We propose a new, easy-to-implement, class of payment rules, "Reference Rules," to make core-selecting package auctions more robust. Small, almost riskless, profitable deviations from "truthful bidding" are often easy for bidders to find under currently-used payment rules. Reference Rules...

This paper evaluates the determination of receipts from EU budget by considering a richer institutional structure than in earlier studies. We assume that the member states have self-interested objectives in CM trying to minimize their contributions within the given framework of the EU budget...

We investigate the outcome of bargaining when a player’s pay-off from agreement is risky. We find that a risk-averse player typically increases his equilibrium receipts when his pay-off is made risky. This is because the presence of risk makes individuals behave 'more patiently' in bargaining....

This paper assesses the current distribution of voting power in the EU Council of Ministers in terms of fairness. The aim of this paper is three-fold. First, we define fairness in the European context and discuss the potential definitions of the European Union; a state, an association of states...

We analyse the interaction of asymmetric industries in international vertically related markets. Each downstream firm bargains efficiently with its domestic supplier in a first stage and with the foreign supplier in a second stage. The asymmetry in upstream costs leads to inter-industry trade....

The EU declares to provide support for the rural and poor regions of its member states. However, recent research shows that past EU budget allocations (in EU-15) can largely be explained by measures of the distribution of voting power in the Council of Ministers deciding on the bulk of EU...

In this paper, we evaluate the impact of Turkey's membership on EU voting. The aspects that we discuss are decision-making efficiency and the distribution of power in the EU's leading decision making body the Council of Ministers. We compare two alternative Council voting rules: those accepted...

It is a constant topic of debate how the European Union (EU) spends the money it collects from its member states. This paper supports the idea that the EU budget battle involves one-shot games that have persistent impacts on the budget allocations. In one way or the other, the member states are...