In a priority setting context, the attainment of a desirable allocation of health care resources is dependent upon the accurate estimation of health gains produced by different treatments and services. Therefore, the detection of disparities between methods of obtaining these estimates has...

We examine the effect of training the respondents regarding probabilities and risk reductions, in addition to using visual aids to communicate risk and risk reductions, in a contingent valuation survey of mortality risk reduction in Bangladesh. We elicit individuals’ risk perception and find...

This paper demonstrates that the results recently presented by Shogren et al (1994) are insufficient to reject the endowment effect as a significant cause of the divergence between willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WPA) values. A more transparent means of testing for the...

We study the problem of risk sharing within a household or syndicate. A household shares risky prospects using a social welfare functional. We characterize the social welfare functionals such that the household is collectively less risk averse than each member, and satisfies the Pareto principle...

Abstract: In this note we sketch a dynamic framework within which the discussion on the macro economic effects of climate change take place. The problem setting is characterized by scientific uncertainties about the development of climate, potential large economic losses and human beings having...

We develop a unifying framework for optimal income taxation in multi-sector economies with general patterns of externalities. Agents in this model are characterized by an N-dimensional skill vector corresponding to intrinsic abilities in N potentially externality-causing activities. The private...

The government often provides relief against large risks, such as disasters. A simple, general rationale for this role of government is considered here that applies even when private contracting to share risks is not subject to market imperfections. Specifically, the optimal private sharing of...

We design and estimate a game theoretic congestion pricing mechanism in which the regulator aims at reducing urban traffic congestion by price discriminating travelers according to their value of time (VOT). Travelers' preferences depend on their observable characteristics, on the endogenous...

How cooperation emerges between non-kins is a key issue for understanding the evolution of societies. Exploring the role of the heterogeneity of social preferences in the decision to contribute to the provision of public goods reveals that conditional cooperation explains the decay of...

This paper investigates a real-business-cycle economy that features dispersed information about the underlying aggregate productivity shocks, taste shocks, and, potentially, shocks to monopoly power. We show how the dispersion of information can (i) contribute to significant inertia in the...