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作者：Buckley, N; Mestelman, S; Shehata, M
作者单位：McMaster University
摘要：If production-cost savings associated with successful research and development are freely disseminated to other firms as soon as they are realized, too few resources may be allocated to this activity. Subsidies to this activity, a public input, can lead to optimal input use. The effectiveness of four alternative subsidy instruments in stimulating firms' R&D spending are examined. Two are incremental subsidies and two are level subsidies. One of the incremental subsidies and one of the level su...
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作者：Aronsson, T; Blomquist, S
作者单位：Umea University; Uppsala University
摘要：This paper concerns transboundary environmental problems in the context of an optimal tax model. We assume that part of the labor force is mobile across countries, and that the set of tax instruments includes a nonlinear income tax and a commodity tax on the 'dirty' good that is causing damage to the environment. The purpose is to compare the (globally optimal) second best policy of a cooperative equilibrium with the policy implicit in a noncooperative equilibrium. We show that the commodity t...
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作者：Choi, JP; Thum, M
作者单位：Technische Universitat Dresden; Michigan State University
摘要：This paper provides a simple model of corruption dynamics with the ratchet effect. Corrupt officials have ex post the incentive to price discriminate entrepreneurs based on the entry decisions made in an earlier period. The inability of government officials to commit to future money demands induces entrepreneurs to delay entry in order to receive a discount in the permit price later. Even though the dynamic setting leaves the corrupt official with less extortion power, social welfare may decre...
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作者：Vesterlund, L
作者单位：Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh
摘要：This paper examines a puzzling inconsistency between the theoretical prediction of private provisions to public goods and actual fundraising behavior. While fundraisers often choose to announce past contributions, economic theory predicts that contributions will be largest when donors are uninformed of the contributions made by others. This paper suggests that an announcement strategy may be optimal because it helps reveal the charity's quality. It is shown that when there is imperfect informa...
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作者：Fuest, C; Huber, B; Nielsen, SB
作者单位：University of Cologne; Copenhagen Business School
摘要：In many OECD countries, statutory corporate tax rates are lower than personal income tax rates. This tax rate difference is often particularly large for small firms. The present paper argues that a reduction of the corporate tax rate below the personal tax rate is an optimal tax policy if there are problems of asymmetric information between investors and firms in the capital market. The reduction of the corporate tax rate below the personal tax rate encourages equity financing and thus mitigat...
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作者：Brekke, KA; Kverndokk, S; Nyborg, K
作者单位：University of Oslo
摘要：In this paper, we present an economic model of moral motivation. Consumers prefer regarding themselves as socially responsible individuals. Voluntary contributions to public goods are motivated by this preference. The self-image as socially responsible is determined by a comparison of one's actual behavior against an endogenous morally ideal behavior. Public policy influences voluntary contributions through its effects on relative prices and budget or time constraints, but also indirectly thro...
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作者：Lange, A; Vogt, C
作者单位：Leibniz Association; Zentrum fur Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW); Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg
摘要：This paper demonstrates that cooperation in international environmental negotiations can be explained by preferences for equity. Within a N-country prisoner's dilemma in which agents can either cooperate or defect, in addition to the standard non-cooperative equilibrium, cooperation of a large fraction or even of all countries can establish a Nash equilibrium. In an emission game, however, where countries can choose their abatement level continuously, equity preferences cannot improve upon the...
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作者：Austen-Smith, D
作者单位：Northwestern University; Northwestern University
摘要：Among other activities, democratic governments redistribute resources directly through tax schemes that explicitly benefit the poor and indirectly through subsidizing particular goods and services that do not. Indeed, in some cases the effective redistribution under subsidy policies is clearly away from the poor. This paper studies when a majority might prefer subsidy policies over direct income redistribution in economies with mean greater than median income. The main result is a set of neces...
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作者：Bjorvatn, K; Cappelen, AW
作者单位：Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)
摘要：Mainstream economic theory predicts that countries with large inequalities in pre-tax income distribution will be more redistributive than countries which are more equal in this respect. Empirical studies, however, offer no strong support for this theoretical prediction. In fact, a number of studies indicate that the opposite may be true, namely that countries which are more equal in terms of pre-tax income distribution are more redistributive than less egalitarian societies. The present paper...
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作者：Corneo, G; Rob, R
作者单位：University Osnabruck; University of Pennsylvania
摘要：develop a theoretical framework for comparing incentives, labor productivity and the allocation of effort in public versus private enterprises. We incorporate 'socializing', an activity which yields utility for workers and affects a firm's output, into a multitask model of work organization. We establish the two following results. First, the optimal workers' compensation policy displays a larger incentive intensity in the private firm than in the public firm. Second, labor productivity in the ...
