We propose that people value not only the goods they consume, but also their freedom, which increases with the number of bundles their budget allows them to buy. We apply this idea to show that citizens may favor proportional taxes over lump-sum taxes, progressive taxes over proportional taxes,...

We measure values of time and reliability from 1998 data on actual behavior of commuters on State Route 91 in Orange Country, California, where they choose between a free and a variably-tolled route. For each route at each time of day and for each day of the week, the distribution of travel...

Government often appears to have the objective of inducing firms to make investments that will help achieve regulatory goals: Regulations of automotive fuel efficiency and emissions are two examples. We find rhat a tax on the activity causing the externality may be unable in induce the desired...

This paper gives an explanation why government and large contributors aoften make contributions to a a charity in-kind rather in cash. We consider a charity that produces a public good a strictly concex production technology and with more than one factor of production.

This paper relates two canonical issues in macroeconomics: the effect of technological progress on the real exchange rate and the effect of technological progress on the natural rate of unemployment. In the context of a Ricardian model with traded and nontraded goods, I show that technological...

In many economic environments agents make costly and irreversible investments that may enhance their respective threat payoffs but also shrink the utility possibilities set. In such settings, with variable threats and a variable utility possibilities set, it becomes possible to rank different...

This paper explores the positive and normative effects of regulations governing the disclosure of product information. As an example, a Japanese food labeling system which requires explicit display of expiration dates is compared with a U.S. system which permits the encoding of expiration dates....