Using a collective model of consumption, we characterize optimal commodity taxes aimed at targeting specific individuals within the household. The main message is that distortionary indirect taxation can circumvent the agency problem of the household. Essentially, taxation should discourage less...

We extend the collective model of household consumption to account explicitly for child welfare and economies of scale. Each household member is characterized by specific prefer- ences and the (unspecified) allocation process is assumed to be efficient. Following the principle of the Rothbarth...

In this paper we address the issue of the robustness of the price level, mean, and variance estimates for two sets of repeat sales real estate price indices: the classical WRS method and a PCA factorial method, as elaborated in Baroni, Barthélémy and Mokrane (2007). Our work can be seen as an...

In this paper, we compare the five more famous methods of apportionment, the methods of Adams, Dean, Hill, Webster and Jefferson. The criteria used for this comparison is the minimization of a distance between a power vector and a population vector. The power is measured with the well-known...

This paper investigates episodes of real exchange rate appreciations and depreciations for a sample of 85 countries, from 1960 to 1998. The equilibrium real exchange rate series are constructed by estimating cointegration vectors with fundamentals, and departures from it are obtained. A Markov...

Consumer information on products affects competition and profits. We analyze firms' decisions to impart product information through advertising: comparative advertising also allows them to impart information about rivals' products. If firms sell products of similar qualities, both want to...

In this paper we examine empirically the market for local amenities in the Paris metropolitan region. We find first that there is considerable inequality in the spatial distribution of these local amenities, including accessibility, environmental and social indicators. We use a spatial...

We study the problem of a city with access to two firms or subcentres (restaurants, airports) selling a differentiated product and/or offering a differentiated workplace. The first subcentre is easily congested (near city centre, access by road), the second less prone to congestion but further...

We conduct a case study of the linkages of task organization, human capital accumulation and wages in Morocco, using matched worker-firm data for Electrical-mechanical and Textile-clothing industries. In order to integrate task organization into the interacting processes of workers’ training...

This paper reports results of an experiment designed to analyze the link between risky decisions made by couples, and risky decisions made separately by each spouse. We estimate both the individuals and the couples’ degrees of risk aversion, and we analyze how the risk preferences of the two...