We model political parties as adaptive decision-makers who compete in a sequence of elections. The key assumptions are that <italic>winners satisfice</italic> (the winning party in period <italic>t</italic> keeps its platform in <italic>t</italic> + 1) while <italic>losers search</italic>. Under fairly mild assumptions about losers' search rules, we show that...

Learning-by-doing and increasing returns are often perceived to have similar implications for market structure and conduct. The authors analyze this in the context of an infinite-horizon, price-setting game. Learning is shown to not reduce the viability of market-sharing collusion between a...

This paper presents a theory of rent-seeking within farmer cooperatives in which inequality of asset ownership affects relative control rights of different groups of members. The two key assumptions are constraints on lumpsum transfers from poorer members and disproportionate control rights...

We compare the long-run effects of replacing unconditional transfers to the poor by transfers conditional on the education of children. Unlike Mirrlees' income taxation model, the distribution of skill evolves endogenously. Human capital accumulation follows the Freeman-Ljungqvist-Mookherjee-Ray...

This paper examines steady states of an overlapping generations economy with a given distribution of household locations over a one-dimensional interval. Parents decide whether or not to educate their children. The model therefore combines local social interaction with global market interaction....

When human capital accumulation generates pecuniary externalities across professions, and capital markets are imperfect, persistent inequality in utility and consumption is inevitable in any steady state. This is true irrespective of the degree of divisibility in investments. However,...