Using the standard non linear income and commodity taxation framework, we examine the optimal policy to be adopted when the same labour disutility can receive two opposite interpretations: taste for leisure and activity limitation. In the absence of complete information about individual...

This paper examines the optimal non linear income and commodity tax when the same labor disutility can receive two alternative interpretations, taste for leisure and disability, but the disability is not readily observable. We compare the optimal policy under alternative social objectives,...

This paper develops a simple model of piracy to analyze its effects on prices and welfare and to study the optimal enforcement policy. A monopolist produces an information good (involving a 'large' development cost and a 'small' reproduction cost) that is sold to two groups of consumers...

If total social income is fixed and a social planner is uninformed of the utility representations of different individuals, then Lerner showed that the social optimum is to equally distribute income across individuals. We show that the planner by the use of randomization can in some...