There is an intense debate over whether fuel economy standards or fuel taxation is the more appropriate policy instrument to raise fuel economy and reduce CO2 emissions of cars. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of standards and fuel prices in new car fuel economy with the aid of...

We construct a two-country model where pollution from production is transmitted across borders. Pollution abatement is undertaken sequentially by private producers and the public sector. We characterize the Nash optimal levels of the policy instruments in the two countries: emission taxes and...

This paper investigates educational attainment and economic behaviour of ethnic minority immigrants and their children in Britain. Despite their strong educational achievements, ethnic minority immigrants and their descendants exhibit lower employment probabilities than their white native born...

The empirical modeling of the cross-country differences in growth behavior is undoubtedly one of the most predominant research topics in applied macro-econometrics.  However, despite the vast research effort it seems that there are only a few firm conclusions on the sources of cross-country...

We construct a theoretical framework to study the impact of asymmetric quality standards on used durable goods on trade flows, profits and consumer welfare. We show that asymmetry in quality standards generates trade in used goods from high to low standard countries while at the same time...

The recent growth literature has seen an explosion of work exploring the role of new and fundamental theories of growth such as geography, institutions, ethnic fractionalization, and religion. Nevertheless, claims about the empirical validity of these new growth theories are typically made...

Household-level portfolio data show a tendency of the majority of households in each country to hold no stocks despite a historical expected-return premium on equity relative to riskless assets. This paper first explains why such a tendency constitutes a puzzle in economic theory (the...

We investigate differences in book prices between the United States and other countries. We find that general audience books are similarly priced internationally, but textbooks are substantially more expensive in the United States (often more than double the price). This disparity is much more...

This paper argues that an increasing block pricing structure needs to be supplemented by allowances for household size and composition to be equitable. Household behaviour is modelled as the outcome of a two-stage budgeting resulting in an integrable water demand model. The welfare effects of...

We use a panel of thousands of good-level prices before and after the euro in order to compare the determinants and understand the evolution of goods price dispersion across Europe during these two periods. We find that tradeability plays a substantially smaller role in lowering cross-country...