We examine three measures of governmental policy: state gasoline taxes, the federal discount rate, and the prime of interest rate (which though set by banks is subject to political influence). All three variables show evidence of irrationality: they are not scale invariant (and thus violate...

A congestion toll may have two purposes. First, to reduce congestion the current period. Second, to induce investment which will reduce demand and congestion in later periods. When government cannot credibly commit to future tolle, the optimal toll in the each period may be low, and congestion...

We consider a firm that is subject to employment protection laws that limit the firm's ability to fire labor. In particular, we suppose that though a firm which shuts down can fire all its workers, it may fire no fewer. Compared to a firm that is subject to no employment protection, a firm...

Some regulatory programs are effective only if firms make some irreversible investments which reduce the cost of compliance. A firm potentially subject to regulation may therefore behave strategically - not investing and thus forcing the regulator to void the proposed regulation. We show that...

Consider an agent who collects information over time, but who imperfectly recalls the date at which he made each observation. If the state of nature changes over time, then the agent's performance may worsen with experience.

This paper analyzes the idea that political opposition to a tax increases with two factors: 1) the amount of tax that would be owed if consumers did not reduce their consumption of the taxed good, and 2) the consumer surplus consumers would enjoy in the absence of the tax.

We consider a politician's choice of whether to be evaluated, as by subjecting himself to a detailed interview or by asking for the appointment of a special prosecutor. We find that both when politicians do and do not know the quality of their own actions, stable equilibria may exist in which...