This paper develops a Mirrlees (1971) framework with heterogeneous agents to analyze optimal redistributive taxes, optimal provision of public goods and the marginal cost of public funds (MCF). Standard MCF measures are shown to suffer from three defects: i) The MCF for the (non-individualized)...

Nash proposed an interpretation of mixed strategies as the average pure-strategy play of a population of players randomly matched to play a normal-form game. If populations are finite, some equilibria of the underlying game have no such corresponding 'mass-action' equilibrium. We show that for...

We define an indirect evolutionary approach formally and apply it to (Tullock) contests. While it is known (Leininger, 2003) that the direct evolutionary approach in the form of finite population ESS (Schaffer, 1988) yields more aggressive behavior than in Nash equilibrium, it is now shown that...

Numerous (high-tax) countries presume that multinational firms use their transferpricing policies to shift profits into countries with lower tax rates. To avoid the corresponding loss in tax revenues, tax authorities develop constantly tightening rules to curb transfer-price distortions....

On a heterogeneous experimental oligopoly market, sellers choose a price, specify a set-valued prior-free conjecture about the others' behavior, and form their own profit-aspiration for each element of their conjecture. We formally define the concepts of satisficing and prior-free optimality and...

Previous research indicates that risky and uncertain marginal returns from the public good significantly lower contributions. This paper presents experimental results illustrating that the effects of risk and uncertainty depend on the employed parameterization. Speci?cally, if the value of the...

We study ultimatum and dictator experiments where the first mover chooses the amount of money to be distributed between the players within a given interval, knowing that her own share is fixed. Thus, the first mover is faced with scarcity, but not with the typical trade-off between her own and...

The paper characterizes the optimal tax policy and the optimal quality of day care services in a OLG model with warm-glow altruism where parental choices over child care arrangements affect the probability that the child becomes a high-skilled adult in a type-specific way. With respect to...

In this paper, we explore the role of trade in differentiated final goods as well offshoring of tasks for inequality both within and between countries. We emphasize the distinction between managerial and production labor. Production labor is assumed to be a variable input composed of tradable...