We investigate how income inequality affects social welfare in a model of voluntary contributions to multiple pure public goods. Itaya, de Meza, and Myles (1997) show that the maximization of social welfare precludes income equality in a single pure public good model. In contrast, we show that...

We show how normative standpoints determine optimal taxation of wealth. Since wealth is not equal to capital, we find very different welfare implications of land rent-, bequest- and capital taxation. It is mainly land rents that should be taxed. We develop an overlapping generations model with...

Empirical welfare analyses often impose stringent parametric assumptions on individuals’ preferences and neglect unobserved preference heterogeneity. In this paper, we develop a framework to conduct individual and social welfare analysis for discrete choice that does not suffer from these...

Many political issues like abortion, gay marriage or assisted suicide are strongly contested because individuals have preferences not only over their own choice but also about other individuals? actions. How should society decide these issues? This paper compares three regimes (centralization,...

This paper defines the concept of feedback Kant-Nash equilibrium for a discrete-time model of resource exploitation by infinitely-lived Kantian and Nashian players, where we define Kantian agents as those who act in accordance with the categorical imperative. We revisit a well-known dynamic...

The effectiveness of social interaction depends strongly on an ability to coordinate actions efficiently. In large networks, such coordination may be very difficult to achieve and may depend on the communication technology and the network structure. We examine how pre-play communication and...

The purpose of this paper is to model the influence of Kantian moral scruples in a dynamic environment. Our objectives are two-fold. Firstly, we investigate how a Nash equilibrium among agents who have moral scruples may ensure that the exploitation of a common property renewable resource is...

What insights can be gained from bringing the theory of the firm to the global economy? I discuss several new features of the world economy that can be explained by incorporating the theory of the firm into the theory of international trade. Among the new features I discuss are the move to...