nep-upt New Economics Papers
on Utility Models and Prospect Theories
Issue of 2007‒01‒13
24 papers chosen by
Alexander Harin
Modern University for the Humanities

  1. Zpochybnění deskriptivnosti teorie očekávaného užitku / Expected utility theory reconsidered [available in Czech only] By Michal Skořepa
  2. Optimal Choice and Beliefs with Ex Ante Savoring and Ex Post Disappointment By Christian Gollier; Alexander Muermann
  3. "Asset Pricing With Multiplicative Habit and Power-Expo Preferences" By William T. Smith; Qiang Zhang
  4. Utility in WTP Space: A Tool to Address Confounding Random Scale Effects in Destination Choice to the Alps By Ricardo Scarpa; Mara Thiene; Kenneth Train
  5. A Habit-Based Explanation of the Exchange Rate Risk Premium By Adrien Verdelhan
  6. Welfare Costs, Long Run Consumption Risk, and a Production Economy. By Mariano M. Croce
  7. Can News About the Future Drive the Business Cycle? By Nir Jaimovich; Sergio Rebelo
  8. Optimal Fiscal Policy over the Business Cycle By Filippo Occhino
  9. On the Provision of Public Goods in Dynamic Contracts: Lack of Commitment By Christine Hauser; Gokce Uysal
  10. Experimental Evidence on the Benefits of Eliminating Exchange Rate Uncertainties and Why Expected Utility Theory causes Economists to Miss Them By Robin Pope; Reinhard Selten; Sebastian Kube; Jürgen von Hagen
  11. Rational Information Choice in Financial Market Equilibrium By Marc-Andreas Muendler
  12. A Framework for Analyzing Rank Ordered Panel Data with Application to Automobile Demand By John K. Dagsvik and Gang Liu
  13. Why Do Emerging Economies Borrow Short Term? By Fernando Broner; Guido Lorenzoni; Sergio Schmuckler
  14. Statistical Properties of Consideration Sets By Richard Carson; Jordan Louviere
  15. Do Wealth Fluctuations Generate Time-varying Risk Aversion? Micro-Evidence on Individuals' Asset Allocation By Markus K. Brunnermeier; Stefan Nagel
  16. The Information Basis of Matching with Propensity Score By Maasoumi, Esfandiar; Eren, Ozkan
  17. Labor Supply as a Choice among Latent Job Opportunities. A Practical Empirical Approach By John K. Dagsvik and Zhiyang Jia
  18. Revisiting the Home Bias Puzzle. Downside Equity Risk By Rachel A. Campbell; Roman Kräussl
  19. Risk Neutral Investors Do Not Acquire Information¤ By Marc-Andreas Muendler
  20. Efficient Compromising By Peter Postl
  21. Life-Cyle Fertility Behavior and Human Capital Accumulation By George-Levi Gayle; Robert A. Miller
  22. Designing Optimal Taxes with a Microeconometric Model of Household Labour Supply By Rolf Aaberge and Ugo Colombino
  23. The Action Value of Information and the Natural Transparency Limit¤ By Marc-Andreas Muendler
  24. Another Look at the Identification of Dynamic Discrete Decision Processes: With an Application to Retirement Behavior By Victor Aguirregabiria

  1. By: Michal Skořepa (Czech National Bank, Prague, Czech Republic; Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)
    Abstract: This paper summarizes the major events in the recent history of modelling human decisions under risk. After presenting the basics of expected utility theory, the key pieces of evidence are described which showed that under certain circumstances, this theory is not descriptively valid. The most promising alternative, cumulative prospect theory, is then presented in some detail, including a brief discussion of how it avoids violations of stochastic dominance and how it explains the above evidence. It is pointed out that there are other empirical observations which cannot be explained by cumulative prospect theory either, so that a model which would explain all evidence on decisions under risk is still to be found.
    Keywords: expected utility theory; cumulative prospect theory; decision making under risk; economic experiments; weighting function; value function; rank-dependent Keywords: decision making; reference-dependent decision making
    JEL: B59 D12 D81
    Date: 2006–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2006_07&r=upt
  2. By: Christian Gollier (University of Toulouse); Alexander Muermann (University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School)
    Abstract: We propose a new decision criterion under risk in which people extract both utility from anticipatory feelings ex ante and disutility from disappointment ex post. The decision maker chooses his degree of optimism, given that more optimism raises both the utility of ex ante feelings and the risk of disappointment ex post. We characterize the optimal beliefs and the preferences under risk generated by this mental process and apply this criterion to a simple portfolio choice/insurance problem. We show that these preferences are consistent with the preference reversal in the Allais’ paradoxes and predict that the decision maker takes on less risk compared to an expected utility maximizer. This speaks to the equity premium puzzle and to the preference for low deductibles in insurance contracts. Keywords: endogenous beliefs, anticipatory feeling, disappointment, optimism, decision under risk, portfolio allocation.
