Social preferences for the punishment of free riders are critical for generating cooperative behavior in human society. Focusing on the receiving fees of Japan's public broadcaster, this study analyses how punishment of free riders, that is, the strengthening of legal responses against them,...

The conceptual framework of the capability approach proposed by Amartya Sen has never been used specifically in the dynamics of forced displacement or in the analysis of the quality of life of the population victims of the Colombian armed conflict. Reason why, this article affirms that the...

In "Fairness in Practice - A Social Contract for a Global Economy" (2012) Aaron James proposes a substantial normative framework for a theory of fairness in the global economy. Based on a distinctive methodology of interpretive constructivism, James argues for an internal justification of...

How agents assess the (in-)tangible externalities that others might impose on them can strongly influence strategic interaction. This study explores mechanism design for agents whose externality assessments and private payoffs, exclusive of externalities, are all subject to asymmetric...

Is an assumption of bounded rationality needed to explain Social Security and other mandatory pension plans? In this contribution we argue that when rational agents hold inconsistent expectations such programs may be justified. Two of the features that distinguish Social Security and many other...

In this paper we challenge the common interpretation of Rawls' Theory of Justice as Fairness by showing that this Theory, as outlined in the Restatement (Rawls 2001), goes well beyond the definition of a distributive value judgment, in such a way as to embrace efficiency issues as well. A simple...

Acknowledging individuals' distaste for low relative income renders trade less appealing when trade is viewed as a technology that integrates economies by merging separate social spheres into one. We define a "trembling trade" as a situation in which gains from trade are overtaken by losses of...

Abstract: We study the impact of unjust inequality on social trust and trustworthiness, and its separate effect on the economically successful and the unsuccessful, in a controlled economic experiment. We find evidence for a negative effect of unfair economic inequality on social interactions....

We build a New Keynesian model with imperfectly competitive goods markets and heterogeneous people and examine their impact on fiscal multipliers and on the net increase in output and expenditure caused by fiscal policies, using the balanced budget multiplier. Results show that in highly unequal...