Limited liability may result in inefficient accident prevention, because a relevant portion of the expected harm is externalized on victims. This paper shows that under some restrictive conditions further limiting liability by means of a liability cap can improve caretaking.

Blanchard (2005) suggested that active interest rate policy might induce unstable dynamics in highly-indebted economies. We examine this in a dynamic general equilibrium model where Calvo-type price rigidities provide a rationale for inflation stabilization. Unstable dynamics can occur when the...

We extend the Hidden Markov Model for defaults of Crowder, Davis, and Giampieri (2005) to include covariates. The covariates enhance the prediction of transition probabilities from high to low default regimes. To estimate the model, we extend the EM estimating equations to account for the time...

In this paper, we analyze sequential bankruptcy problems, which generalize bankruptcy problems. They contain the problems of sharing water in a transboundary river and of allocating expedition rewards in projects. We provide three mechanisms for generalizing rules for bankruptcy problems to...

This paper investigates the dynamic properties of systematic default risk conditions for firms from different countries, industries, and rating groups. We use a high-dimensional nonlinear non-Gaussian state space model to estimate common components in corporate defaults in a 41 country sample...

This paper analyzes situations in which a project consisting of several activities is not realized according to plan. Ifthe project is expedited, a reward arises. Analogously, a penalty arises if the project is delayed. This paper considersthe case of arbitrary nondecreasing reward and penalty...

This paper examines the pricing of public debt in a quantitative macroeconomic model with government default risk. Default may occur due to a fiscal policy that does not preclude a Ponzi game. When a build-up of public debt makes this outcome inevitable, households stop lending such that the...

This note provides a methodological contribution to the allocation of joint revenues obtained from passepartouts. In a passepartout system a group of service providers offers a passepartout that allows its owners the use of specified services for an unlimited number of times during a fixed...