When voters discount the future there is pressure on governments to increase debt. Governments are more able to resist this temptation if voters are polarized ideologically. Policy contrasts starkly with models of ‘strategic debt’ wherein debt is predicted to increase with...

We analyse a procurement auction in which sellers are distinguished on the basis of the ratios of quality per unit of money they offer. Sellers are privately informed on the quality of the technology or good they offer. We assume that the procurer cannot perfectly identify the best offer. Thus,...

University of York Beijing Normal University The efficiency of the process of investment in human capital through education is of considerable importance both to the individuals involved and to the wider economy. The paper develops an analytical framework in which issues of the efficiency of...

In this paper we argue that differences in the investment projects’ features can help to explain the observed differentials in output growth and in output volatility across countries. This result is achieved by studying analytically an endogenous growth model where investments are...

Within the context of the value of information approach we compare static versus quickest detection rules for research design in health care technology assessment (HTA). We show for a research design that the optimal decision rule cannot be correctly predicted at the start of the trial. We make...

The increased availability of process measures implies that quality of care is in some areas de facto verifiable. Optimal price-setting for verifiable quality is well-described in the incentive-design literature. We seek to narrow the large gap between actual price-setting behaviour in...

While a large literature has focused on the impact of parental investments on child cognitive development, very little is known about the role of child’s own investments. Information on how children invest their time separately from parents is probably little informative for babies and...

In this paper we reconsider Jansen et al.’s (2012) Cournot model of the European Union natural gas market with three major suppliers Russian Gazprom, Norwegian Statoil, and Algerian Sonatrach. To reflect Russia’s geopolitical consideration, we incorporate a relative market...

This paper explores optimal monetary and macroprudential policy rules in an open-economy with significant exposure to external borrowing in the face of a sudden reversal of capital inflows. We consider optimal Taylor-type interest rate rules, where the policy rate is set as a function of...