the effects of the crime rate on the expected sanction. It turns out that these effects are versatile and rich, both in the direction and the magnitude of their influence on the expected sanction. After analyzing these counter effects of the crime rate on the expected sanction, we present a new...

In a self-confirming equilibrium, each player correctly forecasts the actions that opponents will take along the equilibrium path, but may be mistaken about the way that opponents would respond to deviations. This models a steady state of a learning process in which players observe actions...

A predictor is asked to rank eventualities according to their plausibility, based on past cases. We assume that she can form a ranking given any memory that consists of finitely many past cases. Mild consistency requirements on these rankings imply that they have a numerical representation via a...

We quantity an amount of cross-sectional income and consumption smoothing achieved within subgroups of states, such as regions or clubs, e.g. the club of rich states.

Being relatively low earners, migrants are net beneficiaries of the welfare state. Therefore, in a static setup migration may be resisted by the entire native-born population. However, it is shown that in a dynamic setup with a pension system which is an important pillar of any welfare state,...