Why do some countries establish their own national eco-labeling programs and some do not? In this paper, we provide both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence suggesting that the answer to this question can shed new light on three questions that have taken center-stage in the trade and...

We analyze how a permanent shift in political power in a region that is creative a la Richard Florida affects tax policy and economic outcomes. There are three groups of individuals in our region: laborers or workers, creative class members or entrepreneurs, and the elites. The elites initially...

We analyze a stylized creative region populated by three groups of individuals: the elites who hold political and taxing power, the entrepreneurial creative class that produces a knowledge good, and workers. Political competition between the elites and the creative class results in the elites...

We study the short-run impacts of labor income taxation in an aggregate economy of N2 regions. The distinct regions demand workers. Each region is endowed with one unit of immobile capital. The aggregate economy also has one unit of labor that is mobile across the regions. All regions produce a...

We study pollution cleanup in the Ganges in Varanasi, India. Voters elect politicians and elected politicians decide how much pollution to clean up. Between the two time periods, there is an election. Politicians are sincere or insincere. The marginal cost of public funds ζ measures how...

We demonstrate the sensitivity of the location of downstream firms, engaged in sequential spatial competition, to the vertical structure of an industry where no downstream firm can produce all varieties demanded.

This analysis is a natural follow up of continued efforts to assess the consequences of cross-border mergers in industries with a vertical structure. Absent free trade, in a vertically related industry, the downstream firms will not choose the social optimum under spatial price discrimination...

We introduce international labor mobility in a three-sector general equilibrium model with rural-urban migration. We demonstrate that under some reasonable conditions an inflow of foreign skilled labor (capital) can reduce skilled-unskilled wage inequality.

This paper builds a general equilibrium model for a small open economy with unemployment of unskilled labor to assess the impact of a recessionary shock. It is shown that irrespective of the factor intensity assumption skilled wage and rental ratio goes up if recession led price fall is...

Using the hybrid of Heckscher - Ohlin and Specific Factor models of trade we show that economic recession led shock results in a loss for both capitalists and skilled workers. Some of the unionized unskilled workers lose formal sector employment and move onto the informal sector. In case capital...