This paper presents a theory of rent seeking within farmer cooperatives in which inequality of asset ownership affects relative control rights of different groups of members. The two key assumptions are constraints on lump-sum transfers from poorer members and disproportionate control rights...

A traditional view of markets is that they equalize wealth across individuals. A more recent literature suggests that markets are inherently disequalizing. A third viewpoint argues that initial history is crucial in determining whether inequalities persist or not. By constructing a theory of...

We compare the long-run effects of replacing unconditional transfers to the poor by transfers conditional on the education of children. Unlike Mirrlees' income taxation model, the distribution of skill evolves endogenously. Human capital accumulation follows the Freeman-Ljungqvist-Mookherjee-Ray...

This paper examines the steady states of an overlapping generations economy with a given distribution of household locations over a one-dimensional interval. Parents decide whether or not to educate their children. Educational decisions are affected by location: There are local complementarities...

A model of "satisficing" behavior in the repeated Prisoners Dilemma is studied. Each player has an aspiration at each date, and takes an action. [S]he switches from the action played in the previous period only if the achieved payoff fell below the aspiration level (with a probability that...

This paper examines steady states of an overlapping generations economy with a given distribution of household locations over a one-dimensional interval. Parents decide whether or not to educate their children. The model therefore combines local social interaction with global market interaction....

When human capital accumulation generates pecuniary externalities across professions, and capital markets are imperfect, persistent inequality "in utility and consumption" is inevitable in "any" steady state. This is true irrespective of the degree of divisibility in investments. However,...

Learning-by-doing and increasing returns are often perceived to have similar implications for market structure and conduct. The authors analyze this in the context of an infinite-horizon, price-setting game. Learning is shown to not reduce the viability of market-sharing collusion between a...