We present a simple approach to transform a deterministic numerical model, where several agents simultaneously make decisions, into a stochastic model. This approach, which builds on scenario aggregation, a numerical method developed to solve decision problems under uncertainty, is used to build...

We investigate the role of crude oil spot and futures prices in the process of price discovery by using a cost-of-carry model with an endogenous convenience yield and daily data over the period from January 1990 to December 2008. We provide evidence that futures markets play a more important...

A healthy financial system encourages the efficient allocation of capital and risk. The collapse of the house price bubble led to the financial crisis that started in 2007. There is a large empirical literature concerning the relation between asset price bubbles and financial crises. I evaluate...

This interdisciplinary paper explains how mathematical techniques of stochastic optimal control can be applied to the recent subprime mortgage crisis. Why did the financial markets fail to anticipate the recent debt crisis, despite the large literature in mathematical finance concerning optimal...

Adding a stage of signal acquisition to the expected utility model shows that Bayesian updating results in a well defined law of demand for financial information when asset return distributions are conjugate priors to signals such as in the gamma-Poisson case. Signals have a positive marginal...

Concerns about adverse impacts on domestic energy-intensive and trade-exposed (EITE) industries are at the fore of the political debate about unilateral climate policies. Tariffs on the carbon embodied in imported goods from countries without emission pricing appeal as a measure to reduce carbon...

Unilateral carbon policies are inefficient due to the fact that they generally involve emission reductions in countries with high marginal abatement costs and because they are subject to carbon leakage. In this paper, we ask whether the use of carbon tariffs—tariffs on the carbon embodied in...

We calibrate a sequence of four nested models to study the dynamics of wealth accumulation. Individuals maximize a utility function whose arguments are consumption and investment. They desire to accumulate wealth for its own sake – this is not a life-cycle model. A competitive firm produces a...

The paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the latest German corporate income and capital tax reform, which entails a major shift of the capital tax burden from the firm to the household level. Using a dynamic two-country computable general equilibrium model with integrated capital...

We analyze whether different learning abilities of firms with respect to general equilibrium effects lead to different levels of unemployment. We consider a general equilibrium model where firms in one sector compete à la Cournot and a real wage rigidity leads to unemployment. If firms consider...