We introduce a new way to model the Bismarckian social insuance system, stressing its corporatist dimension. Comparing the Beveridgean, Bismarckian and Liberal systems according to the majority voting rule, we show that for a given distribution of risks inside society, the Liberal system wins if...

This paper examines a situation where a decision-maker determines the appropriate compensation that should be implemented for a given ecological damage. The compensation can be either or both in monetary and environmental units to meet three goals : i) no aggregate welfare loss, ii) minimization...

We introduce political economics into the soft budget constraint problem by asking if the timing of elections has the potential to harden budget constraints. Specifically, we ask under which circumstances the soft budget constraint problem is worse - with synchronized elections, i.e....

In this methodological paper, we prove that the key tax competition game introduced by Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986) and Wildasin (1988), extended to asymmetric regions, possesses a Nash equilibrium under several assumptions commonly adopted in the literature : goods are supposed to be normal ;...

This paper investigates the factors underlying the emergence of Research Cluster (RC), i.e. cooperation (or coordination of research efforts) through spatial proximity between public and private research teams. A ‘public lab’ and a ‘private lab’ interact in a two-stage game to decide on...

This paper analyses the tax competition mechanisms in a context of commodity trade. We show that the trade market equilibrium may restore the efficiency of the public good provision when agents from different countries have symmetric preferences. Asymmetry in preferences implies over or...

In this paper, we focus on the issue of water loss caused by leakage from obsolete water mains. We develop in this theoretical paper, a cost minimization problem of a water utility that faces leakage from water mains. Our framework enables us to determine the optimal water main quality index...

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy rules in a fiscal federation, such as the European Union. The focus of the analysis is the interaction between the fiscal policy of member countries (regions) and the monetary authority. Each of the countries structures its fiscal policy...

International agreements about transnational issues are difficult to reach, as the examples of the Copenhagen summit or the never-ending discussions of the future of the European Union make clear. In this paper, we relate this difficulty to the political process and the conflicts of interest...

In this paper, we empirically examine the effect of inflation targeting on the exchange rate pass-through to prices in emerging countries. We use a panel VAR that allows us to use the larger data set on twenty-seven emerging countries (fifteen inflation targeters and twelve inflation...