Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Optimal public good provision'

This article experimentally examines voluntary contributions when group members' marginal returns to the public good vary. The experiment implements two marginal return types, low and high, and uses the information that members have about the heterogeneity to identify the applied contribution norm. We find that norms vary with the information environment. If agents are aware of the heterogeneity, contributions increase in general. However, high types contribute more than low types when contributions can be linked to the type of the donor but contribute less otherwise. Low types, on the other hand, contribute more than high types when group members are aware of the heterogeneity but contributions cannot be linked to types. Our results underline the importance of the information structure when persons with different abilities contribute to a joint project, as in the context of teamwork or charitable giving. (author's abstract)
Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

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This article studies a model where, as a consequence of private information, agents do not have incentive to invest in a desired joint project, or a public good, when they are unable to have prior discussion with their partners. As a result, the joint project is never undertaken and inefficiency is observed. Agastya, Menezes and Sengupta (2007) prove that with a prior stage of communication, with a binary message space, it is possible to have some efficiency gain since 'all ex-ante and interim efficient equilibria exhibit a simple structure'. We show that any finite message space does not provide efficiency gain on the simple structure discussed in that article. We use laboratory experiments to test these results. We find that people do contribute, even without communication, and that any kind of communication increases the probability of project implementation. We also observed that communication reduces the unproductive contribution, and that a large message space cannot provide efficiency gain relative to the binary one.

The thesis consists of three essays. In the first essay, the role of party politics in provision of public goods within a federal economy is analyzed. The public goods, which have inter-jurisdictional spillover effect, are locally produced with federal transfers and local revenues. The federal government can not commit to the level of transfers. The direction and magnitude of federal fund flows are influenced by local revenues as well as the re-election probability of the parties in power at the federal and provincial levels. Under such a scenario, politically motivated grants alter the incentive for raising local revenues. If votes swing heavily in favor of either the incumbent or the challenger in the provincial elections and/or if the coefficients for absolute prudence from the utility of public good are low enough, then grants are designed in such a way that the incentive for increasing revenues is lower in the province where the party identity is similar with the federal government. If these conditions are not met, such incentive is higher in the politically favorite regime. This result is generalized over different combinations of ruling parties in different seats of government.
In the second essay, the issue of dynamic public good provision within a federation is analyzed. Provinces lobby for more federal funds to produce a pure, dynamic public good such as an improvement in environmental quality. Allocation of federal funds is dictated by the level of lobbying. Consumers' welfare equals utility from the public good, net of lobbying cost. For symmetric provinces, the steady state lobbying level and stock of public good may be greater in the case when lobbyists are non-benevolent and captures a part of the federal grant as private rent. Second, with a rent-appropriating lobbyist, the welfare of the consumers may be higher under non-cooperative lobbying protocol. In case of asymmetric provinces, welfare may 'flow' from the less efficient province to the more efficient province, violating equalization principle within a federation.
In the third essay, the disciplinary role of elections is discussed. The incumbent politician in a province, with locally procured taxes, provides a local public good and appropriates some private rent. The incumbent's reputation decreases with the amount of rent. Voters may judge the performance of the incumbent in two ways: either his absolute performance matters or his performance is compared with that of the neighboring provinces' incumbent through yardstick competition. In a static setting, the unitary evaluation fares better than relative evaluation in restraining the politician. However, in a dynamic setting, when the stock of reputation increases through time, a relative evaluation imposes higher discipline on incumbent politician.