    Keywords: Endogenous Beliefs, Anticipatory Feeling, Disappointment, Optimism, Decision Under Risk, Portfolio Allocation
    JEL: D81 G11
    Date: 2006–12–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfs:cfswop:wp2000628&r=upt
  3. By: William T. Smith (Department of Economics, Fogelman College of Business & Economics, University of Memphis); Qiang Zhang (Department of Economics, Fogelman College of Business & Economics, University of Memphis)
    Abstract: Multiplicative habit introduces an additional consumption risk as a determinant of equity premium, and allows time preference and habit strength, in addition to risk aversion, to affect "price of risk". A model combining multiplicative habit and power-expo preferences cannot be rejected.
    Date: 2006–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2006cf429&r=upt
  4. By: Ricardo Scarpa (University of Waikato); Mara Thiene (University of Padua Viale dell’Universita`); Kenneth Train (University of California at Berkeley)
    Abstract: Destination choice models with individual-specific taste variation have become the presumptive analytical approach in applied nonmarket valuation. Continuous mixtures of taste distributions are often modeled using computationally convenient distributions based on the multivariate normal. Though conceptually appealing, empirically these often imply results with untenable distributions of willingness-to-pay in the population. Furthermore, interpersonal variation in the scale of the error may confound variation in taste intensities thereby producing biased WTP estimates. We compare estimates from random utility models that use normal and log-normal distributions first for taste intensities of destination attributes and then for WTPs. Estimates from simulated maximum likelihood and hierarchical Bayes approaches are compared. The results indicate that specifications in WTP space produce more reasonable features of implied WTP distributions for the population. This approach to specification of utility is hence deemed promising in applied nonmarket valuation.
    Keywords: mixed logit random utility parameters; random willingness to pay; travel cost method; destination choice modeling
    JEL: C15 C25 Q26
    Date: 2006–12–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wai:econwp:06/15&r=upt
  5. By: Adrien Verdelhan
    Abstract: This paper presents a fully rational general equilibrium model that produces a time-varying exchange rate risk premium and solves the uncovered interest rate parity (U.I.P) puzzle. In this two-country model, agents are characterized by slow-moving external habit preferences similar to Campbell & Cochrane (1999). Endowment shocks are i.i.d and real risk-free rates are time-varying. Agents can trade across countries, but when a unit is shipped, only a fraction of the good arrives to the foreign shore. The model gives a rationale for the U.I.P puzzle: the domestic investor receives a positive exchange rate risk premium when she is effectively more risk-averse than her foreign counterpart. Times of high risk-aversion correspond to low interest rates. Thus, the domestic investor receives a positive risk premium when interest rates are lower at home than abroad. The model is both simulated and estimated. The simulation recovers the usual negative coefficient between exchange rate variations and interest rate differentials. When the iceberg-like trade cost is taken into account, the exchange rate variance produced is in line with its empirical counterpart. A nonlinear estimation of the model using consumption data leads to reasonable parameters when pricing the foreign excess returns of an American investor
    Keywords: Exchange rate, Time-varying risk premium, Habits
    JEL: F31 G12 G15
    Date: 2006–12–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:872&r=upt
  6. By: Mariano M. Croce (economics nyu)
    Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to measure the welfare costs of business cycles in a production economy in which the representative agent has low risk aversion and - at the same time - the equity premium and the co-movements of aggregate quantities and market returns are comparable to what observed in historical data. In order to do so, I consider a production economy in which the representative agent has Epstein-Zin-Weil(1989) preferences, productivity has a Long Run Risk component and there are capital adjustment costs. In this way, I try to bridge the gap between the current Long Run Risk asset pricing literature, in which quantities are taken as exogenous, and the standard macroeconomic business cycle models. Preliminary results from a benchmark exchange economy suggest that when there is a Long Run Consumption Risk and the representative agent prefers early resolution of uncertainty, the implied total welfare costs of the consumption uncertainty range from 12\% to 20\%. (JEL classification: E20, E32, G12, D81)
    Keywords: Production Economy, Long-Run Risk, Asset Pricing,
    JEL: E20 E32 G12
    Date: 2006–12–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:582&r=upt
  7. By: Nir Jaimovich (Economics UCSD); Sergio Rebelo
    Abstract: In this paper we propose a model that generates an expansion in response to good news about future total factor productivity (TFP) or investment-specific technical change. The model has three key elements: variable capital utilization, adjustment costs to investment, and preferences that exhibit a weak short-run income effect on the labor supply. These preferences nest, as special cases, the two classes of utility functions most widely used in the business cycle literature. Even though our model abstracts from negative productivity shocks, it generates recessions that resemble those in the post-war U.S. economy. Recessions are caused not by contemporaneous negative shocks but by lackluster news about the future TFP or investment-specific technical change
