In any non-trivial state, policies decided at the top levels of government are administered by middle-level bureaucrats. I examine whether this agency problem can contribute to explaining state failure in matters of provision of public goods. I find some theoretical arguments to support the view...

This paper offers an initial exploration of a positive counterpart to the normative Ramsey-Diamond-Mirrlees theory of optimal commodity taxation. A model of lobbying for taxes and subsidies on production and consumption in an open economy is constructed, generalizing the Crossman-Helpman model...

This article constructs a model of R&D with heterogeneous firms. Each firm's probability of success is a function of its sunk and recurrent R&D expenditures. The social gains from an innovation are not fully captured by the successful firm. The comparison of the social optimum and the market...