Ranking methods are fundamental tools in many areas. Popular methods aggregate the statements of `experts' in different ways. As such, there are various reasonable ranking methods, each one of them more or less adapted to the environment under consideration.This paper introduces a new method,...

Due to computing and communication facilities, formal procedures, often referred to as ‘algorithms’, are now extensively used in public, economic and social areas. These procedures, currently at the forefront of criticisms, share some features with mechanisms as defined by economists,...

Ranking methods are fundamental tools in many areas. Popular methods aggregate the statements of ‘experts’ in different ways. As such, there are various reasonable ranking methods, each one of them more or less adapted to the environment under consideration. This paper introduces a new...

An unfunded social security system faces the major risk, sometimes referred to as "political risk," that future generations do not agree to contribute as much as expected. In order to account properly for this risk, the paper considers a political process in which the support to the system is...

This paper analyzes how mobility of post-graduate skilled workers and students across different countries affects the quality level of higher education and the way education is financed. We start by examining a closed economy. In the presence of imperfect credit markets the education level with...

This article takes the following question as a point of departure: if one firm is more efficient than a rival does it have cause to initiate a price war? In order to study the question, we rely on a simple duopoly model and try to make especially heavy use of the concept of barrier to mobility....

In many developed countries attempts to reform physicians payment schemes have failed. To analyze some of the difficulties, this paper studies reforms of payment schemes in situations such as the physician agency, where the quality of the good produced is imperfectly observable by the payer. We...