Deciding When To Decide: Collective Deliberation and Obstruction

in International Economic Review (in press)

We study the impact of deliberation rules on collective learning and decision making in committees. In contrast to much of the existing literature, this paper makes a distinction between the final votes ... [more ▼]

We study the impact of deliberation rules on collective learning and decision making in committees. In contrast to much of the existing literature, this paper makes a distinction between the final votes over policy proposals and the cloture votes that bring them about. We show how deliberation rules can cause Pareto inefficient outcomes and failures to bring good proposals to a final vote, and how they affect the distribution of power among committee members in the deliberative process. We further show that deliberation rules are dynamically stable, even when they generate Pareto ineffcient outcomes. [less ▲]

Capital- and Labor-Saving Technical Change in an Aging Economy

in International Economic Review (2016), 58

Does population aging and the associated increase in the old-age dependency ratio affect <br />economic growth ? The answer is given in a novel analytical framework that allows for population aging to ... [more ▼]

Does population aging and the associated increase in the old-age dependency ratio affect <br />economic growth ? The answer is given in a novel analytical framework that allows for population aging to affect endogenous capital- and labor-saving technical change. In steady state capital-saving technical progress vanishes, and the economy’s growth rate of per-capita variables reflects only labor-saving technical change. The mere possibility of capital-saving technical change is shown to imply that the economy’s steady-state growth rate becomes independent of its age structure: neither a higher life-expectancy nor a decline in fertility affects economic growth in the long run. [less ▲]

Measuring Economic Insecurity

in International Economic Review (2013), 54

We provide an axiomatic treatment of the measurement of economic insecurity, assuming that individual insecurity depends on the current wealth level and its variations experienced in the past. The first ... [more ▼]

We provide an axiomatic treatment of the measurement of economic insecurity, assuming that individual insecurity depends on the current wealth level and its variations experienced in the past. The first component plays the role of a buffer stock to rely on in case of an adverse future event. The second component determines the confidence an individual has on her ability to overcome a loss in the future. Two classes of linear measures are characterized with sets of plausible and intuitive axioms and, for each of these classes, an important subclass is identified. [less ▲]