We consider, in a general equilibrium overlapping generations (OLG) model with environmental externalities, a contract between successive generations, whereby agents of the current working-age generation privately invest a share of their labor income in pollution mitigation in exchange for a...

This paper examines the research area identified by Frey and Gallus (Aggregate Effects of Behavioral Anomalies: A New Research Area, 2014) and the relationship between it and the choices that economists make. It supports the Frey and Gallus view that, as a consequence of individuals employing...

This paper experimentally studies the disposition effects of teams and individuals. The disposition effect describes the phenomenon that investors are reluctant to realize losses, whereas winners are sold too early. Our experiments compare the investments of two-person teams to a setting where...

We introduce the notion of language disenfranchisement which arises if the number of EU working languages is reduced. We use the data on language proficiency in EU and show that, in spite of the widespread knowledge of English, the retention of French and German as working languages in essential...

We define the canonical form of a cost spanning tree problem. The canonical form has the property that reducing the cost of any arc, the minimal cost of connecting agents to the source is also reduced. We argue that the canonical form is a relevant concept in this kind of problems and study a...

A feature of policy-making today is its dependence on scientific advice to deliver public policies that are robust, credible, and effective. This paper discusses how policy-making profits from scientific advice in areas where science and technology are significant. Particular attention is given...

Networks and networking have become fashionable concepts and terms in regional science, and in particular in regional and urban geography in the last decade: we speak about network firms, network society, network economy but also network cities, city-networks, reti urbane, reseaux de villes....

We study the relation between mechanism design and voting in public-good provision. If incentive mechanisms must satisfy conditions of coalition-proofness and robustness, as well as individual incentive compatibility, the participants' contributions to public-good provision can only depend on...

In a large economy, a first-best provison rule for a public good is robustly implementable with budget balance because no one individual alone can affect the aggregate outcome. First-best outcomes can, however, be blocked by coalitions of agents acting in concert. With a requirement of immunity...

A group of agents wants to reform the status quo if and only if this is Pareto improving. Agents have private information and may have common or private objectives, which creates a tension between information aggregation and minority protection. We analyze a simple voting system - majority rule...