    Keywords: News, Future Shocks, Business Cycle
    JEL: E3
    Date: 2006–12–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:31&r=upt
  8. By: Filippo Occhino
    Abstract: How should taxes, government expenditures, the primary and fiscal surpluses and government liabilities be set over the business cycle? We assume that the government chooses expenditures and taxes to maximize the utility of a representative household, utility is increasing in government expenditures, only distortionary labor income taxes are available, and the cycle is driven by exogenous technology shocks. We first consider the commitment case, and characterize the Ramsey equilibrium. In the case that the utility function is constant elasticity of substitution between private and public consumption and separable between the composite consumption good and leisure, taxes, government expenditures and the primary surplus should all be constant positive fractions of production, and both government liabilities and the fiscal surplus should be positively correlated with production. Then, we relax the commitment assumption, and we show how to determine numerically whether the Ramsey equilibrium can be sustained by the threat to revert to a Markov perfect equilibrium. We find that, for realistic values of the preferences discount factor, the Ramsey equilibrium is sustainable.
    Keywords: Fiscal policy, Commitment, Time-consistency, Ramsey equilibrium, Markov perfect equilibria, Sustainable equilibria.
    JEL: E62
    Date: 2006–12–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:608&r=upt
  9. By: Christine Hauser (Economics University of Rochester); Gokce Uysal
    Abstract: We study a model of efficient risk sharing between two agents, A and B, who enjoy a non-durable common good. Only agent B can provide the common good whereas agent A can merely contribute indirectly by making transfers to the provider, agent B. We consider self-enforcing equilibria in the absence of commitment. We characterize the Pareto frontier of the subgame perfect equilibrium payoffs. The main results are: First, the consumption of the public good is significantly more stable than are the private consumptions. Second, in the absence of aggregate uncertainty, agents' consumptions are invariant to distribution of income in most cases. In the remaining cases, private consumptions and continuation values covary positively with respective incomes. Third, if some first best allocation is sustainable, the long-term equilibrium converges to the first best allocation. Otherwise, agents' utilities oscillate over a finite set of values. We find that an increase in the provider's deviation lifetime utility shifts the frontier of the set of subgame perfect equilibrium payoffs to exclude the lowest values of the provider (hence the highest values of the other). A decrease in the provider's deviation lifetime utility shifts the frontier of the set to include lower values for the provider (hence higher values for the other)
    Keywords: mutual insurance, lack of commitment, optimal dynamic contract, public good
    JEL: C72 C73 D90
    Date: 2006–12–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:860&r=upt
  10. By: Robin Pope; Reinhard Selten; Sebastian Kube; Jürgen von Hagen
    Abstract: Conclusions favourable to flexible exchange rates typically accord with expected utility theory in ignoring the costs that exchange rate uncertainty generates for governments, central banks, firms and unions in: (i) choosing among available acts; and (ii) existing until learning the outcome of the chosen act. Allowing for these costs involves the stages of knowledge ahead framework, Pope (1983, 1995, 2005). A laboratory experiment suggests that (i) and (ii) together outweigh the advantages of having a flexible exchange rate as an additional instrument for managing a country’s employment, interest rate, price level and international competitiveness goals
    Keywords: experiment
    JEL: C90
    Date: 2006–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:labsit:010&r=upt
  11. By: Marc-Andreas Muendler (University of California, San Diego)
    Abstract: Adding a stage of signal acquisition to the expected utility model shows that Bayesian updating results in a well de¯ned law of demand for financial information when asset return distributions are conjugate priors to signals such as in the gamma-Poisson case. Signals have a positive marginal utility value that falls in their number if and only if investors are risk averse, asset markets large, and variance-mean ratios of asset returns high in fully revealing rational expectations equilibrium. Expected asset price increases in the number of signals so that expected excess return drops. The diminishing excess return prevents Bayesian investors from unbounded information demand even if signals are costless, unless the riskfree asset is removed. Signals mutually benefit homogeneous investors because revealing asset price permits updating so that a Pareto criterion judges competitive equilibrium as not su±ciently informative. However, asset price responses make incentives for signal acquisition dependent on portfolios so that welfare and distributional consequences become intricately linked when investors are heterogeneous.
