This paper formalises a three-tier administrative hierarchy. A benevolent federal government must decide how to fund an indivisible local public work, planned to be undertaken by a single firm. But the federal government observes neither the cost nor the local benefit of the project. To obtain...

In fiscal federal systems, local public works that generate spillovers are often financed by transfers from higher levels of government. In this article, we consider a governmental hierarchy composed by a Federal and a Local Government. The former delegates to the latter the task of finding a...

Several empirical studies suggest that the systematic behavior of lending standards, with laxer (tighter) standards applied during expansions (recessions) are responsible for reverting trends in aggregate productivity. We build a dynamic screening model with informational asymmetries in credit...

We analyze a market where two firms producing a homogenous good compete by means of two mechanisms: prices and a loyalty bonus. We assume that firms act simultaneously when posting their loyalty bonus and prices. Consumers who purchase from a firmin the first period must return the bonus in case...

We find a necessary and sufficient condition such that a distributional upgrade on a seller’s cost implies a lower expected procurement cost for a buyer. We also show that even under the strongest assumption about this upgrade made in the literature so far, the seller can be worse off, even if...