Ricerche Economiche最新文献

Consider an economy where a fixed amount of revenue is to be raised, perhaps to finance a public good, by a tax on income. The only two goods in the economy are labour (or capital) and a consumption good, and workers are differentiated by only one parameter. A map describing ability to pay, from the agent types to tax liability, is given. Under what conditions on preferences can such a map be implemented by an income tax, in the sense that each agent pays exactly what is desired, after all behavioural adjustments? We find sufficient conditions on preferences and the map, as well as necessary conditions. The only restriction on tax functions is that they be measurable; bunching and gaps are allowed. Applications to both normative and positive public finance are discussed.

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We examine a local public goods economy with differentiated crowding. The main innovation is that we assume that the crowding effects of agents are a result of choices that agents make. For example, agents may be crowded (positively or negatively) by the skills that other members of their jurisdiction possess and these skills may be acquired through utility maximizing educational investment choices made in response to equilibrium wages and educational costs. In such an environment, we show that taste-homogeneous jurisdictions are optimal. This contrasts with results for both the standard differentiated crowding model and the crowding types model. We also show that the core and equilibrium are equivalent, and that decentralization is possible through anonymous prices having a structure similar to cost–share equilibrium prices.

The paper shows that competitive forces in club economies lead to admission prices that can be decomposed as anonymous linear prices on externality-producing attributes, where each member pays the same amount per unit attribute contributed. The externalities prices are sufficient to cover the costs of services provided within the club. The latter can be interpreted as a variant on the “Henry George Theorem”.

In this paper we analyse the problem of the rent obtained by the agent in private common agency games. The key features for answering this question are the properties of the cost function of the agent. We prove that if this cost function is submodular (costs complements) then there is no equilibrium in which the agent makes a rent and if the cost function is supermodular (costs substitutes) then in all equilibria the agent makes a rent. We also examine the problem in some intermediate cases.

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This paper discusses the asymptotic stability of the steady state and the existence of a Hopf bifurcation in discrete time multisector optimal growth models. We obtain on the one hand a local turnpike theorem which guarantees the saddle point property for all discount rates. On the other hand, we provide a new proposition which gives some conditions ensuring local stability of the steady state if the impatience rate is not too high. A characterization of the boundδ*, above which the steady state is saddle-point stable, is also proposed in terms of indirect utility function's concavity properties. On this basis, some sufficient conditions for the existence of a Hopf bifurcation are stated. We thus prove the existence of quasi-periodic optimal paths in asymmetric models.

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D'Aspremont and Jacquemin's model is extended to study alternative configurations of research agreements in a two-country integrated world economy. Under unambiguous conditions on spillovers, we show that: (1) allowing national firms to cooperate in research and development (R&D) confers them an advantage over foreign rivals, an effect similar to R&D subsidies. (2) In a policy game, each government would allow national cooperative agreements. (3) Contrary to other trade policies which lead to a “prisoners' dilemma” result, welfare in both countries increases when they both allow R&D cooperation. (4) Welfare is even higher if a generalized (international) coalition is formed.

The present paper deals with the dynamics of a simple descriptive non-linear R&D model. Special emphasis is put on the decision-making behaviour of real agents. Although our two-dimensional model is quite simple it produces periodic and chaotic behaviour. Despite we mainly concentrate on using numerical methods, we also present theoretical arguments for the occurrence of chaotic behaviour. We show that our time-discrete model can be reduced to a one-dimensional model by using a technique which is similar to the Poincaré section of ordinary differential equations. This one-dimensional model has the same dynamic properties. Since a majority of the theorems and results are in the context of dynamics in one dimension, we gain further insights by applying some interesting propositions.