We present a model where the probability distribution over the space of an agent's achievements depends not only on her ability and effort, but also on the goals set for her. The agent chooses her effort according to her utility net of perceived cost of effort. This cost is inversely...

In this paper, we consider an asymmetric polluting oligopoly: firms have different production costs, and their pollution characteristics may also be different. We will demonstrate that, in this case, optimal tax rates per unit of emission are not the same for all firms. We call this property...

We develop a theoretical model in which each individual is, in some ultimate sense, motivated by purely egoistic satisfaction derived from the goods accruing to him, but there is an implicit social contract such that each performs duties for the others in a way that enhances the satisfaction of...

We construct a model to show that active financial intermediation can induce economic fluctuations. We embed a financial sector in a simple overlapping generation model with a single stock of capital. Individuals are risk averse agents that face idiosyncratic risks in their business activities:...

There is a large literature on the optimal order of exploitation of natural resources. We explore the impact of specific technical progress that enables the saving of resource inputs in production on the order of exploitation. Models of growth tend to assume uniform and global technical progess....

We provide sufficient conditions for existence and uniqueness of a Cournot equilibrium. The contraction mapping approach is used. Equilibrium is characterized in terms of marginal costs. The result is useful for applications to two-stage games, where, in the first stage, firms incur costs to...

This paper discusses the influence of public ownership on trade policy instruments. We demonstrate three important invariance results. First, the degree of public ownership affects neither the level of socially optimal activities nor welfare if the government chooses optimal trade policy...

We study the optimal policies of research and development in the context of a resource-exploiting economy. We distinguish two cases: non-renewable resources and renewable resources. In the first case, we show that it is useful to construct an index of scarcity, which is the product of the level...

We derive corrective tax rules when firms are oligopolists whose production processes generate emissions that add to a stock of pollution that accumulates over time. In our model, firms play dynamic Cournot games among themselves, and the government designs a tax rule that corrects for both the...

This paper analyzes a class of two-stage Cournot games where rival firms, in the first stage, incur real resource costs in jointly manipulating their marginal costs of production, so as to influence the outcome of game they want to play in the second stage. Marginal costs may be manipulated by...