In public procurement a temporal separation of award and actual contracting can frequently be observed. In this paper we give an explanation for this institutional setting. For incomplete procurement contracts we show that such a separation may increase efficiency. We show that efficiency can be...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. We first develop a contractarian theory of redistribution. The existence of rules of redistribution is explained without any recourse to the risk-aversion of individuals. Hence, we depart from the standard legitimization of redistribution as fundamental...

Die folgende Dissertation hat zwei Teile. Das Thema des ersten Teils ist die Rolle von Freiheit in normativer und positiver Ökonomik. Dieser Teil beschäftigt sich mit Fragen, wie: "Wie kann man Freiheit in ökonomischen Modellen messen?", "Wie kann man Institutionen schaffen, die Individuen...

Institutional change is guided by rules. In the European Union these rules are given by Art. 250-252 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. These articles define the actors and rules that bring about changes in policies in the European Union. We analyze these articles as games in extensive form and...

In this paper we analyze the structure of contest equilibria with a variable number of individuals. First we analyze a situation where the total prize depends on the number of agents and where every single agent faces opportunity costs of investing in the contest. Second we analyze a situation...

In an environment with asymmetric information the implementation of a first-best efficient Clarke-Groves-Vickrey (D?Aspremont-Gérard-Varet) mechanism may not be feasible if it has to be self-financing. By using intergenerational transfers, the arising budget deficit can generally be covered in...

This paper examines information sharing between governments in an optimaltaxation framework. We present a taxonomy of alternative systems of international capital-income taxation and characterize the choice of tax rates and information exchange. The model reproduces the conclusion of the...