Price-Cap Regulation and Inefficiency in Relative Pricing

The allocative efficiency properties of three price-cap schemes are compared. The scheme that uses lagged quantities in the price index and has a fixed cap works well when the firm is myopic but generates inefficient relative prices otherwise. With myopia prices are efficient and welfare is higher than with equal pricing, but the gain to the firm comes at the expense of lower consumer surplus. When the firm is not myopic pricing can be so inefficient that steady-state welfare is below the no-regulation level.     

Setting the X Factor in Price-Cap Regulation Plans

Despite the popularity of price-cap regulation in practice, the economic literature provides limited guidance on how to determine the X factor, which is the rate at which inflation-adjusted output prices must fall under price-cap plans. We review the relevant basic principles, and then determine how to set the X factor: (1) when only a subset of the firm's products are subject to price-cap regulation, and when product-specific costs and productivity cannot be measured; (2) when changes in regulated prices affect the economy-wide inflation rate; and (3) in the presence of such structural changes as strengthened competitive forces.     

Optimal Pricing and Price-Cap Regulation in the Postal Sector

This paper studies the optimal price structure in the postal sector when worksharing is available (e.g., for collection, sorting and transportation) and when the operator faces a break-even constraint. Users differ in opportunity and cost to engage in worksharing. We determine the optimal worksharing discount and provide sufficient conditions (on demand functions) under which it exceeds the ECPR level. Furthermore, we show that the optimal prices can be implemented through a global price cap imposed on a weighted average of the prices of all products. The appropriate weights are proportional to the market demand (evaluated at optimal prices) of the corresponding products.     

The Welfare Consequences of Pollution-Tax Harmonization

A key, and often controversial, issue in environmental negotiations is the appropriate extent of harmonization of environmental policies. This paper, within a general equilibrium model of international trade with endogenous pollution discharges, identifies instances in which pollution-tax harmonization can deliver potential Pareto improvements.     

Consequences of Environmental Tax Reform for Unemployment and Welfare

We investigate the welfare effects of environmental tax reform, i.e. raising environmental taxes and using the proceeds to reduce distortionary taxes on labour. The framework of analysis is a small open economy with involuntary unemployment due to a rigid consumer wage. Environmental tax reform boosts not only environmental quality but also employment if substitution between labour and resources is easy, the production share of the fixed factor is large, and the initial tax rates on resources and profits are small. If the initial tax system is sub-optimal with a negligible tax on resources, profits rise as well.     

Ambiguous Social Welfare Effects of Price Regulation Under Imperfect Competition

Conventional wisdom is that a binding price ceiling increases output and so increases social welfare if imposed on an imperfectly competitive market. However, this paper shows that a price ceiling can be harmful to social welfare even though it increases industry output and consumer surplus. This model can be applied to the pharmaceutical industry under price control in many countries, e.g., U.K., Canada, Germany and Japan.     

Globalization versus Protectionism: Consequences for Long–Term Growth and Welfare in the South

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with two intrinsically symmetric regions, the North and the South. The analysis shows that globalization tends to increase long–term economic growth, but the South may become deindustrialized and suffer a welfare loss. I none the less find that protectionism need not reverse international inequalities: on the contrary, owing to locational hysteresis the South may lageven further behind. However, with continued globalization welfare in the South will unambiguously increase.
JEL Classification Numbers: F12, F13, F15.     

Welfare State and Welfare Society

This paper updates and extends my earlier work on how the middle class fares throughout the world based on the microdata sets that comprise the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). Wave #6 LIS data, recently released and centered around 2004, provides an opportunity to assess what has happened to the size of the middle class around the world in the early 2000s. In contrast to the 1980s and 1990s, there was no noticeable decline in the middle class during the early 2000s. The paper provides further evidence that the size of the middle class in each nation depends mainly on government tax and spending policies. In particular, it shows the key role played by family allowances and paid family leave in supporting a national middle class.     

A Welfare Analysis of Local Franchise and Other Types of Regulation: Evidence from the Cable TV Industry

By examining both price and the level of quality, this paper empirically determines the welfare implications of local franchise and other types of regulation that existed in the cable TV industry prior to federal deregulation (1987). Contrary to the popular belief that price regulation was effective but also lowered the quality of service, I find that prices were lower and the levels of service (measured by the number of imported distant channels and cable networks) were higher than the monopolistic ones. The paper also reveals some significant differences in the welfare improvements under the alternative regulatory regimes.     

通货膨胀与社会福利损失

通货膨胀到底对经济有多大的影响?这是经济学家和各级政府所关心的问题.本文按照Lucas(2000)的方法,在Gong和Zou(2001)给出的带有人们对社会地位的追求和消费品及投资品的Cash-in-Advance约束的模型的基础上分析了通货膨胀对社会福利的影响,给出了通货膨胀的福利损失的估计.     

Partial-Equilibrium Welfare Analysis

The use of partial equilibrium models is common, and, typically, efficiency is characterized by maximizing consumer plus producer surplus (or, sometimes, gross consumer surplus). The analysis appeals—implicitly or explicitly—to the concept of efficiency derived from general equilibrium models. Using the tax-reform methodology, it is shown in a simple general equilibrium model that, if the second-best outcome is not the first-best one, the sum of consumer plus producer surplus cannot lead an economy to its true second-best optimum.     

Welfare Reducing Polls

We study costly majority voting when voters rationally anticipate others have similar preferences. The correlation in preferences lowers expected turnout because votes have a positive externality on those who abstain. We study the effects of the public release of information (polls) on participation levels. Polls raise expected turnout but reduce expected welfare because they stimulate the “wrong” group to participate resulting in a “toss-up” election. Our novel results highlight the adverse effects of providing information about the electorate’s preferences and may explain why some countries bar opinion polls close to an election date.     

Importing the Poor: Welfare Magnetism and Cross-Border Welfare Migration

I test for welfare-induced migration by comparing AFDC participation in border counties to interior counties in the same state. If migration costs are lower for border county residents, border counties on the high-benefit side of a state border should have higher welfare participation relative to the state's interior counties. Border counties on the low-benefit side should have lower welfare participation relative to the state's interior counties. The results obtained using county-level data from 1970-90 indicate that having a neighbor with benefits that are $100 lower increases AFDC expenditures in border counties by 4.0-6.8 percent relative to interior counties.     

Welfare reducing licensing

In this paper, we characterize situations where licensing a cost reducing innovation to a rival firm using two-part tariff contracts (a fixed fee plus a linear per unit of output royalty) reduces social welfare. We show that it occurs if (i) the firms compete in prices, (ii) the innovation is large enough but not drastic, and (iii) the goods are close enough substitutes. Moreover, we show that, regardless of the type of competition, first, the optimal contract always includes a positive royalty and, second, even drastic innovations are licensed whenever the goods are not homogeneous.