Previous work has shown that, when firms choose only partial compliance with a regulatory standard, tightening the standard may drive firms' behavior in the wrong direction. This note explores the potential of nonlinear penalty functions to move behavior in the socially desired direction when...

This notes explores some theoretical implications of the U.S. Department of Justice's policy requiring lenders to seek as much market share in protected neighborhoods as elsewhere. In the asymmetric Cournot case, the high-cost lender in the protected neighborhood responds in the expected way,...

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Order 636 fundamentally altered the regulatory and operational environment of the natural gas industry in 1992, as the culmination of several directives aimed at relaxing regulation and fostering competition. We hypothesize that gas pipeline firms...

Theoretical studies have questioned the efficacy of mandatory disclosure requirements under various conditions, but empirical studies of disclosure requirements have been rare. This paper tests the impact of the Fair Credit and Charge Card Disclosure Act of 1988, enacted specifically to increase...

A linear ad valorem tax can induce homogeneous oligopolists to produce at socially optimal levels, achieving the first-best allocation, in the presence of external costs that vary exogenously with aggregate output. The optimal tax rate is independent of private cost functions and thus reduces...