In this paper, we provide an explanation of why privatization may attract foreign investors willing to enter a regional market. Privatization turns the formerly-public firm into a less aggressive competitor since profit-maximizing output is lower than the welfaremaximizing one. The drawback is...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the welfare effect of a change in the public firms objective function in oligopoly when the government takes into account the distortionary effect of rising funds by taxation (shadow cost of public funds). We analyze the impact of a shift from welfare- to...

There is a general presumption that competition is a good thing. In this paper we show that competition in the insurance markets can be bad and that adverse selection is in general worse under competition than under monopoly. The reason is that monopoly can exploit its market power to relax...

We study the impact of organized crime on electoral competition. Assuming that the mafia is able to bring votes to the supported party in exchange of money, we show that (i) the strongest party is willing to pay the highest price to secure mafia services; (ii) the volume of electoral trade with...

038 Universite Catholique de Louvain Faculte des sciences economiques, socials et politiques Departement des sciences economiques Essays on Market Imperfections and Public Intervention ...

We investigate competition for FDI within a region when a foreign multinational firm can profitably exploit differences in statutory corporate tax rates by shifting taxable profits to lower-tax jurisdictions. In such framework we show that targeted tax competition may lead to higher welfare for...

There is a general presumption that competition is a good thing. In this paper we show that competition in the insurance markets can be bad when there is adverse selection. Using the dual theory of choice under risk, we are able to fully characterize both the competitive and the monopoly market...