In recent decades, a new direction of development economics has emerged, led by economists on a mission to improve the quality of life for citizens of developing countries through proven, cost-effective interventions. This micro-economic focus on development hinges on identifying barriers to growth and implementing targeted programs designed to alleviate these constraints. However, identifying constraints is far easier than measuring their magnitude, and designing effective measures to quantify these barriers remains a substantial challenge. Numerous microeconomic indicators of development are famously intractable and resist simple methods of accurate measurement. This dissertation tackles measurement challenges by quantifying three major development drivers: efficient investment, effective institutions, and public good provision. Using three case studies on business development and cooperation conducted in Russia and Kenya, I develop novel ways to quantify constraints and suggest methods to alleviate them. In the first chapter, I estimate marginal rates of return to capital for small retail firms, evaluate the causes of inefficiency and examine interventions that may aid growth. Next, I examine corruption as a barrier to small business growth and assess whether policy reform is capable of decreasing corrupt activity. Finally, I investigate the causes of heterogeneity in the financing of local public goods and experimentally document the conditions that improve communities’ ability to cooperate and coordinate on efficient Nash equilibria. In sum, I propose new ways of measuring marginal rates of return to capital, corruption incidence, and cooperation in public good provision; then leverage these measures to shed light on barriers to growth and to assess the effectiveness of possible interventions to enable development and achieve more efficient resource distribution.

This work puts into close relationship the approach of Analytical Sociology, characterised by a search for explanatory social mechanisms, and the tools of Complexity Science, particularly useful for studying social systems characterised by non-linearity and out of equilibrium dynamics. It starts by presenting arguments for analytical social research, touching on epistemological, theoretical and methodological issues. After having introduced and debated the analytical approach to social theory, it describes a kind of bounded rationality that seems to be consistent with both the methodological individualism implied by the approach and the need for final explanations of social phenomena. The focus then passes onto the choice of an appropriate tool for the analysis of social systems: Agent Based Simulations. In the second half of the work this framework is applied to a social dilemma, voluntary public good provision. The critical point about the provision of public good is connected to the general social dilemma of cooperation: individuals would improve their wealth by making a full contribution to the public good in the case of cooperation with others, but free riding can be widespread and have a strong impact on the system dynamics. Thus the work, having introduced some not very common tools, concentrates on attempts to analyse and simulate the behaviour of subjects in economic experiments about the voluntary provision of public goods, pointing out that the mechanism in such dilemma is mainly the result of conditional cooperation. A case study of a rural community in Italy helps to validate the results and to direct attention to some other key issues, such as the structure of the interactions between the community members. The work ends by presenting a mechanism-based theory of voluntary public good provision that helps in understanding the boundaries of validity of social explanation and in extending it.

Part I comprises three chapters (2-4) that analyse the optimal combination of a universal benefit (B≥0) and categorical benefit (C≥0) for an economy where individuals differ in both their ability to work and, if able to work, their productivity. C is ex-ante conditioned on applicants being unable to work, and ex-post conditioned on recipients not working. In Chapter 2 the benefit budget is fixed but the test awarding C makes Type I and Type II errors. Type I errors guarantee B > 0 at the optimum to ensure all unable individuals have positive consumption. The analysis with Type II errors depends on the enforcement of the ex-post condition. Under No Enforcement C > 0 at the optimum conditional on the awards test having some discriminatory power; whilst maximum welfare falls with both error propensities. Under Full Enforcement C > 0 at the optimum always; and whilst maximum welfare falls with the Type I error propensity it may increase with the Type II error propensity. Chapters 3 and 4 generalise the analysis to a linear-income tax framework. In Chapter 3 categorical status is perfectly observable. Optimal linear and piecewise-linear tax expressions are written more generally to capture cases where it is suboptimal to finance categorical transfers to eliminate inequality in the average social marginal value of income. Chapter 4 then derives the optimal linear income tax for the case with classification errors and Full Enforcement. Both equity and efficiency considerations capture the incentives an increase in the tax rate generates for able individuals to apply for C. Part II (Chapter 5) focuses on the decisions of individuals to work when receiving C, given a risk of being detected and fined proportional to C. Under CARA preferences the risk premium associated with the variance in benefit income is convex-increasing in C, thus giving C a role in enforcement.

