This paper provides a unified vision of a number of results that appeared in three separate streams of literature. The author emphasizes the strong parallelism between the results obtained in a number of papers that analyzed the relationships between price cap regulation, welfare maximization,...

This paper has two sources: One is my own research in three broad areas: business cycles, economic measurement and social choice. In all of these fields I attempted to apply the basic precepts of the scientific method as it is understood in the natural sciences. I found that my effort at using...

This paper deals with alternative policy options for tackling congestion and environmental problems in the German airport sector. The starting point of the discussion is the planned privatisation of several airports in Germany, which is normally justified on productive efficiency grounds....

Rising income inequality is an anglo Saxon problem. For most of the other OECD countries, earnings dispersion is rather persistent. Vertical mobility is to be taken into account. The paper also looks at the relationship of income inequality, growth and employment. It elaborates the point that...

The effect of remittances on capital accumulation remains a contested topic. This paper uses a panel data set from rural Mexico to investigate the impact of remittances on agriculture and livestock investments. After controlling for the endogeneity of migration through an instrumental variable...

When individual or household incomes are collected for administrative or scientific surveys, the reference period of income is sometimes a month, sometimes a quarter, and sometimes a year. This reference period of income likely affects the shape of the distribution and derived measures of...

This paper provides a technical description of the Dynamic Applied Regional Trade (DART) General Equilibrium Model. The DART model is a recursive dynamic, multi-region, multi-sector computable general equilibrium model. All regions are fully specified and linked by bilateral trade flows. The...

Why do some people think they will behave differently in the future? Building on research on dynamic inconsistency and age related preferences, this paper introduces the concept that inconsistent intertemporal preferences are directly related to age. In previous studies, standard socioeconomic...

Experiments evaluate the fit of human behaviour to the Shapley-Shubik power index (SSPI), a formula of voter power. Groups of six subjects with differing votes divide a fixed purse by majority rule in online chat rooms. Earnings proxy for measured power. Chat rooms and processes for selecting...

The article proposes an enabling mechanism for the creation, adjustment and dissolution of governmental units, giving autonomy to each individual as in a direct democracy. The mechanism is designed such that Pareto optimality is possible, in contrast to earlier models which make various...