This paper investigates optimal contracts between risk-neutral parties when both exert efforts and the agent faces limited liability. We identify a sufficient and necessary condition for any contract to implement the second-best outcome, i.e., the best possible outcome in double moral hazard even when the agent faces unlimited liability. It is shown that a simple share-or-nothing with bonus contract

This paper compares ad valorem and per unit taxation in the context of price signaling. In the model, a taxation designer chooses between ad valorem and per unit taxation to maximize tax revenues, and a monopoly firm, whose product quality can be either high or low, uses price as a quality signal. The analysis shows that, compared to per unit taxation, ad valorem taxation raises the low-quality firm’s

We consider an economy with two categories of agents: entrepreneurs and workers. In laissez-faire, the former gain from having their children educated, while the latter, although they may profit from their own education, have no interest in sending their children to school. We first characterise the preferred education policy-cum-redistributive taxation for the two groups, and find that entrepreneurs

We study the potential for rational bubbles in the innovation sector to affect long term economic growth. We show that stock market prices of research and development (R&D) firms can include a bubble component when credit constraints are present. Bubbles are self-sustained in equilibrium by a “liquidity” premium that originates when credit constraints are relaxed. Bubbles expand the borrowing and production

This paper describes how process and product innovations respond to cost and demand changes. In the present model firms simultaneously choose process and product innovations within a model of vertical differentiation and uncovered market. We show that the outcome is unique both in monopoly and in the duopoly. In these outcomes, a demand increase (decrease) enhances (depresses) both process and product

This paper analyzes the impact of the interaction between monetary policy and fiscal policy on the stability of an one-sector AK economy. The monetary authority pegs the money growth factor while the fiscal authority implements a progressive consumption tax. The demand of money is motivated by a fractional liquidity constraint on consumption expenditures. When only the monetary authority operates,

This paper investigates the impact of market incompleteness on investment decisions. In contrast to previous studies, we assume an entrepreneur has power utility and investment causes an additive increase in her wealth. By using the binomial theorem, we derive the analytical solutions for the option value and investment threshold. First, we show that an increase in wealth alleviates the over-investment

We analyze the effects of strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on social welfare in an industry where firms are owned by consumers (publicly owned) and CSR commitment takes the form of a fraction of the consumer surplus into the firms’ objective function. We compare this market configuration with the standard case of firms owned by entrepreneurs (privately owned). In line with the empirical

This paper explores the study of bilateral oligopoly, in which both sellers and buyers have substantial influence on the market. We lead readers coherently through the key results that emerge from the literature on bilateral oligopoly by means of worked examples based on the same underlying two commodity exchange economy, along with broader consideration of the relevant literature. This allows us to

This paper establishes the conditions under which indeterminacy can occur in a Neoclassical growth model with international labor mobility. In the model, workers are supposed to move freely across countries without restrictions, and according to a Harris–Todaro mechanism that makes migration flows sensitive to differences among labor markets conditions. The paper shows that indeterminacy requires the

This paper uses a search model to study the competition between a store brand and a third-party brand in a platform. Consumers sample products in a sequential ordering. Sampling cost is crucial for determining product orderings. We find that, the platform prefers making the third-party brand prominent when the outside market is closed, and generally prefers making the store brand prominent when there

We consider a state holding corporation with two plants that may produce heterogeneous goods. The public sector competes with a private sector that may be composed of uniplant firms or a multiplant firm. Private firms care about corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that the stake held by the government in the state corporation depends on several factors: the degree to which private firms

This paper analyses the effects upon firms and consumers of horizontal mergers in a multitier decentralized supply chain with a finite number of players in each tier, when firms may opt for two different post-merger internal organization forms: multidivisional, in which separate divisions are kept, or traditional, with cost synergies. To this effect, we develop and solve a formal game theory-based

We show that the comparison of the two-part licensing mechanisms considered in the San Martín and Saracho (2015) context is exactly identical to that in Colombo and Filippini (J Econ 118:47–76, 2016) context. This means that the results obtained in Colombo and Filippini (J Econ 118:47–76, 2016) when the patentee chooses between per-unit and ad valorem royalties are incorrect. We conclude that when

We investigate how the corporate (profit) tax rate affects the optimal degree of privatization in a mixed duopoly with a minimal profit constraint for the private firm. We show that the profit tax rate directly affects the behavior of the partially privatized firm, and therefore affects the behavior of the private firm through strategic interactions. Regardless of whether the constraint is binding

We construct a three-period overlapping generations model in which corruption, mortality and fertility rates, and economic development are determined endogenously. We consider a less developed economy suffering from a high degree of corruption and high mortality and fertility rates in a poverty trap. We focus on two policies: raising public sector wages as a means of reducing corruption and increasing

