Motivated by the highly-unionized public sectors, the high public shares in total em- ployment, and the public sector wage premia observed in Europe, this paper examines the importance of public sector unions for macroeconomic theory. The model gen- erates cyclical behavior in hours and wages...

In this paper we argue that government spending played a significant role in stimulating the wave of innovation that hit the U.S. economy in the late 1970s and in the 1980s, as well as the simultaneous increase in inequality and in education attainment. Since the late 1970’s U.S. policy makers...

In this paper we argue that government procurement policy played a role in stimulating the wave of innovation that hit the US economy in the 1980s, as well as the simultaneous increase in inequality and in education attainment. Since the early 1980s U.S. policy makers began targeting commercial...

This paper is concerned with the impact of tax sparing provisions on the location choices of multinational enterprises. Special attention is paid to the economic in°uence of tax sparing because the OECD proposal to reconsider the inclusion of this provision in bilateral tax treaties is highly...

In this paper we show that the ability of multinational firms to manipulate transfer prices affects the tax sensitivity of foreign direct investment (FDI). We offer a model of international capital allocation where firms are heterogeneous in their ability to manipulate transfer prices. Perhaps...

This paper uses a micro-founded DSGE model to compare second-best optimal environmental policy and the resulting allocation to first-best allocation. The focus is on the source and size of uncertainty, and how this affects optimal choices and the inferiority of second best vis-à-vis first best.

We welfare rank different types of second-best environmental policy. The focus is on the roles of uncertainty and public finance. The setup is the basic stochastic neoclassical growth model augmented with the assumptions that pollution occurs as a by-product of output produced and environmental...

Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion stipulates that under total utilitar- ianism, it might be optimal to choose increasing population size while consumption per capita goes to zero. We evaluate this claim within a canonical AK model with endogenous fertility and a reduced form re- lationship between...

The Ramsey model of economic growth is revisited from the point of view of viability compared to optimality. A viable state is a state from which there exists at least one trajectory in capital, consumption, and reproduction that remains in the set of constraints of minimal consumption and...

The process aimed at discovering new ideas is an economic activity whose returns are intrinsically uncertain. In a standard neo-Schumpeterian growth framework we assume that, when deciding upon R&D efforts, economic agents hold ‘ambiguous beliefs’ about the exact probability of arrival of...