Governments often provide their citizens with goods and services that are also supplied in markets: education, housing, nutritional assistance, etc. We analyze the political economy of the public provision of private goods when individuals care about their social image. We show that image...

By defining political economy and war in the broadest sense, this unique Handbook brings together a wide range of interdisciplinary scholars from economics, political science, sociology, and policy studies to address a multitude of important topics. These include an analysis of why wars begin,...

We analyze the impact of increased pension uncertainties on saving and retirement decisions, both in isolated and in joint decision problems. In the absence of other risks, saving is increased and retirement is delayed when social security pensions get more risky. If saving and retirement...

We examine two types of altruism and their implications for voluntary giving. Philanthropists are altruists who wish to enhance the well-being of others, while individuals with merit-good preferences only wish to further the consumption of certain merit goods by others. Philanthropic donors...

This note provides an alternative proof for the equivalence of decreasing absolute prudence (DAP) in the expected utility framework and in a two-parametric approach where utility is a function of the mean and the standard deviation. In addition, we elucidate that the equivalence of DAP and the...

We analyse tax competition with corporate profit taxes in a common market where tax revenues are allocated according to an apportionment formula. As a general rule, tax competition is sharper the higher is the tax elasticity of the apportionment formula which, in turn, depends on the properties...