I study the impact of ad-valorem and unit taxes on the intellectual property policies of two-sided digital platforms. First, I address the monopoly case, in which I show that the effects of taxes depend on which side they are levied on. If developers are taxed, I find that ad-valorem taxes reduce the platform openness and the exclusivity period granted to developers to exploit their innovations. The

In this paper we consider a differentiated oligopoly with two product varieties that are supplied by two groups of firms. After computing the Cournot solution of the game, we study its sensitivity to different sources of competition, namely the degree of product substitutability and market composition. Market composition can change either via new firms entering one industry or via firms switching production

We analyse a market where quality is reflected in sunk costs and/or marginal costs. Firms provide too low quality as compared to the socially optimal solution whenever quality affects (at least) sunk costs. Entry would then increase welfare, but the number of firms is restricted by an upper limit that depends on how sunk costs and consumer utility are affected by a quality change. Firms may even produce

This paper first analyzes a fiscal-policy game between two jurisdictions connected by mutual migration and obtains two main results. (i) As the mutual migration intensifies, both jurisdictions in the Nash equilibrium choose more public consumption, less public investment and more total spending, and finance the total spending entirely with debt. (ii) While the Nash equilibrium without any restriction

Many studies examine the relationship between aging and economic growth; however, only a few theoretical studies find a possible non-linear relationship. Thus, this study theoretically investigates the impact of population aging on economies. We construct a three-period overlapping generations model with two sectors: non-education and education. We assume that learning-by-doing effects compound as

Saint Thomas Aquinus ’agen autem non movet nisi ex intentione finis (an agent does not move except out of intention for an end, quoted from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile, p. 169.)’. This paper uses the familiar multitasking framework in order to compare contracting with agents holding private information either about their work ethic or intrinsic motivation. Those characterizations are observation

In this work we solve in a closed form the problem of an agent who wants to optimise the inter-temporal recursive utility of both his consumption and leisure by choosing: (1) the optimal inter-temporal consumption, (2) the optimal inter-temporal labour supply, (3) the optimal share of wealth to invest in a risky asset, and (4) the optimal retirement age. The wage of the agent is assumed to be stochastic

This study examines the impacts of behavior-based price discrimination (BBPD) on profits, consumer surplus, and welfare when firms choose their product qualities. To this end, we consider a differentiated duopoly model in which firms first make quality decisions, and in the two subsequent periods, compete in prices according to the pricing scheme, namely, uniform pricing or BBPD. We show that when

This paper uniquely demonstrates the scope for profitable collusion on transport costs under delivered pricing. In addition to being profitable, such collusion is shown to be more stable than price collusion and harder to detect as it presents to authorities as continued Bertrand price competition. Such collusion generates endogenous duopoly locations outside the quartiles with less stable but more

We study the sourcing decision of a manufacturer in choosing between sole sourcing and multi-sourcing for a production component, when available sources are under different efficiency levels. In our model, the manufacturer can either produce the component in-house, or outsource to less efficient external suppliers. Without any demand uncertainty or ex-ante capacity constraint with in-house production

We revisit firms’ strategic delegation in a Cournot game. We consider a market comprising two consumer groups, with either a high or low willingness to pay. In this market, we first consider firms’ identical marginal costs and show that either/both firms’ owners may strategically abandon the delegation option to avoid price collapse. We find three types of delegation decisions with either/both/no firm

An arbitrary number of (ex ante symmetric) firms first choose whether to produce a high-quality or a low-quality product and then, the quantity of product to put on the market. We establish the following results: (1) there exists competition within and across quality segments; (2) firms may be better off producing the low quality if competition within this segment is sufficiently low; (3) a firm’s

This paper introduces tasks into the neoclassical production sector. Competitive firms choose the profit-maximizing amounts of factor-specific tasks that determine their factor demands and output supplies. We show that the effect of factor-augmenting technical change on relative and absolute factor prices can be decomposed into a productivity effect and a task-demand effect of opposite sign. These

This paper studies how the type and magnitude of the interaction between quality characteristics determine the nature of the differentiation strategies of firms. The vertical differentiation models with multi-characteristic product preferences consider that the characteristics are independent. We incorporate a non-additive component into a two-dimensional model. Sufficiently high attribute dependence

This paper examines the impact of different risk attitudes on the financial decisions of two insiders trading in the stock market. We consider a static version of the Kyle (Econometrica 53:1315–1335, 1985) model with two insiders. Insider 1 is risk neutral while insider 2 is risk averse with negative exponential utility. First, we analytically prove the existence of a unique linear equilibrium. Second

Long-term care (LTC) is one of the largest uninsured risks facing the elderly. In this paper, we first survey the standard causes of what has been dubbed the LTC insurance puzzle and then suggest that a possible way out of this puzzle is to make the reimbursement formula less threatening for those who fear a too long period of dependence. We adopt a reimbursement formula resting on Arrow’s theorem