According to many observers, the world is currently getting riskier along many of its dimensions. In this paper we analyse how the welfare state, i.e., social insurance that works through redistributive taxation, should deal with this trend. We distinguish between risks that can be insured by...

According to many observers the world is currently becoming more risky in many ways. In this paper we analyse how the welfare state, i.e. social insurance which works through redistributive taxation, should deal with this trend. We distinguish between risks that can be insured by the welfare...

The present paper analyzes how the welfare state, i.e., social insurance that works through redistributive taxation, should respond to increases in the skewness of the risk distribution. Income risks can be hedged either by individual self-insurance or by social insurance. It is shown that...

In this paper the welfare state is considered as insurance device. Redistributive taxation reduces the variance of life- time risk. Behind a veil of ignorance with regard to future position in society, agents decide in a two-parametric expectation/standard deviation-approach about labour supply...

This paper analyzes nature protection by a social planner under different ?utilitarian? social welfare functions. For that purpose we construct an integrated model of the economy and the ecosystem with explicit consideration of nonhuman species and with competition between human and nonhuman...

Based on economic methodology we model an ecosystem with two species in predator-prey relationship: mice feed on grain and grain feeds on a resource. With optimizing behaviour of individual organisms a short-run ecosystem equilibrium is defined and characterized that depends on the farmer's use...

This paper analyzes nature protection by a social planner under different "utilitarian" social welfare functions. For that purpose we construct an integrated model of the economy and the ecosystem with explicit consideration of nonhuman species and with competition between human and nonhuman...