Standard models of intertemporal allocation predict that the time path of expenditures should beindependent of the time path of income. Recently two papers, Parker (1999) and Souleles (1999)have suggested that U.S. households have a high marginal propensity to spend within yearanticipated income...

Fighting poverty is one of the main goals in the most societies. This is usually done by the transferring resources to the poor. There exists a widespread view that the European countries are more generous to the poor than the United States. We study whether this is really the case. Firts we...

This paper attempts to detect the existence of links in consumptionpreferences between generations. Preferences for consumption goods may bedetermined by the preferences of parents (vertical transmission) and/or bypreferences arising from the environment (horizontal transmission). Wepropose an...

This paper examines the empirical relevance of an intertemporal model of consumption with dynamically inconsistent decision makers. The model has testable implications concerning the relation between the consumers' degrees of short-run patience (self-control) and their consumption-saving...

In some pure moral hazard situations the principal can implement a first-best allocation using an incentive contract constructed on the basis of a first-best payment scheme. Such a contract relies on the possibility of discriminate actions according to the outcome by imposing a penalty whenever...

We analyze managerial contracts (i.e. incentive schemes based on a linear combination of profits and sales) under asymmetric information about costs. In the competitive setting with ex ante symmetric information, standard strategic effects appear. Under adverse selection in both, monopolistic...

We study an adverse selection model, with a principal and several agents, wherecontracting is under asymmetric information. The number of agents is finite and types are "continuous" and independent. We analyze two settings. In the first one, the performance functions of mechanisms may depend on...

The Spanish population will experience a significant aging in the coming years. This demographic change will impose a heavy burden on the national budget. In particular, expenditure on pensions and health care will grow much faster than productivity. Some authors believe that immigration could...

In this paper we consider the interactions between the use of strategic delegation and mergers in the context of a Cournot oligopoly with linear demand and cost functions. It is assumed that, after the merging process is completed, the owner of every independent firm decides its managerial...

We examine an adverse selection relationship in which the principal is unaware of the ex ante distribution of the agent's types. We show that the minimax regret mechanism, which is an incentive compatible and individually rational mechanism that minimizes the maximal principal's regret, requires...