This paper presents a simple model of the ‘tax state’, where a progressive income tax is used to finance publicly supplied goods that are distributed free of charge. The individual citizens may be dissatisfied with such a fiscal system. If more than 50% are dissatisfied, we speak of a...

None

Der Mittelstand befürchtet durch die Neufassung der Baseler Eigenkapitalrichtlinien für Kreditinstitute Finanzierungsschwierigkeiten. Welche Bedeutung haben Bankkredite gegenwärtig bei der Finanzierung mittelständischer Unternehmen? Wird es als Folge von Basel II zu einer Kreditverknappung...

This paper deals with double lobbying: several bureaucrats participate in joint lobbying to get a high total departmental budget, but they also engage in antagonistic lobbying to reap as high a share of the total budget as possible. The antagonistic lobbying constitutes a contest among the...

In this paper we deal with voluntary and compulsory redistribution in an economy where the enforcement of property rights is costly. Two agents engage in a common-pool contest and two types of potential distortions arise: the waste of resources in the contest and the dilution of incentives to...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. We first develop a contractarian theory of redistribution. The existence of rules of redistribution is explained without any recourse to the risk-aversion of individuals. Hence, we depart from the standard legitimization of redistribution as fundamental...

This paper presents an analysis of a recently invented new form of price regulation. An index of prices of monopolistically supplied goods must never exceed the retail price index minus X. The main results of the chapter are as follows: (i) If the constant X is politically chosen, price-cap...