This paper studies government funding for scientific research. Funds must be distributed among different research institutions and allocated between basic and applied research. Informational constraints prevent less productive institutions to be given any government funding. In order to...

This paper makes the following point: “detracking” schools, that is preventing them from allocating students to classes according to their ability, may lead to an increase in income residential segregation. It does so in a simple model where households care about the school peer group of...

This paper studies the demand for tobacco products in post-unification Italy. We construct a very detailed panel dataset of yearly consumption in the 69 Italian provinces from 1871 to 1913, and use it to estimate the Becker and Murphy (1988) rational addiction model. We find support for the...

This paper compares the organisation of the university sector under private provision with the structure which would be chosen by a welfare maximising government. It studies a general equilibrium model where universities carry out research and teach students. To attend university and earn higher...

Many industries and “sectors” of a modern economy display the interaction of private and public agents which forms the topic of this seminar. A first approximation classification identifies three broad types of situations, which beyond the prima facie similarity, are however radically...

The paper studies the regulatory design in an industry where the regulated downstream provider of services to final consumers purchases the necessary inputs from an upstream supplier. The model is closely inspired by the UK regulatory mechanism for the railway network. Its philosophy is one of...