According to many observers, the world is currently getting riskier along many of its dimensions. In this paper we analyse how the welfare state, i.e., social insurance that works through redistributive taxation, should deal with this trend. We distinguish between risks that can be insured by...

We analyse how the welfare state, i.e., social insurance that works through redistributive taxation, should respond to increases in risks and to increases in the cost of operating the welfare state. With respect to risks, we distinguish between risks that can be insured and such that cannot...

Ogawa et al. (2006) analyze capital tax competition in a fixed-wage approach and show that the original results of Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986) are not preserved in the presence of unemployment. In the present paper we challenge this view and investigate capital tax competition for some...

This note provides an alternative proof for the equivalence of decreasing absolute prudence (DAP) in the expected utility framework and in a two-parametric approach where utility is a function of the mean and the standard deviation. In addition, we elucidate that the equivalence of DAP and the...

In a dynamic general equilibrium model we explictly consider the relationship between the product attributes 'durability' and 'recyclability'. Both efficiency and sustainability aspects are taken into account. It turns out (a) that durability may be inefficient even in a perfectly competitive...

This paper studies the market allocation in an economy where material is used for producing a consumption good, then recycled and finally landfilled, and where a recycling firm has market power. The material content constitutes an aspect of green product design and affects the recycling costs....