An important issue in public policy debates is the effect of international migration on welfare in source and host countries. We address this issue by constructing a general equilibrium model of a two-class source or host country. Each country produces many traded and non-traded goods, uses...

We propose a dynamic general equilibrium model with human capital accumulation to evaluate the economic consequences of compulsory services (such as military draft or social services). Our analysis identifies a so far ignored dynamic cost arising from distortions in time allocation over the...

Delayed Integration ("DI") is a rule for taxing migrants. It requires that immigrants be taxed in the receiving country only after some period of transition. Conversely, emigrants are released from the obligation to pay home taxes only after a certain period. DI is an alternative ti the...

In this paper we introduce flexible majority decision rules where the size of the majority depends on the proposal made by the agenda setter. Flexible majority rules can mitigate the disadvantages of democracies in the provision of public projekts. In many cases, the combination of the priciples...

This paper explores how the introduction of an experience rated system of unemployment insurance affects employment and welfare in a model where implicit contracts between firms and workers give rise to wage rigidities and unemployment. In the literature, it has been argued that experience rated...

This paper investigates the effects of lobbying by corporations when investments are irreversible and government cannot commit to tax policies. We show that industries which rely more heavily on sunk capital lobby more vigorously and are generally more successful in obtaining tax breaks. Thus...

Launching and stimulating competition in telecommunications markets is an important policy goal. It contains two elements: to encourage entry and to make competition effective such that consumers benefit. The first one requires that entrants can make profits after investing in infrastructure so...

We construct a two-country model where pollution from production is transmitted across borders. Pollution abatement is undertaken sequentially by private producers and the public sector. We characterize the Nash optimal levels of the policy instruments in the two countries: emission taxes and...

The paper deals with the question of whether fiscal transfers received by cities can be justified by a higher cost of producing publicly provided goods. In the model, increasing the population density implies a higher output per capita due to agglomeration economies and a higher cost of the...