Using a randomized experiment in a public Swiss university, we study the impact of online live streaming of lectures on student achievement and attendance. We find that (i) students use the live streaming technology only punctually, apparently when random events make attending in class too...

We show that inequality triggers social unrest in rural India. We develop a theoretical framework where social unrest is rationally used by civilians to oppose (unfair) surplus sharing by the elite. We predict that the probability of observing social unrest in a village increases with the sum of...

Implementing a project, like a nationwide nuclear waste disposal, which benefits all involved agents but brings major costs only to the host is often problematic. In practice, revelation issues and redistributional concerns are significant obstacles to achieving stable agreements. We address...

The siting of public facilities, such as prisons, airports or incinerators for hazardous waste typically faces social rejection by local populations (the "NIMBY" syndrome, for Not In My BackYard). These public goods exhibit a private bad aspect which creates an asymmetry: all involved...

It has long been recognized that the quality of property rights greatly impacts the economic development of a country and the use of its natural resources. Since Long (1975), the conventional wisdom has been that ownership risk induces a firm to overuse the stock of a resource. However, the...

Allocating property rights on an open access resource which has been freely exploited in the past is often very problematic. Involved agents typically rely on one of two competing principles to determine future allocation. The first priority principle, "first in time, first in rights" favors the...

Jaffe and Palmer (1997) present three distinct variants of the so- called Porter Hypothesis. The “weak” version of the hypothesis posits that environmental regulation will stimulate certain kinds of environmental innovations. The “narrow” version of the hypothesis asserts that flexible...

Jaffe and Palmer (1997) present three distinct variants of the so-called Porter Hypothesis. The weak version of the hypothesis posits that environmental regulation will stimulate certain kinds of environmental innovations. The narrow version of the hypothesis asserts that flexible environmental...

The siting of public facilities, such as prisons, airports or incinerators for hazardous wastes faces social rejection by local population. These public goods have a private bad aspect which creates a siting problem: all communities benefit from its existence, but only one (the host) bears its...

Choosing a project for which benefits accrue to all involved agents but brings major costs or additional benefits to only one agent is often problematic. Siting a nationwide nuclear waste disposal or hosting a major sporting event are examples of such a problem: costs or benefits are tied to the...