Fiscal decentralization is high on the agenda in policy fora. This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of fiscal decentralization, based on the predictions of a simple political economy model. We argue that the likeliness that a central government engages in devolution of powers...

Building on Kihlstrom and Mirman (1974)’s formulation of risk aversion in the case of multidimensional utility functions, we study the effect of risk aversion on optimal behavior in a general consumer’s maximization problem under uncertainty. We completely characterize the relationship...

We consider the original Arrow-Lind framework in which a government undertakes a risky project to be shared among many taxpayers. In our model, the taxpayers decide the level of participation in the risky project. Moreover, the amount of taxes collected by the government fully finances the...

We study the effect of changing income on optimal decisions in the multidimensional expected utility framework with strongly separable preferences. Using the Kihlstrom and Mirman (1974) (KM) utility representation, we show that the effect of changing income can be decomposed into a modified...

We propose a consumption-based capital asset pricing model in which the representative agent's preferences display state-dependent risk aversion. Since a common factor - the state of the world - influences both stock prices and preferences, we obtain a valuation equation in which the vector of...

Commodity producers in Africa often bene?t from guaranteed and relatively stable prices for their crops. This paper shows how to estimate the required increase in crop price necessary to o¤set the higher risk for farmers that price liberalization would entail due to large variations over time...

We propose a consumption-based capital asset pricing model in which the representative agent's preferences display state-dependent risk aversion. We obtain a valuation equation in which the vector of excess on equity includes both consumption risk as well as the risk associated with variations...

We consider decision-makers facing a risky wealth prospect. The probability distribution depends on pecuniary effort, e.g., the amount invested in a venture or prevention expenditures to protect against accidental losses. We provide necessary local conditions and sufficient global conditions for...

Voting records indicate that dissents in monetary policy committees are frequent and predictability regressions show that they help forecast future policy decisions. In order to study whether the latter relation is causal, we construct a model of committee decision making and dissent where...

Voting records indicate that dissents in monetary policy committees are frequent and predictability regressions show that they help forecast future policy decisions. In order to study whether the latter relation is causal, we construct a model of committee decision making and dissent where...