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Cultural transmission arguably plays an important role in the determination of many fundamental preference traits (e.g., discounting, risk aversion and altruism) and most cultural traits, social norms, and ideological tenets ( e.g., attitudes towards family and fertility practices, and attitudes...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012462145
This paper contains the chapters on welfare economics, morality, and the law from a general, forthcoming book, Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law (Harvard University Press, 2003). I begin in chapter 26 with a discussion of the normative foundations of economic analysis, namely, the subject...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012468998
We examine how moral sanctions and rewards, notably the moral sentiments involving feelings of guilt and virtue, would be employed to govern individuals' behavior if the objective were to maximize social welfare. In our model, we analyze how the optimal use of guilt and virtue is influenced by...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012470027
A long-standing challenge for welfare economics is to develop welfare criteria that can be applied to allocations with different population levels. Such a criterion is essential to resolve the optimal population problem, i.e., the tradeoff between population size and the welfare of each person...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012496107
Regulation consists of rulemaking and enforcement. Economic theory offers two complementary rationales for regulating … and efficiency across society as a whole. Agency-cost theory recognizes that incentive conflicts and coordination problems …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012472798
The regulation of many activities depends on whether societies consider them morally controversial or "repugnant". Not only have regulation and related ethical concerns changed over time, but there is also heterogeneity across countries at a given time. We provide evidence of this heterogeneity...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012455467
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10001686747
The folk wisdom is that competition reduces agency costs. We provide indirect empirical support for this view. We argue … competitive industries, the negative relation between past returns and current leverage will be attenuated. Theory suggests that …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471296
We explore the effects of two kinds of competition on the cost of capital in the tax-exempt bond market: (1 …) competition amongst underwriters and (2) competition amongst issuers (most of which are quasi-public special authorities … sanctioned by state governments). The first kind of competition--essentially, competitive versus negotiated bidding processes …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471428
We study the consequences of hospital competition for Medicare beneficiaries' heart attack care from 1985 to 1994. We … hospital markets, and how hospital competition interacts with the influence of managed care organizations to affect the key … competition were ambiguous; but in the 1990s, competition unambiguously improves social welfare. Increasing HMO enrollment over …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471524