From the literature on decentralization, it appears that the fiscal vertical imbalance is somehow inherent to multi-level governments. Using a stylized model we show that this leads to a reduction in the extent of redistributive fiscal policies if the maximal tolerable size of government has...

Competing intermediaries search on behalf of consumers among a large number of horizontally differentiated sellers. Consumers either pick the best deal offered by a random intermediary, or compare the intermediaries. A higher number of deal finders has the direct effect of decreasing their...

We study strategic decentralization in the provision of a global public good. A federation, with the aim of maximizing the aggregate utility of its members, may find it advantageous to decentralize the decision-making, so that its members act autonomously to maximize their own utility. If...

We study the potential benefits of adding a lottery component to cut the main risks associated with standard negotiated and rule-based auction procurement procedures. We show that adopting a two stage approach in which bureaucrats first negotiate with a small number of bidders to assess their...

We study a game in which two firms compete in quality to serve a market consisting of consumers with different initial consideration sets. If both firms invest below a certain threshold, they only compete for those consumers already aware of their existence. Above this threshold, a firm is...

We study a game in which two firms compete in quality to serve a market consisting of consumers with different initial consideration sets. If both firms invest below a certain threshold, they only compete for those consumers already aware of their existence. Above this threshold, a firm is...