    Keywords: Rational information acquisition, asset pricing, decision-making under risk and uncertainty, information and market efficiency,
    Date: 2005–03–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:2005-04&r=upt
  12. By: John K. Dagsvik and Gang Liu (Statistics Norway)
    Abstract: In this paper we develop a framework for analyzing panel data with observations on rank ordered alternatives that allows for correlated random taste shifters across time and across alternatives. As a special case we obtain a nested logit model type for rank ordered alternatives. We have applied this framework to estimate several model versions for household demand for conventional and alternative fuel automobiles in Shanghai based on rank ordered data obtained from a stated preference survey. The preferred model is then used to calculate demand probabilities and elasticities and the willingness-to-pay for alternative fuel vehicles.
    Keywords: Random utility models; Nested rank ordered logit models; Automobile demand; Alternative fuel vehicles
    JEL: C25 C33 L92
    Date: 2006–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:480&r=upt
  13. By: Fernando Broner; Guido Lorenzoni (Economics MIT); Sergio Schmuckler
    Abstract: We argue that emerging economies borrow short term due to the high risk premium charged by bondholders on long-term debt. First, we present a model where the debt maturity structure is the outcome of a risk sharing problem between the government and bondholders. By issuing long-term debt, the government lowers the probability of a rollover crisis, transferring risk to bondholders. In equilibrium, this risk is re‡ected in a higher risk premium and borrowing cost. Therefore, the government faces a trade-o¤ between safer long-term debt and cheaper short-term debt. Second, we construct a new database of sovereign bond prices and issuance. We show that emerging economies pay a positive term premium (a higher risk premium on long-term bonds than on short-term bonds). During crises, the term premium increases, with issuance shifting towards shorter maturities. The evidence suggests that investor risk aversion is important to understand the debt structure in emerging economies
    Keywords: emerging market debt; financial crises; investor risk aversion
    JEL: E43 F30 F32
    Date: 2006–12–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:841&r=upt
  14. By: Richard Carson; Jordan Louviere (School of Marketing, University of Technology, Sydney)
    Abstract: Consideration sets have become a central concept in the study of consumer behavior. Frequently, consumers are asked to split choice alternatives into those that that they would consider and those that they would not. Information on alternatives not in the consideration set is then typically not used in subsequent analysis. This practice is shown to lead to biased estimates of preference parameters. The reason for this is shown to be a form of sample selection bias.
    Keywords: choice models, random utility, sample selection bias,
    Date: 2006–07–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:2006-07&r=upt
  15. By: Markus K. Brunnermeier; Stefan Nagel
    Abstract: We use data from the PSID to investigate how households' portfolio allocations change in response to wealth fluctuations. Persistent habits, consumption commitments, and subsistence levels can generate time-varying risk aversion with the consequence that when the level of liquid wealth changes, the proportion a household invests in risky assets should also change in the same direction. In contrast, our analysis shows that the share of liquid assets that households invest in risky assets is not affected by wealth changes. Instead, one of the major drivers of households' portfolio allocation seems to be inertia: households rebalance only very slowly following inflows and outflows or capital gains and losses.
    JEL: G11
    Date: 2006–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12809&r=upt
  16. By: Maasoumi, Esfandiar (SMU); Eren, Ozkan (SMU)
    Abstract: This paper examines the foundations for comparing individuals and treatment subjects in experimental and other program evaluation contexts. We raise the question of multiattribute "characterization" of individuals both theoretically and statistically. The paper examines the information basis of characterizing individuals and offers alternatives motivated by welfare and decision theories. The proposed method helps place propensity scores and other "matching" proposals in context and reveals their advantages and disadvantages. We do not find the implied theoretical assumptions underlying propensity scores to be attractive or robust. Our proposal does not "solve" the matching problem, but provides bounds on inferences and makes clear the arbitrariness of specific solutions.
