Societies provide institutions that are costly to use, but able to enforce long-run relationships. We study the optimal decision problem of using self-governance for risk sharing or governance through enforcement provided by these institutions. Third-party enforcement is modelled as a costly...

This paper reviews the key economic issues concerning the welfare costs of inflation and deflation, with a view to shedding light on the desirable properties of the inflation process. Our review of the evidence on the overall costs of inflation and deflation indicates that such costs could be...

When people share risk in financial markets, intermediaries provide costly enforcement for most trades and, hence, are an integral part of financial marketsu0092 organization. We assess the degree of risk sharing that can be achieved through financial markets when enforcement is based on the...

This report presents results of the project Impacts of Renewable Energy on European Farmers. It focuses on the (potential) role that on-farm generation of Renewable Energy in the EU-27 may play both in realisation of national and EU environmental targets as in (re)vitalising agriculture and...

This information note is part of the European Commission's Agenda for Change, in which sustainable agriculture is a priority. It begins with an executive summary (Chapter 2), followed by a discussion of the importance of smallholder access to agricultural markets in Chapter 3. Chapters 4 to 7...

Sustainable energy is fundamental to social and economic development and to power sustainable growth. It is needed to improve livelihoods in developing countries, ensuring access to clean water, cooking, education and healthcare for their people. Energy poverty is also among the root causes of...