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We study the effect of dynamic and investment externalities in a one-sector growth model. In our model, two agents interact strategically in the utilization of capital for consumption, savings, and investment in technical progress. We consider two types of investment choices: complements and substitutes. For each case, we derive the equilibrium and provide the corresponding stationary distribution. We then compare the equilibrium with the social planner’s solution.

This paper presents a dynamic model of talent investments in a team sports league with an infinite time horizon. We show that the clubs' investment decisions and the effects of revenue sharing on competitive balance depend on the following three factors: (i) the cost function of talent investments, (ii) the clubs' market sizes, and (iii) the initial endowments of talent stock. We analyze how these factors interact in the transition to the steady state as well as in the steady state itself.

Effective from 2008, Germany's top marginal income tax rate rises from 42 to 45 per cent. However, sole proprietorships and partnerships can opt for a preferential tax rate of 28.25 per cent for retained profits (§ 34a EStG). If they do so, profits are taxed again upon distribution. Using corporate finance tools, we analyse in detail whether or not the option is favourable. However, these wols do not suffice since the new tax regime is too complicated. Costs of capital cannot be calculated explicitly any more, but we derive exact implicit characterizations. Concrete numerical examples are also provided. Im Jahre 2008 steigt der Spitzensteuersatz der Einkommensteuer von 42 auf 45 Prozent. Einzel- und Mitunternehmer können jedoch für einen besonderen Steuersatz von 28,25 Prozent für einbehaltene Gewinne optieren. In diesem Fall werden die Gewinne bei späterer Entnahme nachversteuert. Der Artikel untersucht die Frage, ob die Option für den besonderen Steuersatz aus Unternehmersicht vorteilhaft ist.

This theoretical model investigates the extent of the effects of local technological spillovers on growth. We add to a growth model with vertical quality ladder innovations the assumption that firms are exogenously located around a circle and technological spillovers affecting R&D efficacy occur between neighbors. As a result, the presence of local spillovers makes it optimal for a firm to innovate intensively only if the neighbors do so. However, they do not produce clear effects on either growth or welfare. On one hand positive spillovers improve the quality of local goods—hence growth—but, on the other, a high level of positive spillovers generate discrepancies across intermediate sectors which reduce the level of household welfare.

We compare sequential and bundle procurement auctions in a framework of successive procurement situations, where current success positively or negatively affects future market opportunities. We find that in bundle auctions procurement cost is lower and less risky than in sequential standard auctions, but still higher than in the optimal sequential auction. Only a sequential second price auction leads to the efficient outcome.

We present a theoretical model in tourism economics, assuming that the market for tourism is an oligopoly with differentiated products. Destinations (i.e., countries, regions, sites or even firms) can invest in order to improve their carrying capacity that can be interpreted as the stock of physical, natural or cultural resources. Tourism flows yield current revenues, but they are usually detrimental for the cultural or natural resource stock over time. We find the solution of the dynamic model, and in particular we find the open-loop Nash equilibrium of the game among the destinations, under alternative settings, depending on whether the arrivals are exogenous or endogenous, and depending on whether the degree of differentiation among destinations is exogenous or endogenous. The model is rather general, and it can provide answers to different specific questions, like the choice between mass- vs. elite-tourism development strategies; the effect of the number of competing products upon profits; the optimal degree of product differentiation.

This article develops a multi-period production model to examine the optimal dynamic behaviour of a large monopolistic value-maximizing firm that manipulates its valuation as well as the price of its output. In the pre-commitment equilibrium the firm’s output and labour demand are decreased, while the price of consumption is increased, as compared with its competitive counterpart. Profits and the firm's value can, however, be either increased or decreased. In the time-consistent equilibrium the firm’s output and labour demand are increased, while the price of consumption is decreased. More strikingly, the profits in every period are decreased, and may even go negative, while the firm's value can be either lower or higher than in the competitive benchmark. In the continuous-time limit, while the pre-commitment equilibrium retains its basic discrete-time structure, the time-consistent equilibrium tends to the limit of zero profits and hence zero firm's value.

In a sequence of fascinating papers, Leland and Leland and Toft have investigated various properties of the debt and credit of a firm which keeps a constant profile of debt and chooses its bankruptcy level endogenously, to maximise the value of the equity. One feature of these papers is that the credit spreads tend to zero as the maturity tends to zero, and this is not a feature which is observed in practice. This defect of the modelling is related to the diffusion assumptions made in the papers referred to; in this paper, we take a model for the value of the firm's assets which allows for jumps, and find that the spreads do not go to zero as maturity goes to zero. The modelling is quite delicate, but it just works; analysis takes us a long way, and for the final steps we have to resort to numerical methods.

This paper considers the existence and computation of Markov perfect equilibria in games with a "monotone" structure. Specifically, it provides a constructive proof of the existence of Markov perfect equilibria for a class of games in which a) there is a continuum of players, b) each player has the same per period payoff function and c) these per period payoff functions are supermodular in the player's current and past action and have increasing differences in the player's current action and the entire distribution of actions chosen by other players. The Markov perfect equilibria that are analyzed are symmetric, not in the sense that each player adopts the same action in any period, but rather in the sense that each player uses the same policy function. Since agents are typically distributed across many states they will typically take different actions. The formal environment considered has particular application to models of industries (or economies) in which firms face costs of price adjustment. It is in this context that the results are developed.

This paper presents a vintage-capital model of technology adoption that takes seriously the fact that new inventions are specific to the environment in which they emerge. The key feature of the model is that the firm can invest resources in R&D to adapt externally originated ideas to the environment in which they are used. We show that because of the possibility of investing in R&D, differences between the inventor's and user's environments can explain why some firms invest in old techniques. Several predictions of the model are consistent with observation.

This paper mathematically treats the following economic problem: A company wants to expand its capacity in investments that are irreversible. The problem is to find the best investment strategy taking the fluctuating market into account. We give some implicit conditions for a solution in the case where the market process is n-dimensional and an explicit solution in the one dimensional case.

We establish the equivalence of competitive industry equilibrium with a central planner's decision problem under uncertainty, when investment is irreversible. The existence of industry equilibrium is derived, and it is shown that myopic behavior on the part of small agents is harmless, in the sense that it leads to the same decisions as full rational expectations do. Our model is set in continuous time and allows for very general forms of randomness. The methods are based on the probabilistic approach to singular stochastic control theory and its connections with optimal stopping problems.