income ladder. This ‘Prospect of Upward Mobility’ (POUM) hypothesis is commonly advanced to explain why democracies do not engage in large-scale...

What shapes the optimal degree of progressivity of the tax and transfer system? On the one hand, a progressive tax system can counteract inequality in initial conditions and substitute for imperfect private insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk. At the same time, progressivity reduces...

Price volatility, reflecting the ability to absorb exogenous supply- or demand shocks, is an important dimension of market performance. In this paper we present a model to study the factors determining the price volatility of markets of basic foodstuffs in pre industrial societies. This model is...

Previous research shows that firms shroud high add-on prices in competitive markets with naive consumers leading to inefficiency. We analyze the effects of regulatory intervention via educating naive consumers on equilibrium prices and welfare. Our model allows firms to shroud, unshroud, or...

The Paper analyses the funding of an infrastructure project (high speed train line, platform, tunnel, harbor, regional airport, fibre-to-the-home network, etc.) in a situation in which an incumbent operator has private information about market profitability (demand, cost) and the infrastructure...

We develop a general theoretical framework of trade on a platform on which buyers and sellers interact. The platform may be owned by a single large, or many small independent or vertically integrated intermediaries. There also may be free entry into the market for platform slots, or platform...

This paper examines Norwegian gasoline pump prices using daily station-specific observations from March 2003 to March 2006. Whereas studies that have analyzed similar price cycles in other countries find support for the Edgeworth cycle theory (Maskin and Tirole, 1988), we demonstrate that...

We develop a multi-period model of strategic trading in an asset market where traders are uncertain about market liquidity. In our model, informed traders strategically trade against competitive market makers to exploit their short-lived private information. Unlike market makers, informed...

New Keynesian literature assumes symmetric industrial structure when analysing explanations of monetary non-neutrality. We analyse the impact of modifying this assumption by allowing for a mixed industrial structure; some industries are characterized by monopolistic competition, and others by...

We analyze whether and how the fact that products are not sold on open or public platforms but on competing for-profit platforms affects sellers’ investment incentives. Investments in cost reduction, quality, or marketing measures are here the joint and coordinated efforts by sellers. We show...