We study the problem of risk sharing within a household or syndicate. A household shares risky prospects using a social welfare function. We characterize the social welfare functions such that the household is collectively less risk averse than each member, and satisfies the Pareto principle and an independence axiom. We single out the sum of certainty equivalents as the unique member of this f...

We study a model of political economy in which the policy choice of an incumbent politician when he is concerned with the perception of his capability. We show that politicians may engage in socially detrimental reform in order to be perceived as more capable. Conservative institutions that thwart reform may potentially improve social welfare.

We construct a model of trade with heterogeneous retailers to examine the effects of trade liberalization on retail market structure, imports and social welfare. We are especially interested in investigating the transmission of lower import prices into consumer prices and the effects of retail market regulation. The paper shows that changes in import prices may have large effects on consumer pr...

This paper examines a two-period mixed market model in which a welfaremaximizing public firm and a profit-maximizing private firm can use inventory investment as a strategic device. It is then demonstrated that the equilibrium in the second period coincides with the Stackelberg solution where the private firm is the leader, and at equilibrium, both social welfare and the private firm’s profit a...

This paper examines three main questions: Is it possible to create a market for genetic resources? Is it a perfectly or an imperfectly competitive market? What impact could this market have on the management of biodiversity in the context of sustainable development? I analyse the conditions for baccessQ and buseQ of knowledge of genetic resources and the genetic resources themselves. I then con...

Economic indicators such as income inequality are gaining attention as putative determinants of population health. On the other hand, we are just beginning to explore the health impact on population health of political and welfare state variables such as political orientation of government or type of medical care coverage. To determine the socially structured impact of political and welfare sta...

held in Paris in July, quickly dispels that illusion, for there it was shown that in many other countries a similar experiment is, in a greater or lesser degree, being worked out, even though the stage of development reached is nowhere so advanced as in Britain. All the 1,500 representatives of the forty nations present were concerned with the same problems and asking the same questions. How is...

We characterize the class of Arrovian Social Welfare Functions as integer solutions to a collection of linear inequalities. Many of the known results about impossibility, Arrovian Social Welfare Functions, properties of the majority rule etc., can be derived in a simple and unified way from this integer program. We characterize those preference domains that admit a non-dictatorial, neutral Arro...