Intertemporal conflicts occur when a group of agents with heterogeneous time preferences must make a collective decision about how to manage a common asset. How should this be done? We examine two methods: an 'Economics' approach that seeks to implement efficient allocations, and a 'Politics'...

We study a flexible dynamic savings game in continuous time, where decision makers rotate in and out of power. These agents value spending more highly while in power creating a time-inconsistency problem. We provide a sharp characterization of Markov equilibria. Our analysis proceeds by...

Harberger triangles are used to calculate the efficiency costs of taxes, government regulations, monopolistic practices, and various other market distortions. This paper considers the historical development of Harberger triangles, the associated theoretical controversies, and the contribution of...

This paper develops an index of allocative efficiency that depends upon the distribution of mark-ups across goods. It determines how changes in trade frictions affect allocative efficiency in an oligopoly model of international trade, decomposing the effect into the cost-change channel and the...

We show that capital controls have large adverse effects on misallocation, exports and welfare using a dynamic Melitz-OLG model with heterogeneous firms, monopolistic competition, endogenous trade participation and collateral constraints. Static effects increase misallocation by reducing...

Uncertainty about the timing of retirement is a major financial risk with implications for decision making and welfare over the life cycle. We estimate that the standard deviation of the difference between retirement expectations and actual retirement dates ranges from 4.28 to 6.92 years. We...

This paper takes a fresh look at the trade-off between centralized and decentralized provision of local public goods. The point of departure is to model a centralized system as one in which public spending is financed by general taxation, but districts can receive different levels of local...