Selection and Gratitude: Anonymity and gratitude

What kind of candidate is selected into a job when the principal has to appoint a committee to measure the candidate's ability and select a winner through a call specifying a wage for the job? In a model where the principal fixes the wage anticipating the committee's choice, under a rather natural assumption about the committee's objective we find that if the committee takes into account the candidate's gratitude a candidate with less than first best ability will be selected in equilibrium. First best selection is achieved if the committee is anonymous to the candidates. If the committee could also set the wage the first best candidate would be selected, but the principal would be worse off…

Full Surplus Extraction in Dynamic Mechanisms.

Extortion, firm's size and the sectoral allocation of capital

Extortion of firms is a typical activity of organized crime such as Mafia. We develop a simple principal-agent model to find the Mafia-optimal extortion as a function of firm’s observable characteristics, specifically firm’s size. We test the predictions of the model on a unique dataset on extortion in Sicily, the Italian region where Mafia is most active. Our empirical findings show that i) extortion moderately increases with firm’s size ii) extortion is regressive, the average extortion rate ranging from approximately 40% of operating profits for small firms to 2% for large firms iii) extortion turns average cost function decreasing, therefore influencing market competition

Optimal Taxation of Family Income with non-separable disutility of effort

This paper studies the optimal non linear income taxation for a couple with two earners, each with two possible productivity types. For the case of zero cross-elasticity of labor supply, I find the full solution in terms of type distribution and social welfare weights. Binding diagonal constraints are found to be relevant even with independent types. For the case of non zero cross elasticity, some partial results are obtained. No distortion at the top occurs only in families where both earners are at the top of their distribution. High types in heterogeneous families can be upward distorted, even when only downward incentive constraints bind. The sign of their marginal tax depend on the sig…

Selection by committee: Anonymity and gratitude

Abstract What kind of candidate is selected into a job when the principal has to appoint a committee to measure the candidates’ ability and select a winner? We find that if the committee takes into account the candidate’s gratitude towards them, a candidate with less than first best ability will be selected. A relevant exception may occur if the first best is the overall best candidate. First best selection is always achieved if the committee is anonymous to the candidates. If the committee is not detached enough from the candidates then delegation fares even worse than random selection.

Strictly convex variable cost does not imply U-shaped average cost

Abstract We show that strictly convex variable costs do not imply U-shaped average costs and provide a sufficient condition for U-shaped average costs. As an application we study endogenous entry when firms have market power and they have decreasing average cost but increasing marginal cost.

Essays in optimal taxation and dynamic mechanism design

Bunching in Optimal Taxation

Lezioni di macroeconomia

Il volume presenta la macroeconomia classica di base: vengono esposti la teoria della crescita di Solow e il modello AS-AD classico nei tre mercati: lavoro, beni/fondi e moneta. Il capitolo finale invita alla macro microfondata attraverso l'analisi di un'economia a due periodi e delle relative scelte intertemporali di consumatori e imprese. Il risultato è un'esposizione del core della macroeconomia classica. Costante enfasi è posta sul fatto che la materia studia gli equilibri, e su come le forze di mercato si muovono quando l'economia è fuori dall'equilibrio

Abstract social choice and implementation in finite and infinite societies

On repeated moral hazard with a present biased agent

A Dynamic Model of Open Source Vs Proprietary R&D

Abstract We propose a dynamic model in which firms compete to produce sequential and cumulative innovations, and in which the more firms do research in one sector the more likely it is that one of them innovates. Firms choose research effort and whether to patent innovations or to use an Open Source license like the General Public License. We show that ( i ) patents generate a larger stationary reward but foreclose research within a sector, and that ( ii ) Open Source generates a smaller stationary reward but allows everyone to use the technology, and therefore, by attracting firms to the sector, it induces a faster pace of innovation. We characterize all the equilibria of the model and sho…

Cumulative innovation, open source, and distance to frontier

We develop a multistage game in which firms do cumulative research and development (R&D) to complete a lengthy process, and we study whether firms patent intermediate results or release them in Open Source. A patent holder obtains a larger reward in the market, but since in equilibrium it forecloses R&D, it remains alone to complete the process and so pays a larger cost than an Open Source firm. We have Open Source equilibria when R&D is highly complementary, R&D costs are large, and firms are sufficiently different and far from the frontier. We identify two market failures, in the forms of free riding and coordination failure, and we discuss public intervention.