This study employed qualitative research methodology informed by the grounded theory tradition to explore good practice and optimal services for young people presenting with complex care needs associated with challenging or high risk behaviour. In-depth interviews were conducted in three waves of data collection and analysis with fourteen experienced practitioners whose careers have included sustained periods of work with this group in a number of selected Victorian service systems. The principal vantage point was the interface between the supported accommodation and assistance programs for homeless young people, statutory child protection and care, placement and support programs for young people at risk and juvenile justice programs for young offenders. The nature of the problem necessarily included some consideration of mental health and services dealing with substance abuse. The findings propose a view of good practice giving emphasis to the accessible and assertive presence of a responsible adult to �be there� fostering relationships and skilled purposive intervention. Intervention should be planned, holistic, sensitive and responsive to particular needs. It provides active unconditional care. It attends to attachment and trauma concerns and works with short run goals and a long term perspective. Intervention is sustained until constructive disengagement can occur. The complexity and challenge in the task of helping hurt youth warrants the support, strength and guidance of a multi-skilled team. Ideally the team will be described using normative terms. Optimal services are timely, congruent, seamless and robust in capacity to nurture, establish boundaries and meet developmental and therapeutic requirements. They should be connected to a community and there for as long as it takes, with ready access to suitable accommodation, purchasing power and flexibility of operation. To the greatest extent possible solutions are generated in the place where help is sought. Voluntary service commitment lasts till personal capacity and natural networks take over.

Le succès de l’action collective dans les communautés rurales est crucial pour le développement. Ceci est particulièrement vrai au Mexique depuis la seconde réforme agraire de 1992, avec l’accroissement de la responsabilité du secteur social dans la gestion des ressources naturelles et la provision d’infrastructures locales. Observant une grande hétérogénéité dans la capacité des ejidos à coopérer sur certaines activités (l’appropriation d’un CPR) avec un continuum de solutions entre la gestion nulle et la gestion optimale, un premier volet de cette thèse est consacré à explorer différentes alternatives théoriques permettant d’expliquer un niveau partiel d’exploitation des CPR par la coexistence de coopérateurs et de tricheurs à l’équilibre du jeu. En second lieu, on constante que certaines communautés coopèrent globalement mieux que d’autres. En nous appuyant sur la littérature définissant les facteurs du succès ou de l’échec de l’action collective, nous proposons de synthétiser ces déterminants en un indice général à coopérer afin d’expliquer la participation dans la gouvernance et la provision de biens publics de 206 ejidos mexicains. Nous montrons alors que si certains déterminants (taille de la communauté) sont cruciaux pour tout type d’action collective, d’autres (migration, hétérogénéité, période de création de la communauté) sont spécifiques à certaines activités mais tout en restant tous complémentaires à l’explication du niveau général de participation dans la communauté
Successful collective action in local communities is crucial for rural development. This is particularly true in Mexico, since the Second Agrarian Reforms of 1992, with the increased responsibility of the social sector for resources management and public infrastructures provision. We observe an important heterogeneity in ejidos’s ability to cooperate on some activities (CPR appropriation) – with a continuum of situations between the total failure and the optimal management. In a first phase, this dissertation tries to explore several theoretical alternatives to explain a partial exploitation level of CPR with coexistence of cooperators and cheaters. A second observation coming from the field is that some communities globally perform better than others. On the basis of the literature defining the factors for collective action success or failure, we propose to synthesize these determinants into a general index of cooperation to explain governance and the provision of public goods in 206 Mexican ejidos. We then show that if some determinants (community size) are decisive to explain all kind of collective action, some others (migration, heterogeneity, community period of creation) are specific to some activities, but are all complementary to explain general level of participation in the community

