We re-examine, from a political economy perspective, the standard view that higher capital mobility results in lower capital taxes - a view, in fact, that is not confirmed by the available empirical evidence. We show that when a small economy is opened to capital mobility, the change of...

We re-examine, from a political economy perspective, the standard view that higher capital mobility results in lower capital taxes - a view, in fact, that is not confirmed by the available empirical evidence. We show that when a small economy is opened to capital mobility, the change of...

We consider auctions where bidders care about the reputational effects of their bidding and argue that the amount of information disclosed at the end of the auction will influence bidding. We focus on bid disclosure rules that capture all of the realistic cases. We show that bidders distort...

We consider auctions where bidders care about the reputational effects of their bidding and argue that the amount of information that is disclosed at the end of the auction will influence bidding. Our analysis focuses on several bid disclosure rules that capture all of the realistic cases. We...

The labor share of income varies markedly across the set of democracies. A model of the political process, situated in a simple macroeconomic environment is analyzed in which the cause of this variation is linked to differences in the form of democracy - in particular the adoption of a...

We attempt to shed some light on the problem of providing incentives to service providers such as teachers and doctors. Often, outcomes of such services are not verifiable, and this has been cited as a reason for lack of incentive provision. We derive the contract offered by a principal if, in...

This paper sets up an OLG economy with endogenous life expectancy to study how fiscal policy that redistributes between generations can open the door to sunspot equilibria. Agents invest independently in their own human capital, produce and consume output, and receive a pension upon retirement....

Consider an agent who has an expertise in producing a non-marketable good. This good is valued by a single principal, and there is a veri able measure of the agent's performance. Crucially, the agent is intrinsically motivated, due to `warm glow altruism'. In addition, the agent's budget, which...

In many situations in macroeconomics strategic complementarities arise, and agents face a coordination problem. An important issue, from both a theoretical and a policy perspective, is equilibrium uniqueness. We contribute to this literature by focusing on the macroeconomic aspect of the...