While research on subjective well-being abounds, comparatively little thought has been given to its practical policy implications. Two approaches to derive policy advice have emerged in the literature: One is organized in terms of the idea to maximize a hedonic social welfare function, the other...

It has long been recognized that taxing a commodity that generates negative externalities can be used to reduce the consumption of that commodity. A variant involves the imposition of revenue neutrality but that may alter the tax rate required to meet a consumption reduction target. We explore...

Consumer-related policy decisions often require analysis of aggregate responses or mean elasticities. However, in practice these mean elasticities are seldom used. Mean elasticities can be approximated using aggregate data, but that introduces aggregation bias for full and compensated price...

This paper is concerned with the axiomatic foundation of the revealed preference theory. Many well-known results in the literature rest upon the ability to choose over budget sets that contain only 2 or 3 elements. This paper shows that for any given choice function, many of the famous...

Former theoretical and empirical studies find that precautionary savings are reduced inthe presence of social security systems. The saving motive, however, does not change:individuals respond to increasing income risk by increasing their savings. Although thisstill holds for common tax and...

We consider a model of firm pricing and consumer choice, where consumers are loss averse and uncertain about their future demand. Possibly, consumers in our model prefer a flat rate to a measured tariff, even though this choice does not minimize their expected billing amount - a behavior in line...

We develop the theory of demand for commodities and assets facing incompletely insurable uncertainty. First, a Slutsky matrix decomposes into substitution and income effects the derivative of demand with respect to prices and yield structure. Next, we identify the Slutsky matrix’s properties....

This paper analyzes dynamic equilibrium risk sharing contracts between profit-maximizing intermediaries and a large pool of ex-ante identical agents that face idiosyncratic income uncertainty that makes them heterogeneous ex-post. In any given period, after having observed her income, the agent...

This paper considers a setting in which the acquisition of human capital entails a change of location in social space that causes individuals to revise their comparison groups. Skill levels are viewed as occupational groups, and moving up the skill ladder by acquiring additional human capital,...

This paper analyzes optimal hedging of a tradable risk (e.g. price risk or exchange rate risk) with forward contracts in the presence of untradable inflation risk. Utility is defined over real wealth. Optimal forward positions are derived relative to a given initial exposure in the tradable...