Price controls were part of Israel's stabilization program of July 1985. Some results of the program seem to be inconsistent with competitive macroeconomic models. It is suggested that these results are consistent with an economy that has an oligopolistic market structure. This paper explores...

The authors study the politics of intergenerational redistribution in an overlapping generations model with short-lived governments. The successive governments--who care about the welfare of the currently living generations and possibly about campaign contributions--are unable to precommit the...

The authors examine the extent to which developing countries that do little, if any, research and development themselves benefit from R&D that is performed in the industrial countries. By trading with an industrial country that has a large 'stock of knowledge' from its cumulative R&D activities,...

We develop an equilibrium model of industrial structure in which the organization of firms is endogenous. Differentiated consumer products can be produced either by vertically integrated firms or by pairs of specialized companies. Production of each variety of consumer good requires a...

Polities differ in the extent to which political parties can pre-commit to carry out promised policy actions if they take power. Commitment problems may arise due to a divergence between the ex ante incentives facing national parties that seek to capture control of the legislature and the ex...