In this paper we use a simple climate model with endogenous environmental technical change in order to analyse the effects on equity and efficiency of different degrees of restrictions on trade in the market for pollution permits. The model is obtained by incorporating in Nordhaus and Yang...

The Paper builds a simplified model describing the economy of a currency union with decentralized national fiscal policy, where the main features characterizing the policy-making are similar to those in EMU. National governments choose the size of deficit taking into account the two main rules...

When credit markets to finance investment in the human capital of young people are missing, the competitive equilibrium allocation is inefficient. When generations overlap, this failure can be mitigated by properly designed social institutions such as public education and public pensions. We...

Why have state-owned firms been so common? One explanation, proposed in the past, is that if state firms can be induced to maximize pretax profits, then state ownership may be less inefficient than private ownership when corporate tax rates are high. If this argument were right, the capital...

This Paper considers the optimal design of public pension provision for the retired and income support for those of working age. We consider social security systems that differ in terms of the level of benefits, degree of means testing and the nature of contributions. We aim to find which system...

Commentators have often linked the increase in births in France since 1995 to more generous family benefits. We study here empirically the link between fertility and financial incentives by estimating and simulating a joint structural model of participation and fertility on a sample of French...

In this Paper, we investigate the relation between public and private consumption, by constructing a general government spending dataset, by function, for twelve European Union countries. In particular, we split government consumption into two categories. The first category includes defence,...

This Paper examines recent theoretical developments in the theory of coalition stability. It focuses on the relationship between the incentives to defect from a coalition, the size of the resulting equilibrium coalition structure and the different assumptions on membership rules, coalition...

Even though financial markets today show a high degree of integration, the world capital market is still far from the textbook story of high capital mobility. The failure to have a tax scheme in which the rate of returns across countries are equated can result in inefficient capital flows across...

The Stability and Growth Pact is under fire. Problems have appeared in sticking to the rules. Proposals to reform the Pact or ditch it altogether abound. But is the Pact a flawed fiscal rule? Against established criteria for an ideal fiscal rule, its design and compliance mechanisms fare...