We compare the economic efficiency of a publicly-owned utility directly controlled by the government with a publicly-owned utility regulated by a public utility commission (PUC). Regulation by a PUC is modelled as a Nash equilibrium of a game between two principals, the government and the PUC,...

The question addressed in this paper is the order of magnitude of the difference between the Borda rule and any given social choice function. A social choice function is a mapping that associates a subset of alternatives to any profile of individual preferences. The Borda rule consists in asking...

In this paper we present a applied general equilibrium model with special features that allows for comparative analysis of different pricing scheme. We look at Boiteux-Ramsey Pricing, Marginal Cost Pricing as well as an arbitrary water pricing increase for the agriculture sectors. A standard AGE...

I develop a theory of technical progress that uncovers sufficient conditions for opposition to the adoption of child labor laws to disappear over time. The supply of child labor comes exclusively from unskilled parents, because of their inability to help their children benefit from formal...

Although it is intuitive and morally compelling that the worst forms of child labour should be eliminated, banning them in poor countries is unlikely to be welfare improving and can come at the expense of human capital accumulation. We show that the existence of harmful forms of child labour, in...

The preservation of biodiversity requires the protection of endangered species' habitats. In Canada, approximately 60% of these habitats are located on private lands. We start by analysing the obstacles to the protection of endangered species' habitats, with special attention to the compensation...

This paper develops a two-sector, general equilibrium, overlapping generations model to study necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of private tutoring, when education is publicly provided. Young agents have heterogeneous endowments of human capital, which they can augment...

This paper makes a new attack on the old problem of measuring horizontal inequity (HI). A local measure of HI is proposed, and aggregated into a global index. Whilst other approaches have captured the welfare gain which would come from eliminating HI revenue-neutrally, our global index provides...

In this paper, we reexamine the relationship between performance and concentration in the light of modern oligopoly theory. More specifically, we examine the link that exists between firm size inequality (FSI) and market power. Traditional theory predicts that market power should be higher in...