    Keywords: treatment effect; information theory; multivariate scaling; propensity scores; utility functions; fundamentalism; Kullback-Leibler; entropy; aggregation.
    JEL: F18 Q4
    Date: 2006–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smu:ecowpa:0606&r=upt
  17. By: John K. Dagsvik and Zhiyang Jia (Statistics Norway)
    Abstract: In this paper, we discuss aspects of a particular framework for modeling labor supply and the application of this approach in practical policy simulation experiments. This modeling framework differs from the standard models of labor supply in that the notion of job choice is fundamental. Specifically, the worker is assumed to have preferences over a latent worker-specific choice set of jobs from which he or she chooses his or her preferred job. A job is characterized with fixed (job-specific) working hours and other non-pecuniary attributes. As a result, observed hours of work are interpreted as the job-specific (fixed) hours of work that is associated with the chosen job. We then show that our framework is practical with respect to applications in empirical analysis and simulation experiments, and is able to produce satisfactory out-of-sample predictions by estimating the model on Norwegian microdata from 1997 and predicting the corresponding microdata from 2003.
    Keywords: Labor supply; non-pecuniary job attributes; non-convex budget sets; latent choice sets; random utility models.
    JEL: J22 C51
    Date: 2006–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:481&r=upt
  18. By: Rachel A. Campbell (Maastricht University); Roman Kräussl (Free University of Amsterdam and CFS)
    Abstract: Deviations from normality in financial return series have led to the development of alternative portfolio selection models. One such model is the downside risk model, whereby the investor maximizes his return given a downside risk constraint. In this paper we empirically observe the international equity allocation for the downside risk investor using 9 international markets’ returns over the last 34 years. The results are stable for various robustness checks. Investors may think globally, but instead act locally, due to greater downside risk. The results provide an alternative view of the home bias phenomenon, documented in international financial markets.
    Keywords: Asset Pricing, Home Bias, Downside Risk, Prospect Theory
    JEL: G11 G12 G15
    Date: 2006–12–20
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfs:cfswop:wp2000631&r=upt
  19. By: Marc-Andreas Muendler (University of California, San Diego)
    Abstract: Give a risk neutral investor the choice to acquire a costly signal prior to Walrasian asset market equilibrium. She refuses to pay for the signal. The reason is that a risk neutral investor is indifferent between a risky stock or a safe bond in equilibrium and expects the same return to her portfolio ex ante, whether or not she acquires information. Risk neutral asset pricing thus implies the absence of costly information from asset price,unless non-Walrasian market conditions prevail. Non-Walrasian market conditions, however, get reflected in price beyond the asset's fundamental payoff value.
    Keywords: information acquisition; risk neutrality; portfolio choice; rational expectations equilibrium,
    Date: 2005–09–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:2005-10&r=upt
  20. By: Peter Postl
    Abstract: Two agents have to choose one of three alternatives. Their ordinal rankings of these alternatives are commonly known among them. The rankings are diametrically opposed to each other. Ex-ante efficiency requires that they reach a compromise, that is choose the alternative which they both rank sec- ond, if and only if the sum of their von Neumann Morgenstern utilities from this alternative exceeds the sum of utilities when either agent's favorite al- ternative is chosen. We assume that the von Neumann Morgenstern utilities of the middle ranked alternative are independent and identically distributed, privately observed random variables, and ask whether there are incentive compatible decision rules which elicit utilities and implement efficient deci- sions. We show that no such decision rules exist if the distribution of agents' types has a density with full support. We also study the problem of finding second-best decision rules in our set-up, and explain how this problem differs from more familiar second best problems. Finally, we give some numerical insights into the nature of second-best rules. For a variety of distributions of types, second-best rules involve very little inefficiency.
