We provide axiomatic characterizations of two natural families of rules for aggregating equivalence relations: the family of join aggregators and the family of meet aggregators. The central conditions in these characterizations are two separability axioms. Disjunctive separability, neutrality,...

We study mechanism design in quasi-linear environments when there are two alternatives. We show that under a mild range condition, every implementable deterministic allocation rule is a generalized utility function maximizer. In unbounded domains, if we replace our range condition by an...

This paper examines the effect on relative wages when FDI occurs from the North to the South. The Northern firms undertake FDI to take advantage of the lower wage of unskilled labor in the South. The key assumption is that FDI from North to South occurs in an unskilled labor intensive production...

In the strategic trade policy literature, the firms typically make positive profits at equilibrium policy levels. We show that this is not always true when firms from the developed (North) and developing (South) countries compete in the Northern market. In particular, the South firm may be...

Majority of the trading blocs to date are between similar countries, rather than between developed and developing countries. This paper provides a rationale for why trading blocs among similar countries may arise as an equilibrium phenomenon. It develops a model of an asymmetric world economy,...