This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <I>Social Networks</I> (2012). Vol. 34(4), pages 161-179.<P> This paper proposes a new measure for a group's ability to lead society to adopt their standard of behavior, which in particular takes account of the time the group takes to convince the whole...</p></i>

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in 'Public Choice', 151, 757-787. <P> Power is a core concept in the analysis and design of organizations. One of the problems with the extant literature on positional power in hierarchies is that it is mainly restricted to the analysis of power in...</p>

This paper studies network formation in settings where players are heterogeneous with respect to benefits as well as the costs of forming links. Our results demonstrate that centrality, center-sponsorship and short network diameter are robust features of equilibrium networks. We find that in a...

This discussion paper led to a chapter in 'Power, Freedom and Voting' (eds. M. Braham and F. Steffen), Springer, pp 57-81, 2008.<p> Power is a core concept in the analysis and design of organisations. In this paper we consider positional power in hierarchies. One of the problems with the extant...</p>

This discussion paper led to a chapter in .Voting Power and Procedures: Essays in Honour of Dan Felsenthal and Moshé Machover', (eds. R. Fara, D. Leech, and M. Salles), pp 41-64, 2014. The main purpose of the present paper is to disentangle the mix-up of the notions of success and satisfaction...

In this paper we consider the problem of the control of access to a firm's productive asset, embedding the relevant decisionmakers into a general structure of formal authority relations. Within such an authority structure, each decision maker acts as a principal to some decision makers, while...

This paper estimates Nash-type fiscal reaction functions for European governments competing for revenue from diesel excises. It appears that European governments strategically set their excise levels by responding to their neighbors’ tax rates. This provides evidence for the presence of tax...

The European Commission favours the introduction of a consolidated corporate tax base to overcome the distortions arising from the existing system of separate accounting. The blueprints for consolidation are simulated with the applied general equilibrium model CORTAX. We show that the benefits...

We analyze resource extraction in a political economy setting by introducing a political leader who optimizes both his own and the society's welfare function. We find that accounting for the private utility of a political elite, its higher discount rate and a different time horizon generally...

This paper develops a general-equilibrium model of skill-biased technological change that approximates the observed shifts in the shares of wage and non-wageincome going to the top decile of U.S. households since 1980. Under realistic assumptions, we find that all agents can benefit from the...