We study the problem of allocating objects when monetary transfers are possible. We are interested in mechanisms that allocate the objects in an e cient way and induce the agents to report their true preferences. Within the class of such mechanisms, rst we characterize egalitarian-equivalent mechanisms. Then, we add a bounded-de cit condition and characterize the corresponding class. Finally, w...

We show that, in a two-period economy with uncertainty in the second period, if an allocation is Pareto optimal for a given set of beliefs and remains optimal when these beliefs are changed, then the set of optimal allocations of the two economies must actually coincide. We identify equivalence classes of beliefs giving rise to the same set of Pareto optimal allocations. Journal of Economic Lit...

In this note we analyze whether a federal transfer system can be designed to increase welfare when state governments create political budget cycles. The results show how the federal government can counteract the welfare costs of these cycles, without hindering politicians from signaling their type, by announcing a transfer scheme to subsidize expenditures that voters do not consider when voting...

We show that for generic economies, every equilibrium admits Pareto improving monetary policy, even with multiple commodities per state. The main assumption is that asset incompleteness be intermediate, in that household heterogeneity does not exceed the number of assets present and absent. We argue this as a special case of the general framework in Turner (2003b) for proving the generic existe...

The dual notion of Pareto-e¢ciency (i.e., individual utilities cannot be reached with fewer resources than those of the allocation under consideration) is used in order to de...ne the resources-core. A measure of social loss with respect to the core is then introduced, more or less as already done with respect to the locus of e¢cient allocations. JEL Classi...cation: D61

Canonical Correlation and Assortative Matching: A Remark In the context of the Beckerian theory of marriage, when men and women match on a singledimensional index that is the weighted sum of their respective multivariate attributes, many papers in the literature have used linear canonical correlation, and related techniques, in order to estimate these weights. We argue that this estimation tech...

We offer a detailed examination of a broad class of 2 × 2 matrix games as a first step toward considering measures of resource distribution and efficiency of outcomes. In the present essay, only noncooperative equilibria and entropic outcomes are considered, and a crude measure of efficiency employed. Other solution concepts and the formal construction of an efficiency index will be addressed i...

Theoretically and experimentally, we generalize the analysis of acquiring a company (Samuelson and Bazerman 1985) by allowing for competition of both buyers and sellers. Näıvety of both is related to the idea that higher prices exclude lower qualities. While competition of näıve buyers increases prices, competition of näıve sellers promotes efficiency enhancing trade. Our predictions are tested...

In Arabidopsis thaliana, the GSK3/SHAGGY-like kinase BRASSINOSTEROID-INSENSITIVE2 (BIN2) plays a critical role in the brassinosteroid (BR) signaling pathway by negatively regulating the activities of bri1-EMS-SUPPRESSOR1/BRASSINAZOLE-RESISTANT1 family transcription factors that regulate the expression of downstream BR-responsive genes. In this study, we analyzed the function of a rice (Oryza sa...

Photosynthetic oxygen evolution is powered by photosystem II (PSII), in particular by the oxidized chl a-aggregate P680+, and catalyzed by the oxygen-evolving complex (Mn4X-entity) as well as a tyrosine residue (YZ). The role of particular amino acids as cofactors of electron and proton transfer or as modulators of the activity is still ill-defined. The effects of single-site mutations at the d...