Militärdienst in Kriegsgebieten prägt das Leben von Millionen von Menschen weltweit. Ziel dieser Dissertation ist es, besser zu verstehen wie und weshalb junge Männer Praktiken und Strategien von Armeen ausgesetzt sind, und wie diese Erfahrungen ihr langfristiges Verhalten prägen. Die Arbeit enthält drei eigenständige Essays, die diese Themen jeweils theoretisch als auch empirisch behandeln. Die empirische Analyse nutzt selbst erhobene Umfragedaten von 760 angolanischen Veteranen, detaillierte Einblicke in den lokalen Kontext und den angolanischen Bürgerkrieg als ein natürliches Experiment um kausale Mechanismen zu identifizieren. Kapitel 2 argumentiert, dass ein nichtstaatlicher Kriegsakteur ähnlich wie ein Staatsakteur in der Lage sein kann lokal Steuern zu erheben und, dass ein solcher Akteur Wehrpflicht zur Rekrutierung einsetzt. Kapitel 3 offenbart, dass Soldaten, die mehr in lokaler `governance` mit der Armee involviert sind, in der Nachkriegszeit im Durchschnitt mehr zur Herstellung öffentlicher Gütern beitragen. Mehr Erfahrung mit sozialer Kooperation stimuliert die Teilnahme in Planungsprozessen, während eine Verschiebung der politischen Präferenzen Beiträge zur Bereitstellung der Güter fördert. Kapitel 4 zeigt, dass Erlebnisse sexueller Gewalt gegen Zivilistinnen auf lange Sicht das Risiko von Gewalttaten gegen die eigene Partnerin erhöhen. Der Grund ist eine nachhaltige Reduzierung psychologischer Barrieren gegenüber Gewalt gegen Frauen. Die Arbeit trägt zu mehreren Literaturen zu den langfristigen Ursprüngen menschlichen Verhaltens und der Mechanik und Folgen gewaltsamer Konflikte bei. Die Befunde stellen konventionelle Rekrutierungsmodelle in Frage, vorherrschende Theorien häuslicher Gewalt, sowie unser Verständnis davon, wie Krieg lokal Institutionen verändert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen neue Wege auf, wie Entwicklungspolitik kriegsbedingte Verhaltensmuster angehen und sich zunutze machen kann, um dadurch mehr Kooperation und weniger Gewalt zu schaffen.
Military service in conflict zones strongly marks the lives of millions of people across the world. The objective of this thesis is to contribute to understanding how and why young men are exposed to practices and policies by armed groups, and how these experiences affect their behavior in the long run. The thesis presents three self-contained essays that all address this objective theoretically and empirically. The empirical analysis relies on primary survey data from 760 Angolan veterans, uses deep insights into the local context and exploits the Angolan Civil War as a natural experiment to identify causal mechanisms. Chapter 2 argues that a non-state armed actor may – like a state actor – have the ability to tax a local population and will choose conscription as its primary recruitment policy. Chapter 3 exposes that former soldiers who were more involved in local governance during the war are significantly more likely to participate in collective public good production more than a decade after the end of the war. Gaining experience with social cooperation increases contributions to organizing public goods, while a shift in political preferences fosters participation in their delivery. Chapter 4 shows that exposure to sexual violence by armed groups significantly increases an individual’s long-term propensity to commit violence against an intimate partner. This effect is underpinned by a reduction of psychological barriers to violence against women. The thesis contributes to several literatures on the long-run individual-level origins of human behavior and on the conduct and consequences of armed conflict. The findings challenge conventional models of rebel recruitment, dominant theories of domestic violence and existing knowledge of how war affects local institutions. The findings can also help policymakers to tackle and leverage long-run impacts of conflict on behavior, in order to devise new policies for more cooperative and less violent societies.

