The Atkinson-Stiglitz (1976) theorem on the undesirability of nonuniform excise taxation when all agents have homogeneous, separable preferences is extended to allow for nonseparability with respect to endogenous variables that will be subject to distortions. The result is useful for analysing...

The paper provides an extension and a new proof of Deaton's theorem on the undesirability of nonuniform excise taxation when income taxes are affine and preferences over consumption goods are separable from labour-leisure choices, homothetic, and identical across agents

The paper analyses the causes of the current crisis of the global financial system, with particular emphasis on the systemic elements that turned the crisis of subprime mortgage-backed securities in the United States, a small part of the overall system, into a worldwide crisis. The first half of...

The paper studies outside finance in a model of two-dimensional moral hazard, involving risk choices as well as effort choices. If the entrepreneur has insufficient funds, a first-best outcome cannot be implemented. Second-best outcomes involve greater failure risk than first-best outcomes. For...

The paper provides a new formulation of the Mirrlees-Seade theorem on the positivity of the optimal marginal income tax, under weaker assumptions and in a more general model. The formulation of the theorem is independent of whether the model involves finitely many types or a continuous type...

German Abstract: Der Text beruht auf einer am 9. Mai 2017 vor dem Bundesverfassungsgericht abgegebenen Stellungnahme in der mündlichen Verhandlung zu einem Verfahren über den Umfang der Verpflichtung der Bundesregierung zur Information des Parlaments (Az. 2BvE 2/11). Das Gericht hatte um...

For a countable product of complete separable metric spaces with a topology induced by a uniform metric, the set of Borel probability measures coincides with the set of completions of probability measures on the product σ-algebra. Whereas the product space with the uniform metric is...

Beginning with the proposal by Enria (2017), the paper discusses the scope for successful bank restructuring through a carve-out of impaired assets and a transfer of these assets to a government-sponsored asset management company. The paper argues that the success of such an operation requires a...

McAfee and Reny (1992) have given a necessary and sufficient condition for full surplus extraction in naive type spaces with a continuum of payoff types. We generalize their characterization to arbitrary abstract type spaces and to the universal type space and show that in each setting, full...

The paper gives an overview over issues concerning the role of financial stability in monetary policy. Historically, financial stability has figured highly among central banks' objectives, with policy measures ranging from interest rate stabilization to serving as a lender of the last resort....