We investigate the question of whether sophistication in risk management fosters banking stability. We compare a simple banking system that uses an average rating with a sophisticated banking system in which banks are able to assess the default risk of entrepreneurs individually. Both banking...

The relationship between our general equilibrium model with multi-member households and club models with multiple private goods is investigated. The main distinction in the definitions consists in the equilibrium concepts. As a rule, competitive equilibria among households where no group of...

We present a variant of a general equilibrium model with group formation to study how changes of non-consumptive benefits from group formation impact on the well-being of group members. We identify a human relations paradox: Positive externalities increase, but none of the group members gains in...

Politicians may pander to public opinion and may renounce undertaking beneficial long-term projects. To alleviate this problem, we introduce a triple mechanism involving political information markets, reelection threshold contracts, and democratic elections. An information market is used to...

Many regulatory programs such as environmental regulation are effective only if firms make irreversible investments that reduce the cost of compliance. A firm potentially subject to regulation may therefore behave strategically by not investing, thereby forcing the regulator to void the proposed...

In a two-country Schumpeterian growth model, we study the incentives for basic research investments by governments in a globalized world. We find that a country's basic research investments increase with the country's level of human capital and decline with its own market size. This may explain...

This book focuses on technological policies, in other words all public interventions intended to influence the intensity, composition and direction of technological innovations within a given entity (region, country or group of countries). The editor has gathered together many of the leading...

We develop a simple integration of banks into the Solow model. The objective is to provide a tractable benchmark for analyzing the long-term impact of crises on economic activities and growth. A fraction of firms have to rely on banks for financing their investments, while banks themselves face...

IWe introduce `Balanced Voting', a new voting scheme that is particularly suitable for making fundamental societal decisions. Such decisions typically involve subgroups that are strongly in favor of, or against, a new fundamental direction, and others that care much less. In a two-stage...

Many regulatory programs such as environmental regulation are effective only if firms make irreversible investments that reduce the cost of compliance. A firm potentially subject to regulation may therefore behave strategically by not investing, thereby forcing the regulator to void the proposed...