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This paper investigates role played by public good provision on individual's labor supply choice of working in formal or informal sector. An extension of Sandmo's (1981) tax evasion model, with the inclusion of government spending in the individual's utility function, provides theoretical motivation to analyze the effect of public good provision on the decision of individuals to allocate hours in the formal or informal sector. Using PNAD (National Household Sample Survey) 2008 and 2009 data it is possible to obtain information about households accessing infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage and garbage collection), using public school, college and health services as well as individual safety feeling. The empirical analysis establishes a correlation between infrastructure (negative), primary and secondary school, college, health and safety (positive) and the share of informal hours. These correlations may suggest that the provision of those public goods effects differently the formal and informal labor supply. Due to the large differences between individuals with and without access to public services, it is not possible to identify causal effect of public good provision on the probability of working in the formal sector.
Este trabalho investiga a relação entre a provisão de bens pelo setor público e a escolha dos indivíduos de trabalhar no setor formal ou informal da economia. A extensão do modelo de evasão fiscal de Sandmo (1981), com a inclusão do gasto do governo na utilidade dos indivíduos, estabelece motivação teórica para analisar o efeito do bem provido publicamente sobre a decisão dos indivíduos de alocar horas no setor formal ou informal. Utilizando dados da PNAD (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios) de 2008 e 2009, são obtidas informações sobre domicílios com acesso à infraestrutura (água, energia elétrica, esgotamento sanitário e coleta de lixo), utilização de Educação Básica, Ensino Superior, serviços públicos de saúde e sentimento de segurança dos indivíduos. A análise empírica estabelece uma correlação entre infraestrutura (negativa), Educação Básica, Ensino Superior, saúde e segurança (positiva) e a proporção de horas dedicadas ao trabalho informal. Isto pode sugerir que a provisão destes bens afeta o mercado de trabalho formal e informal de maneira diferenciada. Devido à grande diferença entre indivíduos com e sem acesso aos serviços públicos, não é possível identificar efeito causal do bem provido publicamente sobre a probabilidade de trabalhar no setor formal.

This thesis examines the interactions between marital patterns, inequality, and fertility. In the first chapter I analyze the impact of search frictions on marital assortative matching. I exploit a temporary interruption of the “London Season” — a central marriage market where the nineteenth-century British aristocracy courted. I find that the reduction of search frictions associated with this institution explains between 70 and 80 percent of sorting in social status and land-holdings, generating a huge concentration of landed wealth. In the second chapter I examine the relationship between land inequality and the introduction of public education in late-Victorian England and Wales. I show that counties where landownership was more concentrated systematically under-invested in public schooling. In the final chapter I estimate the effects of cousin marriage on fertility in the British peerage. I find that consanguinity initially increases the number of births, but constraints reproductive success in the long-run.
En aquesta tesis s’examina la interacció entre els patrons matrimonials, la desigualtat i la fertilitat. En el primer capítol s’analitza l’impacte de les friccions en el procés de cerca sobre l’emparellament selectiu. L’anàlisi es centra en una interrupció de la “London Season” — un mercat de matrimonis centralitzat on els nobles Britànics buscaven esposa. S’estableix que la reducció en les friccions de cerca associades a aquesta institució explica entre un 70 i un 80 per cent de l’emparellament selectiu en termes d’estatus social i de terratinença, afavorint la concentració de terres en poques mans. Al segon capítol s’examina la relació entre la desigualtat en la distribució de la terra i la introducció de l’educació pública a l’Anglaterra victoriana. Els resultats indiquen que els comptats més desiguals varen patir un dèficit sistemàtic en educació pública. Al capítol final s’estimen els efectes de l’endogàmia sobre la fertilitat a la noblesa Britànica. L’endogàmia sembla augmentar el nombre de naixements, però alhora limita l’èxit reproductiu en el llarg termini.

