Altruism and charitable giving in a fully replicated economy

In this paper, an economy is analyzed where one group of agents, the altruists, cares about the well-being of another group of agents, the recipients. It is asked how changes in the size of these groups affect the altruists’ charitable giving in the Nash equilibrium. I show that a pure group size effect, i.e., a proportional expansion of both subgroups can lead to less free riding and to a lower degree of underprovision relative to the efficient level of charitable giving.altruism, public goods, group size, charitable giving

A note on the link between public expenditures and distortionary taxation

This note deals with the optimal provision of a public good in the context of the Ramsey tax model. It is shown that the second-best level of public good provision is inefficiently low relative to a situation where additional expenditures can be financed by lump-sum taxation.distortionary taxation

New challenges in regional development - the role of regional institutions

The paper is based on an institutional survey in Austria. The aim of the survey was to identify different types of regional institutions - traditional versus new innovative institutions. The main research focus concentrated on new challenges in regional development processes resulting from the EU-strategy to foster sustainable regional development in the member states. As a consequence the question of the relevance of completely new types of institutions arises on the one hand. These new types are directly linked to the EU structural fund policy, e.g. LEADER+ manager, EU regional manager. With respect to this focus these institutions mainly concentrate on EU programmes and initiatives. On the other hand the traditional institutions have their specific focus on e.g. tourism, economic development etc. not necessarily with any direct link to EU-programmes. Therefore this contribution starts with a general institutional analysis (i.e. organisational attributes, activity profiles, regional embeddedness, position in the regional stakeholder network, etc.) to find differences between traditional and new innovative institutions. Based on these attributes we will present the institutional landscape in Austrian regions. This landscape consists of the above mentioned traditional and the new innovative institutions. Are these co-existing institutions able to concentrate the top-down (i.e. regional policy) and the bottom-up (i.e. project initiatives) interests in order to foster sustainable regional initiatives? For answering this question we haven chosen several case-studies in different Austrian regions. This case study analysis will be presented as follows: * Strengths and weaknesses of different institutional settings (e.g. various competing institutions versus one strong institution) * Comparison of strategic decisions in the case study regions * Is there any ideal solution identifiable for other regions?

Second-Best Pollution Taxation and Environmental Quality

This paper deals with second-best pollution taxation by investigating allocations instead of the corresponding tax rates. Assuming certain restrictions on utility and that the marginal revenue from environmental taxation is positive, it is shown that environmental quality is higher in second best where only distortionary taxes are used to finance public expenditures than in the first-best optimum where lump-sum taxes are available.environmental taxation, public goods

Promotion of new technologies by European regional development agencies - The case of Austria.

According to the current focus of the regional policy of the European Union on sustainable regional development the question arises - what are the key-elements to achieve a sustainable regional pathway? The identification of these key-factors is a challenge for the regional policy in each member state. One elementary key-factor is the promotion of new technologies as part of a regional innovation strategy. Regional institutions which support environmental improvements within regions can be identified as key-actors for achieving a sustainable regional pathway. This contribution focuses mainly on the analysis of these institutions within Austrian regions that are analysed within a research project funded by the Austrian National Bank ("Jubiläumsfonds der Österreichischen Nationalbank"). The main objectives are the following: (a) Identification of those institutions relevant for fostering new technologies to achieve a sustainable regional development. (b) Typology of these institutions to gain an appreciation of the relevant policies and activities of the regional development agencies in regions in fostering within companies new technologies which support environmental improvements, both in their own regions and elsewhere in the European Union. (c) Analysis of the institutions activities (activity profiles) (d) To foster an exchange of information on policy in these activities between the agencies. (e) Identification of network activities between different types of regional institutions. The main research question focusses on the relevance of existing regional institutions and their ability of fulfilling the challenges of sustainable regional development goals. Their role within the regional innovation system and their flexibility to change their target group profiles seems relevant for successful applications of sustainable regional development strategies. The question of the relevance of completely new types of institutions or only adapted profiles of still existing institutions needs to be answered. The paper will focus on the Austrian institutional landscape. Several types of regional institutions will be analysed within a survey based on standardised questionnaires. Within a second step of analysis those types of institutions with explicitly focuses on sustainable regional projects will be further analysed with in-depth case studies.

Taxation of Annual Income as a Commitment Device

I study a two-period model of nonlinear, information constrained income taxation. It is shown that time-consistent taxation of annual income welfare-dominates time-consistent taxation of lifetime income if preferences are such that stationary allocations are efficient. If uncertainty is taken into account and if state-contingent fiscal policy is not feasible, time-consistent taxation of annual income can also welfare-dominate taxation of lifetime income under commitment. These findings may help in explaining why governments usually tax annual rather than lifetime earnings

Group size and free riding when private and public goods are gross substitutes

Using the traditional model of voluntary public good provision, it is shown that an expansion of group size exacerbates free riding tendencies as long as private consumption and the public good are strictly normal and weak gross substitutes. This result generalizes a previous Cobb-Douglas example with respect to preferences and asymmetric equilibria

Group size and free riding when private and public goods are gross substitutes

Using the traditional model of voluntary public good provision, it is shown that an expansion of group size exacerbates free riding tendencies as long as private consumption and the public good are strictly normal and weak gross substitutes. This result generalizes a previous Cobb-Douglas example with respect to preferences and asymmetric equilibria.private provision of public goods, group size

New challenges in regional development - the role of regional institutions

The paper is based on an institutional survey in Austria. The aim of the survey was to identify different types of regional institutions - traditional versus new innovative institutions. The main research focus concentrated on new challenges in regional development processes resulting from the EU-strategy to foster sustainable regional development in the member states. As a consequence the question of the relevance of completely new types of institutions arises on the one hand. These new types are directly linked to the EU structural fund policy, e.g. LEADER+ manager, EU regional manager. With respect to this focus these institutions mainly concentrate on EU programmes and initiatives. On the other hand the traditional institutions have their specific focus on e.g. tourism, economic development etc. not necessarily with any direct link to EU-programmes. Therefore this contribution starts with a general institutional analysis (i.e. organisational attributes, activity profiles, regional embeddedness, position in the regional stakeholder network, etc.) to find differences between traditional and new innovative institutions. Based on these attributes we will present the institutional landscape in Austrian regions. This landscape consists of the above mentioned traditional and the new innovative institutions. Are these co-existing institutions able to concentrate the top-down (i.e. regional policy) and the bottom-up (i.e. project initiatives) interests in order to foster sustainable regional initiatives' For answering this question we haven chosen several case-studies in different Austrian regions. This case study analysis will be presented as follows: * Strengths and weaknesses of different institutional settings (e.g. various competing institutions versus one strong institution) * Comparison of strategic decisions in the case study regions * Is there any ideal solution identifiable for other regions

Income taxation and production efficiency in a simple two-sector economy

In a recent contribution, H. Naito (1999) has shown that production efficiency may be violated in the optimum with non-linear income taxation. Using a slightly simpler framework, this paper complements Naito's analysis in showing that production efficiency does not hold in the optimum with (i) non-linear and (ii) linear income taxation provided that second best and first best do not coincide. These findings indicate that income taxation generally implies the desirability to complement the distortion between consumer and producer prices by means of a corresponding distortion in input prices