This paper analyses the efficiency and distributional impacts of congestion pricing in Vickrey's (1969) dynamic bottleneck model of congestion, allowing for continuous distributions of values of time and schedule delay. We find that congestion pricing can leave a majority of travellers better...

We study the interaction between competitive markets and income redistribution that reallocates unequal pre-tax market incomes away from the rich to the poor majority. In one setup, participants earn their income by trading in a double auction (DA) with exogenous zero or full redistribution. In...

We study which policy tool and at what level a majority chooses in order to reduce activities with negative externalities. We consider three instruments: a rule, that sets an upper limit to the activity which produces the negative externality, a quota that forces a proportional reduction of the...

Two pension reforms in Austria increased the early retirement age (ERA) from 60 to 62 for men and from 55 to 58.25 for women. We find that raising the ERA increased employment by 9.75 percentage points among affected men and by 11 percentage points among affected women. The reforms had large...

This paper studies the effect of a large-scale policy change in the Austrian disability insurance program, which tightened eligibility criteria for men above a certain age. Using administrative data on the universe of Austrian private-sector employees, the results of difference-in-difference...

When choosing his speed, a driver faces a trade-off between private benefits (time savings) and private costs (fuel cost and own damage and injury). Driving faster also has external costs (pollution, adverse health impacts and injury to other drivers). This paper uses large-scale speed limit...

We consider the problem faced by firms operating in a foreign country characterized by weak governance. Our focus is on extortion based on the threat of expropriation and bureaucratic harassment. The bureaucrat's bargaining power is characterized by a general extortion mechanism adapted from the...

We analyze the effects of a generalized class of negative consumption externalities (asymmetric and non-atmospheric) on the structure of efficient commodity tax programs. Households are not only concerned about consumption reference levels — that is, they gain utility from “keeping up with...

The Kyoto and Copenhagen Protocols on climate change mitigation postponed the specification of binding commitments to a future negotiation. This paper analyzes the strategic implications of delayed negotiations. While, as is well-understood, the incentive to free ride leads to excessive...

Economists have long argued that many recipients of energy-efficiency subsidies may be “non-additional,” getting paid to do what they would have done anyway. Demonstrating this empirically has been difficult, however, because of endogeneity concerns and other challenges. In this paper we use...