abstract: This dissertation consists of three essays on public good provision. The first chapter develops a model of charity’s choice of fundraising method under two dimensions of asymmetric information, quality and purpose. The main implication is a separating equilibrium where higher-quality charities choose to distinguish themselves by using a traditional fundraising method, while lower-quality ones exploit a low-stakes, take-it- or leave-it, ``checkout’’ method. An empirical application reinforced that charities of lower quality are more likely to adopt the checkout method. Despite this, consumers still choose to give in the equilibrium, due to the small requested amount of checkout donations, which disincentivizes serious thinking. Although exploited by lower-quality charities, the checkout method, along with purpose uncertainty, has the potential to alleviate the free-riding problem associated with public good provision and is, therefore, welfare improving. The second chapter studies why corporations donate to charities and how their donations affect social welfare. I propose that firms make donations out of an image reason. In a model where two firms compete with each other, charitable donation could attract consumers and also signal firm overall social responsibility. I show that there exists an equilibrium where the high responsibility firm overdonates, resulting in a donation level closer to the socially optimal one. This leads to higher consumer welfare due to higher private good consumption as well as higher public good consumption when overdonation is prominent. Overall social welfare is enhanced. Empirical results support social image as an incentive for firms to donate. The third chapter examines people's marginal willingness to pay for a change in local public good provision. We use a fixed effects hedonic model with MSA level data to study the effect of crime on local housing price. We explore the 1990s crime drop and use abortion data in 1970s and 1980s as an instrumental variable based on \citet*{donohue2001impact}. One result we find is that a decrease in murder of 100 cases per 10,000 people increases housing price by 70\%. We further translate this result into a value of a statistical case of homicide, which is around 0.4 million in 1999 dollars.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Economics 2017

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1985.
Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-162).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1995.
Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-114).

South Africa adopted the democratic decentralisation governance model in 1994 with the aim of improving, inter alia, service delivery. The adoption of this model resulted in the establishment of three spheres of government, namely, national, provincial and local. These three government spheres are distinctive, interdependent, interrelated and autonomous. Power and responsibilities are devolved from the national to the provincial and then to the local government spheres. Cooperative government and intergovernmental relations structures in the three spheres of government were established in order to improve service delivery and to assist in the execution of the devolved powers. However, the results of this study revealed that the structures which had been established were not effective in addressing the housing challenges facing the Bushbuckridge Local Municipality (BLM). The results also revealed that each government sphere executed its housing mandatory responsibilities only when a housing project was launched or implemented in the BLM. During housing project implementation, the BLM was responsible for evaluation, the Mpumalanga Provincial Department of Human Settlements (MPDHS) was responsible for contracting a housing service provider and for payments while the National Department of Human Settlements (NDHS) was responsible for quality of the houses and compliance to national housing standards. In addition, the BLM had an inspection unit and the NDHS was supposed to work closely with the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC). However, the houses provided had defects ranging from cracked walls and floors, leaking roofs, leaking pipes to fading paint. The main role of the NHBRC is to check the quality or adequacy of public houses before they are allocated to the targeted beneficiaries.
Public Administration
D. Admin. (Public Administration)

