I discuss the application of capture-recapture methods to estimating the total number of deaths in armed conflicts, and propose an alternative method based on a trivariate discrete choice model. Data come from the ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ (TRC) of Peru, around 25000 deaths,...

In equipment-intensive sectors — such as water utilities, power generation, gas — billions of dollars are spent in capital equipment. We discuss and characterize the optimal policy of a profit-maximizing firm and compare it with the optimal policy of a welfare-maximizing planner. When there...

We study delegating a consumer's treatment plan decisions to an altruistic physician. The physician?s degree of altruism is his private information. The consumer's illness severity will be learned by the physician, and also will become his private information. Treatments are discrete choices,...

We explain why a durable-goods monopolist would like to create a shortage during the launch phase of a new product. We argue that this incentive arises from the presence of a second-hand market and uncertainty about consumers?willingness to pay for the good. Consumers are heterogeneous in their...

This article considers the problem of patent licensing in a Cournot oligopoly under a class of general demand functions. We consider two cases, the case where the innovator is an outsider and the one where it is one of the incumbent rms. The licensing policies considered are upfront fees,...

The capital income tax cuts that were part of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 are expiring this year and the administration has to decide whether to extend them or not. This paper assesses the effects of these tax cuts in a calibrated dynamic general equilibrium...

This paper studies a model of corporate finance in which firms use stock issuance to finance investment. Since the firm recognizes the relationship between future dividends and stock prices, future variables enter in the constraints and optimal policy is in general time inconsistent. We discuss...

Social optimization problems are often used in economics to study important issues. In a social optimization problem, the sum of individual weighted utilities is maximized over all feasible allocations that satisfy certain constraints. In this paper, we provide a mechanism that determines the...

What degree of tax autonomy should be granted to a regional government on a local tax base? Although the regional policy maker aims at maximizing social welfare, her tax policy may be distorted by the lobbying activity of local taxpayers. In this political environment we characterize the...

This paper studies a production economy with aggregate uncertainty where consumers have limited commitment on their financial liabilities. Markets are endogenously incomplete due to the fact that the borrowing constraints are determined endogenously. We first show that, if competitive financial...