    Keywords: arbitration, mechanism design without transferrable utility
    JEL: C72 D70 D80
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bir:birmec:06-11&r=upt
  21. By: George-Levi Gayle (Carnegie Mellon University public); Robert A. Miller
    Abstract: This paper develops and implements a semiparametric estimator for investigating, with panel data, the importance of human capital accumulation, non-separable preferences of females and child care costs on females life-cycle fertility and labor supply behaviors. It presents a model in which the agents' expectations are correlated with their future choices and provides a set of conditions under which statistical inferences are possible from a short panel. Under the assumption that observed allocations are Pareto optimal or that the utility function is quasi linear, a dynamic model of female labor supply, labor force participation and fertility decisions is estimated. In that model, experience on the job raises future wages, time spent nurturing children affects utility, while time spent off the job in the past directly affects current utility(or, indirectly through productivity in the non-market sector). This paper then uses the estimates from the model to conduct different policy simulations which shows that human capital accumulation is the most important determinant of life-cycle fertility behavior. This result is due to the nonlinearity in returns to experience and the fraction of time require for nurturing a new birth. These two effects works in opposite directions, significantly increasing the cost of having a child. The cost of having a child now is not only the foregone wages but more importantly the cost of breaking the career path of the woman when she leaves the labor force or reducing her hours worked in order to have a child. In our simulations many proposed public policies aim at increasing the fertility rate( e.g. maternity leave or free day care services) have little or no effect on the fertility rate and only result in changes in the labor-leisure trade-off. However, when we were able to compensated women for the foregone wage trajectory the fertility rate significantly increases
    Keywords: Human Capital, Fertility, Labor Supply, Complete Markets. Semiparametric
    JEL: J10 J11 J13
    Date: 2006–12–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:784&r=upt
  22. By: Rolf Aaberge and Ugo Colombino (Statistics Norway)
    Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present an exercise where we identify optimal income tax rules under the constraint of fixed tax revenue. To this end, we estimate a microeconomic model with 78 parameters that capture heterogeneity in consumption-leisure preferences for singles and couples as well as in job opportunities across individuals based on Norwegian household data for 1994. The estimated model is for a given tax rule used to simulate the choices made by single individuals and couples. Those choices are therefore generated by preferences and opportunities that vary across the decision units. Differently from what is common in the literature, we do not rely on a priori theoretical optimal taxation results, but instead we identify optimal tax rules – within a class of 6-parameter piece-wise linear rules - by iteratively running the model until a given social welfare function attains its maximum under the constraint of keeping constant the total net tax revenue. We explore a variety of social welfare functions with differing degree of inequality aversion and also two alternative social welfare principles, namely equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. All the social welfare functions turn out to imply an average tax rate lower than the current 1994 one. Moreover, all the optimal rules imply – with respect to the current rule – lower marginal rates on low and/or average income levels and higher marginal rates on sufficiently high income levels. These results are partially at odds with the tax reforms that took place in many countries during the last decades. While those reforms embodied the idea of lowering average tax rates, the way to implement it has typically consisted in reducing the top marginal rates. Our results instead suggest to lower average tax rates by reducing marginal rates on low and average income levels and increasing marginal rates on very high income levels.
    Keywords: Labour supply; optimal taxation; random utility model; microsimulation
    JEL: H21 H31 J22
    Date: 2006–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:475&r=upt
  23. By: Marc-Andreas Muendler (University of California, San Diego)
    Abstract: Add an opening stage of signal acquisition to a canonical portfolio choice model and let investors have rational expectations about the ensuing Walrasian equilibrium. The expected marginal utility of a signal (its action value) falls in the number of signals and turns strictly negative at a finite number because signals diminish the asset's excess return. There is a natural transparency limit at which rational investors pay to inhibit information disclosure. Prior to the limit, Financial information is a public good and justifies intervention. To instill more transparency, cutting costs of information acquisition is superior to disclosure because disclosure crowds out private information acquisition and risks a violation of the transparency limit.
    Keywords: information acquisition; portfolio choice; rational expecta-tions equilibrium; informational efficiency; transparency,
    Date: 2005–09–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucsdec:2005-09&r=upt
  24. By: Victor Aguirregabiria (Department of Economics Boston University)
    Abstract: This paper presents a method to estimate the effects of a counterfactual policy intervention in the context of dynamic structural models where all the structural functions (i.e., preferences, technology, transition probabilities, and the distribution of unobservable variables) are nonparametrically specified. We show that agents' behavior, before and after the policy intervention, and the change in agents' utility are nonparametrically identified. Based on this result we propose a nonparametric procedure to estimate the behavioral and welfare effects of a general class of counterfactual policy interventions. We apply this method to evaluate hypothetical reforms in the rules of a public pension system using a model of retirement behavior and a sample of blue-collar workers in Sweden
    Keywords: Dynamic discrete decision processes; Nonparametric identification; Counterfactual policy interventions; Retirement behavior.
    JEL: C14 C25 J26
    Date: 2006–12–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed006:169&r=upt

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