A robust feature of the corporate growth process is the Laplace, or symmetric exponential, distribution of firm growth rates. In this paper, we sketch out a class of simple theoretical models capable of explaining this empirical regularity. We do not attempt to generalize on where growth...

The panel structure of the Survey on Smoking in Canada (1994-95) and novel methods are used to estimate the impact of an important decrease in the levels of taxation of cigarettes occurring in five out of the ten Canadian provinces that intended to eradicate black market sales of cigarettes in...

Researchers in finance very often rely on highly persistent Ñ nearly integrated Ñ explanatory variables to predict returns. This paper proposes to stand up to the usual problem of persistent regressor bias, by detrending the highly auto-correlated predictors. We find that the statistical...

In Cameroun, around 18 percent of children aged between 10-14 years old grow up within a sibship extended to host one (or more) foster-child. This proportion is similar in other African countries and in particular West African ones. This paper aims at estimating the effect of foster-children...

This paper aims at explaining differences in education among foster-children and between foster and biological children in developing countries. Foster-children whose biological parents are alive may provide old-age support for both their host and biological parents. Therefore foster-children...

Static competitive equilibria in economies with incomplete markets are generically constrained suboptimal. Allocations induced by strategic equilibria of imperfectly competitive markets are also generically inefficient. In both cases, there is scope for Pareto-improving amendments. In an...

We reformulate Grandmont's and its successors' notion of behavioral heterogeneity such as to get the exact insensitivity of the aggregate budget share function with respect to changes in prices and income, instead of a mere approximate insensitivity. We propose a non parametric set-up such that,...

We build a model to study optimal land use, encompassing land use activities, pollution and climate change. This benchmark set-up allows us to identify the spatial drivers behind the interaction between land use and the environment. Pollution generates local and global damages since it flows...

In this paper, we provide a theoretical framework for exploring the consequences of neighborhood informational effects - identified as role models - so as to deduce the urban configuration. With this aim, we have developed an overlapping generations model of community formation. When young, an...

We study the impact of social capital in both simple theoretical and empirical model with the main assumption is the price of physical capital is a decreasing function of social capital. In our theoretical model, there exists a critical value such that firm will not invest in social capital if...