We use the Euler equation to put forward a back-on-the-envelope rule for the global carbon tax based on a two-box carbon cycle with temperature lag, and a constant elasticity of marginal damages with respect to GDP.  This tax falls with time impatience and intergenerational inequality aversion...

This paper examines the convergence of payoffs and strategies in Erev and Roth`s model of reinforcement learning. When all players use this rule it eliminates iteratively dominated strategies and in two-person constant-sum games average payoffs converge to the value of the game. Strategies...

This paper uses firm-level data to address the following issues; (i) Have wage differentials increased at the level of the firm? (ii) Are they any patterns in the levels and changes of these differentials? (iii) Do the same factors determine the pay of both low-skilled and high-skilled workers?

The impact of profitability on capital accumulation, neglected in conventional accounts, is confirmed by a cross sectional analysis of the post-war experience of manufacturing in OECD economies and this is consistent with a body of time-series and firm level studies.

Greater labour market flexibility is often advocated as the solution to joblessness. Calls to weaken minimum wage provisions, to make out-of-work benefits less generous and to reduce legislative or bargained restrictions on hiring and firing have the common objective of encouraging those without...

The paper develops an efficiency-wage model where input prices affect the equlibrium rate of unemployment. We show that a simple framework based on only two prices (the real price of oil and the real rate of interest) is able to explain the main post-war movements in the rate of U.S. joblessnss....

Much of the dramatic change in skill and wage structure observed in recent years in the United States is believed to stem from the impact of new technology. This paper compares the changing skill strcuture of wage bills and employment in the United States with six other advanced developed...

This paper analyses the impact of cost competitiveness and technology on export performance using a very rich panel datset of 12 manufacturing industries in 14 OECD countries for the period between 1970 and 1992.

If a nation's economic performance improves, how much extra happiness does that buy its citizens? Most public debate assume -without real evidence- that the answer is a lot. This paper examines the question by using information on the well-being in Western countries.

A large literature in macroeconomics assumes a social objective function, W(pi,U), where inflation, pi, and unemployment, U, are bads. This paper provides some of the first formal evidence for such an approach. It issues data on the reported well-being levels of approximately one quarter of a...