We examine how mehr, a conditional payment from husbands to wives in the event of divorce, and dowry, a transfer from bride families to grooms at the time of marriage, have evolved through natural shocks. We develop a model of marriage market in which dowry acts as a groom price, whereas mehr...

We examine the impact of legislated land ceiling size on capital investment and industrialisation in the Indian states. India's land ceiling legislations of 1960s and 1970s imposed a ceiling on maximum land holdings and redistributed above-ceiling lands. These ceiling legislations, effectively...

Although regulatory authorities are putting more emphasis to the long-run effects of mergers and acquisitions due to their effects on innovation, several merger proposals have been challenged due to their adverse innovation effects. In a simple model with endogenous R&D investment, we show that...

We develop a tractable model of competition among motivated MFIs. We find that equilibria may or may not involve double-dipping (and consequently default), with there being double-dipping whenever the MFIs are very profit-oriented. Moreover, in an equilibrium with double-dipping, borrowers who...

We develop a tractable model of competition among socially motivated MFIs, so that the objective functions of the MFIs put some weight on their own clients' utility. We nd that the equilibrium involves double-dipping, i.e. borrowers taking multiple loans from different MFIs, whenever the MFIs...

This paper extends the literature on mixed oligopoly in two directions. First, it introduces distortions in the working of the public firm, an issue that is of some concern, especially in transitional economies. Thus the classical model of mixed oligopoly emerges as a special case of our...

We examine how increased competition among motivated MFIs impacts the poorest borrowers’ access to microfinance. We find that it depends on inequality, technology and the possibility of double-dipping (borrowing from several sources). Without competition, even a motivated MFI may lend to the...

We examine pollution-reducing R&D by a monopoly firm producing a dirty product. In a dynamic framework with hyperbolic discounting, we establish conditions under which the Porter hypothesis goes through, i.e. environmental regulation increases R&D, thus reducing pollution, as well as increasing...