This paper studies the role of alternative pension systems that offer collective annuities. The defining characteristic of collective annuities is that they do not depend on an individual's survival probabilities. We show that such a system may be welfare improving (with a utilitarian social...

We build a model where a postal incumbent offering single piece, transactional and advertising mail competes with postal entrants and with a firm offering an alternative medium. We solve for the optimal prices under various competition assumptions. We calibrate the model and provide numerical...

This paper studies the optimal price structure in the postal sector when worksharing is available (e.g., for collection, sorting and transportation). In particular, we compare the optimal worksharing discount to the ECPR discount. Classification JEL : L9, L51, L32

This article models a two-period overlapping generations economy in the steady state where the realization of the quantity-quality number of children depends on an initial investment in children and on a random shock. It shows that the implementation of the first-best allocation, in which the...

This article surveys the theoretical literature on wealth transfer taxation. The focus is normative: we are looking at the design of an optimal tax structure from the standpoint of both equity and efficiency. The gist of this survey is that the optimal design crucially depends on the assumed...

A wide variety of social protection systems coexist within the EU. Some member states provide social insurance that is of Beveridgean inspiration (with universal and more or less flat benefits), while others offer a system that is mainly Bismarckian (with benefits related to past contributions)....

This paper studies the design of education policies in a setting of overlapping generations with heterogeneous individuals. Individuals differ in productivity (high and low earning ability) and in altruism (altruists and non altruists). Only altruistic parents invest in education out of some joy...