We assess the political support for parametric reforms of the Pay-As-You-Go pension system following a downward fertility shock. Using a continuous time overlapping generations model, we argue that reforms that consist in cutting pension benefits or increasing the retirement age are likely to...

We consider competition among sellers when each of them sells a portfolio of distinct products to a buyer having limited slots. We study how bundling affects competition for slots. Under independent pricing, equilibrium often does not exist and hence the outcome is often inefficient. When...

This paper reexamines the question of how to explain business cycle co-movements within and between countries. First, we present two simple theoretically flexible price models to illustrate how and why news shocks can generate robust positive co-movements in economic activity across countries....

We consider a formal approach to comparative risk aversion and applies it to intertemporal choice models. This allows us to ask whether standard classes of utility functions, such as those inspired by Kihlstrom and Mirman (1974), Selden (1978), Epstein and Zin (1989) and Quiggin (1982) are...

This paper considers the problem faced by long-term investors who have to delegate the management of their money to professional fund managers. Investors can earn profits if fund managers collect long-term information. We investigate to what extent the delegation of fund management prevents...

Voting is a lottery in which an individual who is uncertain about how the others vote wins if she belongs to the majority or loses if she falls into the minority. The risk of losing can be reduced by increasing the majority threshold. This however has the negative effect of also lowering the...

We investigate the interactions between managers’ incentives to collude or compete, and incentives to exert effort. A manager privately chooses the competitive strategy of the firm, and his own effort to improve productivity; He may substitute collusion to effort to increase profits. High...

We consider a preemption game with two potential competitors who come into play at some random secret times. The presence of a competitor is revealed to a player only when the former moves, which terminates the game. We show that all perfect Bayesian equilibria give rise to the same distribution...

This paper analyzes the possibility and the consequences of asset price overvaluation in a dynamic economy where financially constrained firms demand and supply liquidity. Bubbles are more likely to emerge, the scarcer the supply of outside liquidity and the more limited the pledgeability of...