We estimate a model that allows for dynamic and interdependent responses of morbidity in different local areas to economic conditions at the local and national level, with statistical selection of optimal local area. We apply this approach to quarterly British data on chronic health conditions...

Alcohol consumption is associated with costs to society due to its impact on crime and health. Tax can lead consumers to internalise these externalities. We study optimal corrective taxation in the alcohol market. We allow for the fact that the externality generating commodity (ethanol) is...

We study optimal corrective taxation in the alcohol market. Consumption generates negative externalities that are non-linear in the total amount of alcohol consumed. If tastes for products are heterogeneous and correlated with marginal externalities, then varying tax rates on different products...

We propose a method to measure the welfare cost of economic fluctuations that does not require full specification of consumer preferences and instead uses asset prices. The method is based on the marginal cost of consumption fluctuations, the per unit benefit of a marginal reduction in...

In a model with multiple Pareto-ranked equilibria we add trade in assets that pay based on the realization of a sunspot. Asset trading restricts the equilibrium set in a way that raises welfare by eliminating equilibria with a high likelihood of disasters. When the probability of a disaster is...

Heterogeneity is likely to be an important determinant of the shape of optimal tax schemes. This article addresses the issue in a model à la Mirrlees with a continuum of agents. The agents differ in their productivities and opportunity costs of work, but their labor supplies depend only on a...

We show that the stock market may fail to aggregate information even if it appears to be efficient, and that the resulting decrease in the information content of prices may drastically reduce welfare. We solve a macroeconomic model in which information about fundamentals is dispersed and...

This paper sets out alternatives to the traditional model of labour supply used to analyse the welfare costs of income and/or sales taxes when preferences are defined over goods and leisure and the market wage yields the slope of the budget constraint. The innovation in our work is to assume...