We explore the contribution of reciprocity and other non selfish motives to the political viability of the modern welfare state. In the advanced economies, a substantial fraction of total income is regularly transferred from the better off to the less well off, with the approval of the...

In the advanced economies, a substantial fraction of total income is regularly transferred from the better off to the less well off, with the approval of the electorate. Economists have for the most part misunderstood this phenomenon due to their endorsement of an empirically implausible theory...

How level is the intergenerational playing field? What are the causal mechanisms that underlie the intergenerational transmission of economic status? Are these mechanisms amenable to public policies in a way that would make the attainment of economic success more fair? These are the questions we...

The Walrasian general equilibrium model is the centrepiece of modern economic theory, but progress in understanding its dynamical properties has been meagre. This article shows that the instability of Walras' tâtonnement process is due to the public nature of prices, which leads to excessive...

Within a general equilibrium framework à la (Long and Plosser, 1983), we investigate the dynamics emerging from the interactions of households and firms that are adaptive price setters and financially constrained. Adaptive price-setting behavior induces micro-founded out-of-equilibrium dynamics...