We study the regulation of a morally responsible agent in the context of a negative consumption externality and motivation crowding. In particular, we analyze how various governmental interventions affect the agent's motivation to assume moral responsibility. Employing a motivation-crowding...

This paper characterizes the optimal first-price auction (FPA) and second-price auction (SPA) for selling rights, contracts, or licenses that involve ensuing payoff uncertainty for the winning bidder. The distribution of the random payoff is common knowledge, except that bidders have private...

In a careful and thorough empirical study, Christopher Udry (1996) shows convincingly that, in a large sample of West African households, household resource allocations were not Pareto efficient. This paper argues that observation of the Pareto inefficiency of a household resource allocation...

We provide a nonparametric 'revealed preference' characterization of rational household behavior in terms of the collective consumption model, while accounting for general (possibly non-convex) individual preferences. We establish a Collective Axiom of Revealed Preference (CARP), which provides...

Linking of repeated games and exchange of concessions in fields of relative strength may lead to more cooperation and to Pareto improvements relative to the situation where each game is played separately. In this paper we formalize these statements, provide some general results concerning the...

We develop and formalize a utilitarian notion of responsibility for sustainability which is inspired by Singer's (1972) principle and the Brundtland Commission's notion ofsustainability (WCED 1987). We relate this notion of responsibility to established criteria forthe assessment of...

The present paper considers Dickey-Fuller-type unit root tests which account for a structural break occurring at an unknown point in time. The break is modelled by an innovational outlier approach. Provided that the break date is estimated correctly, the exact invariance to a mean and a slope...

We show that the CUSUM-squared based test for a change in persistence by Leybourne et al. (2007) is not robust against shifts in the mean. A mean shift leads to serious size distortions. Therefore, adjusted critical values are needed when it is known that the data generating process has a mean...

We study the empirical behaviour of semi-parametric log-periodogram estimation for long memory models when the true process exhibits a change in persistence. Simulation results confirm theoretical arguments which suggest that evidence for long memory is likely to be found. A recently proposed...

The paper explores the interaction between debt crises and devaluation. Since the optimal level of devaluation in a crisis depends on the level of debt that has to be serviced, a default makes a devaluation less likely. Expected devaluation depends thus on expectations about default which is...