Cette thèse est un recueil de trois articles sur la théorie microéconomique. Les deux premiers traitent de la question de la course vers le bas lorsque les gouvernements se livrent à la concurrence pour certains facteurs mobiles. Le troisième article propose une extension du problème d'appariement plusieurs-à-un en y introduisant des agents de tailles différentes. Dans le premier article, nous montrons comment le résultat standard de course vers le bas (race-to-the-bottom) peut être évité en introduisant du bien public dans un modèle de compétition fiscale. Notre économie comporte deux juridictions peuplées par de la main-d’œuvre parfaitement mobile répartie en deux catégories : qualifiée et non-qualifiée. Les gouvernements, en poursuivant un objectif Rawlsien (max-min), annoncent simultanément leur projet d'investissement en bien public avant d'adopter une politique de taxation non-linéaire du revenu. Les travailleurs, après avoir observé la politique de taxation des différents gouvernements et leurs promesses d'investissement en bien publique, choisissent chacun un lieu de résidence et une offre de travail. Ainsi, les gouvernements atteignent leurs objectifs de redistribution en cherchant à attirer de la main-d’œuvre productive à travers la fourniture de bien public en plus d'une politique de taxation favorable. Nous montrons qu'il existe des équilibres où les travailleurs qualifiés paient une taxe strictement positive. En outre, lorsque l'information sur le type des travailleurs est privée, il existe, pour certaines valeurs des paramètres, des équilibres où la main-d’œuvre non-qualifiée bénéficie d'un transfert net (ou subvention) de la part du gouvernement. Dans le second article, nous étudions comment le modèle standard de compétition des prix à la Bertrand avec des produits différenciés pourrait fournir des informations utiles pour les programmes de citoyenneté par investissement dans les Caraïbes. Nous montrons que lorsque les pays peuvent être classés en deux types en fonction de la taille de leur demande, l'imposition d'un prix minimum uniforme et d'un quota maximum appropriés amène les pays à un résultat efficace qui Pareto domine l'équilibre de Nash non coopératif. Enfin, le troisième article explore une extension du problème standard d'appariement plusieurs-à-un en y incorporant des agents de tailles différentes (familles de réfugiés) d'un côté, à assigner à des foyers de capacités différentes de l'autre. La taille d'une famille de réfugiés représente le nombre de membres qui la compose. Une caractéristique spécifique à ce modèle est qu'il n'autorise pas de répartir les membres d'une même famille entre différents foyers. Il est bien connu que, dans ces conditions, bon nombre de propriétés désirables des règles d'appariement s'effondrent. Nous faisons donc l'hypothèse des priorités croissantes avec la taille pour chaque foyer, c'est-à-dire qu'une famille d'accueil préférerait toujours un plus grand nombre de réfugiés tant que la capacité de son foyer le permet. Nous montrons qu'un appariement stable par paire existe toujours sous cette hypothèse et nous proposons un mécanisme pour le trouver. Nous montrons que notre mécanisme est non-manipulable du point de vue des réfugiés : aucun groupe de réfugiés ne pourrait tirer profit d'une déclaration truquée de leurs préférences. Notre mécanisme est également optimal pour les réfugiés en ce sens qu'il n'existe aucun autre mécanisme stable par paire qui serait plus profitable à tous les réfugiés.
This thesis is a collection of three articles on microeconomic theory. The first two articles are concerned with the issue of race-to-the-bottom when governments engage in competition for some mobile factor. The third article proposes an extension for the many-to-one matching problem by introducing different-size agents. In the first article, we show how the standard race-to-the-bottom result can be avoided by introducing public good into a tax competition model. Our economy has two jurisdictions populated by perfectly mobile workers divided into two categories: skilled and unskilled. Governments, in pursuit of a Rawlsian objective (max-min), simultaneously announce their plans for investing in public good before deploying a nonlinear income tax schedule. After observing the tax schedules of the governments and their promises to invest in public good, each worker chooses a place of residence and a supply of labour. Thus, governments achieve their redistribution objectives by seeking to attract productive labour through the provision of public goods in addition to favorable taxation policy. We show that there exist equilibria where skilled workers pay a strictly positive tax. In addition, when information on the type of workers is private, there are equilibria for certain parameter values in which unqualified workers receive a net transfer (or subsidy) from the government. In the second article, we investigate how the Bertrand standard price competition with differentiated products could provide useful insight for Citizenship By Investment programs in the Caribbean. We show that when countries can be classified into two types according to the size of their demand, imposing appropriate uniform minimum price and maximum quota brings countries to an efficient outcome that Pareto dominates the Non-Cooperative Nash Equilibrium. Finally. in the third article, we explore an extension of the standard many-to-one matching problem by incorporating different-size agents (refugee families) on the many side of the market, to be assigned to entities (homes) with different capacities on the other side. A specific feature of this model is that it does not allow refugee families to be split between several homes. It is well known that many of the desirable properties of matching rules are unachievable in this framework. We introduce size-monotonic priority ranking over refugee families for each home, that is, a host family (home) would always prefer a greater number of members of refugee families until its capacity constraint binds. We show that a pairwise stable matching always exists under this assumption and we propose a mechanism to find it. We show that our mechanism is strategy-proof for refugees: no refugee family could benefit from misrepresenting his preferences. Our mechanism is also refugees optimal pairwise stable in the sense that there is no other pairwise stable mechanism that would be more profitable to all refugees.