This paper reviews and puts into perspective recent work reassessing the first and second Fundamental Theorems of Welfare Economics. It assesses the implications of the Greenwald-Stiglitz theorem establishing the (constrained) Pareto inefficiency of market economies with imperfect information...

While recent alternative approaches to macroeconomics have all begun with the presumption that macro-economic behavior ought to be derived from micro-economic foundations, they have differed in their views concerning the appropriate micro-foundations. This paper explores some of the key...

This paper presents a simple, general equilibrium macroeconomic model incorporating financial constraints, both credit and equity rationing, as well as other informational imperfections in labor and product markets, such as efficiency wage effects. A formulation somewhat analogous to the...

This paper summarizes recent developments in the theory of the firm that have arisen in examining the implications of imperfect information. It shows that a wide range of these models have similar implications for the likely reaction of firms to external environmental and policy changes. Two...

The optimal income tax problem, since it requires self-selection constraints which define nonconvex feasible sets, is one of the many problems in economics for which randomization in the solution may be desirable. For a two-class economy. we characterize the optimal random tax schedules and we...

Most analyses of optimal income taxation make restrictive technical assumptions on preferences (such as single-crossing) and only derive properties of welfare-maximizing tax schedules. Here, for an economy with any finite numbers of groups and commodities, Pareto efficient tax structures are...

The optimal income taxation problem has been extensively studied in one-period models. This paper analyzes optimal income taxation when consumers work for many periods. We also analyze what information, if any, that the government learns about abilities in one period can be used in later periods...

This paper explores the interaction between incentives, information, and organizational design. It argues that the virtues of the market economy do not lie so much in the vision of competition and decentralization embodied in the Arrow-Debreu model, or the Lange-Lerner-Taylor analysis of market...

This paper explores the causes and consequences of the more important market failures which impede the development of LOCs, and explains why the non-market institutions which often ameliorate the effects of market failures in developed countries are less effective- in doing so in LOCs. This...

This paper examines the impact of financial market imperfections on long-term productivity growth. It focuses on failures in markets for the sale of equity securities and hence on the failure of markets which help firms diversify the risks of real investment. The paper examines separately...