In this paper we discuss the incentives of a welfare maximizing government to implement strategic trade policy when there is, on the one hand, uncertainty about the relevant market information (like the type of competition, demand function, cost function, etc.), but, on the other hand, the...

Given that Information Technology (IT) security has emerged as an important issue in the last few years, the subject of security information sharing among firms, as a tool to minimize security breaches, has gained the interest of practitioners and academics. To promote the disclosure and sharing...

The current optimum population models found in economic literature define static optimum population used in forming policy i.e. at a given instant what should be the optimum number of people in a (closed) economy. We believe that although this definition is useful, it is very limiting as far as...

Using a panel data set for Dutch municipalities we estimate effects for weight-based, bag-based, frequency-based and volume-based pricing of household waste collection. Unit-based pricing shows to be effective in reducing solid and compostable and increasing recyclable waste. Pricing has no...

In most countries, banks’ equity holdings in firms that borrow from then are rather small. In light of the theoretical literature, this is somewhat surprising. For example, according to agency cost models, allowing banks to hold equity would seem to alleviate firms’ asset substitution moral...

An important question about social norms is whether they are created to increase welfare; I address it by examining the characteristics of tipped and non-tipped occupations. Tipping prevalence is negatively correlated with worker’s income and consumer’s monitoring ability and positively with...

The terms of reference for this public inquiry into the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 asked the Commission to look at how effective the Act had been been in achieving its objectives, and to assess the costs and benefits of the Act. In its final assessment, the Commission identified ways in...

An important literature has pointed out the coordination problems faced by the agents, in particular the financial one when they have to manage risk and their portfolio. If we follow Kaldor and its definition of speculation, then we could point out that in this case agents are short term...

This study assesses the impact across states of for-export, mostly foreign-owned manufacturing plants (commonly known as 'maquiladoras') on various measures of standard of living in Mexico, namely literacy rate, school attendance rates, housing characteristics, life expectancy, infant mortality,...

This paper shows that with a strong labour union, bargaining over piece rate generates higher social welfare than bargaining over fixed wage. Moreover, this social welfare exceeds the social welfare under efficient bargaining level, if the union is very strong.