This paper provides an analytical characterization of Markov perfect equilibria in a model with repeated voting, where agents vote over distortionary income redistribution. A key result is that the future constituency for redistributive policies depends positively on current redistribution, since this a¤ects both private investments and the future distribution of voters. The model features mult...

In this lecture we continue our study of revenue-maximization in multi-parameter problems. Unlike Lectures #1–17, where we focused entirely on welfare maximization, here we strive to maximize the sum of the payments from the bidders to the mechanism. Since there is no “always optimal” mechanism, akin to the VCG mechanism for welfare-maximization, we compare the performance of different auctions...

BACKGROUND During the pre-slaughter period, animals experience novel environment and procedures which may cause reduced welfare and suffering. Over the last decades, the slaughter industry has restructured into fewer and larger abattoirs, implying potential risks of transport stress, injuries, and impaired animal welfare. Since recently, however, there is growing interest in small-scale slaught...

Economic analysis of health insurance markets has long noted that insurance increases consumption of heath care services because it shields individuals from the true price of care. The additional consumption attributed to insurance is often labeled as “moral hazard” and, in standard economic models, is considered to result in welfare loss. The cost associated with additional consumption provide...

Physician agency is an important issue in health economics, but its welfare implications are not well studied. I examine agency problems in the market for anti-cholesterol drugs. Since doctors write prescriptions but patients decide whether to fill them, I separately examine initial prescriptions and compliance decisions to infer doctor and patient drug preferences. I show that initial prescrip...

“Welfare reform” is a political force that has held American family policy in its grip for the past decade. A particularly problematic component of such reform efforts is the policy of establishing “family caps” or “child exclusions.” Family caps end the traditional system of welfare beneats that increase with family size and instead freeze the amount of a family’s welfare grant at a level corr...

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Theoretically deduced concern about a declining legitimacy of the welfare state has been expressed regularly over the last thirty years. However, in that period empirical studies have repeatedly shown a permanent and substantial popular support for welfare. This mismatch might be due to two factors. Firstly, an inadequate understanding of people's motivations to support welfare, since the progn...

We examine a model in which two politicians compete for office and for wages. Their remunerations are either set by the public or are offered competitively by the candidates during campaigns. Our main finding shows that competitive wage offers by candidates lead to lower social welfare than remunerations predetermined by the public, since less competent candidates are elected or wage costs are ...

Social trust is the main component of social capital. In this regard, subjective welfare is one of the important aspects of human life. Based on the human needs growth, it must be considered both objective and subjective aspect of welfare. The present study tries to use survey method and collect data by cluster sampling among 381 persons of 20-29 Youth in Tehran as the sample of this research. ...