This paper considers a functional quality degradation of software with twoway features (such as reading and writing in word-processors). A software monopolist differentiates products by introducing a functionally down-graded version (e.g. the read-only version) by eliminating some functions of...

We present an overview of models of long-term self-enforcing labour contracts in which risk sharing is the dominant motive for contractual solutions. A base model is developed which is sufficiently general to encompass the two-agent problem central to most of the literature, including variable...

This paper argues that existing empirical models of interest rate rules are too simplistic. The hybrid Phillips curve implies that policymakers should respond to both current and expected future inflation rates, in contrast to existing models. We provide evidence that UK policymakers do this.

We consider a model of Cournot competition where firms have incomplete information about their rivals’ costs. The equilibrium concept we use is that of Bayesian-Nash equilibrium. Our analysis is particularly novel since we recognise that each firm’s payoff is determined by its strategy...

The Opportunistic Approach to Monetary Policy is an influential but untested model of optimal monetary policy. We provide the first tests of the model, using US data from 1983Q1-2004Q1. Our results support the Opportunistic Approach. We find that policymakers respond to the gap between inflation...

This paper examines the issue of gender bias in a broader context by constructing a multidimensional index of deprivation of daughters. Using the recently available World Bank LSMS data on the two most populated and poverty ridden states of India, we apply ordered logit regression analysis to...

We estimate a flexible non-linear monetary policy rule for the UK to examine the response of policymakers to the real exchange rate. We have three main findings. First, policymakers respond to real exchange rate misalignment rather than to the real exchange rate itself. Second, policymakers...

In this paper we study the economic determinants of the joint retirement process of married couples. We propose a tractable dynamic discrete choice model for retirement decisions which allows for non-trivial saving behaviour. We estimate the model on a 1\% sample of Danish couples of potential...

This paper contrasts the German and English traditions of ‘‘Historical Economics’’ and explains their differences by positioning these two traditions in the specific institutional contexts in which they developed.

We show how non-price-taking behavior by agents in partial equilibrium can be analyzed using strategic versions of Marshallian supply and demand curves. There is a Nash equilibrium of a two-good, strategic market game at a given price if and only if the strategic supply and demand curves...