In this paper we study the nature of predatory behaviour in an oligopolistic framework. We use the long-purse story of financial vulnerability to demonstrate that predatory behaviour is less likely to occur in an oligopoly than in a monopoly. We show the nature of the free-rider problem, and...

It is often taken for granted that if more firms were innately honest or ethical in the way they behaved, this would be a good thing. In this paper we use the example of environmental regulation to show that such a claim cannot, in general, be sustained. If regulation is by pollution tax we show...

Developing country leaders typically resemble proprietors more than benevolent social planners, i.e., they are powerful individuals pursuing their own interests while they remain in power. We model growth in a "proprietary economy" facing each period an endogenous probability of "political...

In this paper we study the relationship between legislature size with respect to general government and welfare spending. According to the theory, legislature size has an indefinite effect on government spending because logrolling and transaction costs have canceling effects. Bicameralism is...

This paper studies the falsifiability of the hypothesis of Nash behavior, for the case of a finite number of players who choose from continuous domains, subject to constraints. The results obtained here are negative. Assuming the observation of finite data sets, and using weak, but nontrivial,...

Policy makers make policy decisions, which affect the utility of private citizens. The traditional explanation for government intervention in the economy is the existence of market failure. Nevertheless, despite public policy interventions, the economy may fail to reach the efficient frontier....

Restrictions preventing regulators from setting standards on a firm by firm basis are commonly assumed to be inefficient. Existing rationales for their prevalence have been politico-economic. We provide an efficiency interpretation. We characterise settings in which the requirement that firms be...

Minimum standards set by a ‘World Environmental Organisation’ (WEO) and NGO labelling are promoted as alternative approaches to international environmental protection. We explore the potential inter-play between these two approaches when the WEO is subject to pressure from producers. We find...

Voting theory has always focused on mechanism design, but this paper shows that voting theory is also a useful tool in the field of preference representation. Both the lexicographic order on n-dimensional Euclidean space and the threshold of detectable difference relation are pairwise majority...

We model growth in dictatorships facing each period an endogenous probaibility of "political catastrophe" that would extinguish the regime's wealth ability. Domestic capital exhibits a bifurcation point determining economic growth or shrinkage. With low initial domestic capital the dictator...