Decision based economic theory stresses the central position of the objective function in the behavior of economic agents. Insufficient knowledge of objective functions hampers the development of economic theory. In this article, a methodology for deriving objective functions from conscious...

The objective of this paper is to systematically incorporate lobbying in a microeconomic model of the profit maximizing farmer, derive testable implications of the model and apply it to establish the link, or lack thereof, between policy benefits transferred to farmers and their lobbying...

Shared knowledge structures, such as cognitive categories and relationships, are central to the interpretation of a complex social environment and thus play an important role in mediating between individual preferences and group outcomes. This article defines a "knowledge-induced equilibrium"...

This paper investigates the role of the deterioration of the Turkish public sector balances in the latter half of the 1980's and the evolution of the economic crisis with the aid of a computable general equilibrium model. The theoretical basis of the model utilized in the paper rests upon the...

A simple two-sector endogenous growth model of government spending and growth is developed with a producing and a lobbying sector. Lobbyists divert government spending for private gains. One key innovation is this: With democratization, information (and power) becomes more diffused (public),...

In this paper we consider a general equilibrium model where heterogeneous agents specialize either in legitimate market activities or in criminal activities and majority rule determines the share of income redistributed and the expenditures devoted to the apprehension of criminals. We calibrate...