This paper investigates the relationship between electoral incentives, institutions and corruption. We assume that voters use a yardstick criterion. The incumbent provides a public good and extracts rent, which are financed by imposing a distortionary tax. We demonstrate the possibility that...

Given its significance in practice, the piecewise linear tax system seems to have received disproportionately little attention in the literature on optimal income taxation. This paper offers a simple and transparent analysis of its main characteristics. -- Piecewise linear ; income ; taxation

This paper examines how trade liberalization affects the innovation incentives of firms, and what this implies for industry productivity. For this purpose we develop a reciprocal dumping model of international trade with heterogeneous firms and endogenous R&D. Among the robust results that hold...

This paper develops sufficient conditions under which the Weak Green Paradox may (and may not) hold in terms of subsidies for biofuel production such that the supply-side responses by fossil fuel producers may more than offset the substitution to biofuels. Analytical results are derived and...

We propose a new criterion which reflects both the concern for welfare (utility) and the concern for rights in the evaluation of economic development paths. The concern for rights is captured by a pre-ordering over combinations of thresholds (floors or ceilings on various quantitative...

Using a two-factor (labor and capital), two-good (shift-working and non shiftworking commodities) model with two countries (Home and Foreign) which are located in different time zones, we highlight the impact of trade in labor services (via communication networks) on the comparative advantage of...

Given its significance in practice, piecewise linear taxation has received relatively little attention in the literature. This paper offers a simple and transparent analysis of its main characteristics. We fully characterize optimal tax parameters for the cases in which budget sets are convex...

We formulate a dynamic game model of trade in an exhaustible resource with a quantity-setting cartel. We compute the feedback Nash equilibrium and two Stackelberg equilibria under two different leadership scenarios: leadership by the strategic importing country, and leadership by the exporting...

This paper explains how, in the context of incomplete coordination among all countries, unilateral policies that might at first sight seem pro-green could actually turn out to harm the global environment. The free-riding motives and the difficulty of reaching an effective international...