In this paper, we abandon the stylized median voter and study (i) how distributional tensions can act in many different ways depending on social affinity and on the prospect of upward or downwardmobility of the different income classes, (ii) income distribution dynamics, intergenerational...

This article studies the design of optimal mechanisms to regulate entry in natural oligopoly markets, assuming the regulator is unable to control the behavior of firms once they are in the market. We adapt the Clarke-Groves mechanism, characterize the optimal mechanism that maximizes the...

This paper gives an account of events, and explains some systematic reasons of the UMTS auction flop in Switzerland. Apart from general market developments, which could not have been anticipated, we argue that auction design which was introduced in England and adopted in Switzerland and...

In a complete financial market every contingent claim can be hedged perfectly. In an incomplete market it is possible to stay on the safe side by superhedging. But such strategies may require a large amount of initial capital. Here we study the question what an investor can do who is unwilling...

In this note the unobserved component approach underlying the software package SEATS is compared with the Beveridge-Nelson type of decomposition for seasonal time series. The main strength of the SEATS approach lies in the appealing model formulation and the careful specification and adjustment...

We emphasize the importance of properly identifying the long-run relations underlying the monetary model of the exchange rate. The separate estimation of long-run money demands leads to a "structural" error correction equation which allows an interpretation of the various channels affecting the...

Rational bargaining behavior depends crucially on the rules of bargaining, especially on whether parties decide sequentially or independently. Whereas in ultimatum bargaining the proposer can exploit the responder, independent commitments result in more balanced payoffs. To limit the scope of...

Discriminant analysis for two data sets in IRd with probability densities f and g can be based on the estimation of the set G = {x : f(x) ≥ g(x)}. We consider applications where it is appropriate to assume that the region G has a smooth boundary. In particular, this assumption makes sense if...

We propose a new approach to the pricing and hedging of contingent claims under transaction costs in a general incomplete market in discrete time. Under the assumptions of a bounded mean-variance tradeoff, substantial risk and a nondegeneracy condition on the conditional variances of asset...