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THE AUTHORS FORMULATE A SIMPLE MODEL OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN A SPONSOR AND A BUREAU. THE SPONSOR SETS THE BUREAU'S BUDGET WHILE THE BUREAU DECIDES ON HOW MUCH TO SPEND ON SLACK. THE AUTHORS COMPUTE NUMERICALLY MARKOV PERFECT EQUILIBRIA OF MULTI-PERIOD GAMES WHERE THE AGENTS MOVE ALTERNATELY AND APPLY MARKOV STRATEGIES. BOTH AGENTS ARE WORSE OFF COMPARED TO THE ONE-PERIOD GAME WITH SIMULTANEOUS MOVES. AS THE DISCOUNT FACTORS INCREASE, THE EQUILIBRIUM OUTCOME BECOMES LESS COOPERATIVE IN NATURE.

I introduce a computable dynamic equilibrium model of the pharmaceutical industry, parameterize it using industry facts, and use it to predict what happens if the United States adopts price controls or one or more non‐U.S. countries abandon their controls. The model generates implications for firm value, research and development (R&D), the flow of new drugs, and consumer welfare. I highlight the sensitivity of the results to alternative assumptions about R&D costs, market size, technological opportunities, consumer heterogeneity, the extent to which choices internalize prices, barriers to entry in R&D, the extent to which R&D outcomes are correlated, and the nature of the controls.

We study optimal income taxation and public debt policy in a neoclassical economy pop- ulated by infinitely-lived households and a benevolent government. The government makes sequential decisions on the provision of a valued public good, on income taxation and the issue of public debt. We characterize and compute Markov-perfect optimal fiscal policy in this economy with two payoff-relevant state variables: physical capital and public debt. We find two stable, steady-state equilibria: one with no income taxation and positive government asset holdings, and another with positive taxation and public debt issuances. We prove that the two steady states are associated with different policy rules, which implies a multiplicity of (expectation-driven) Markov-perfect equilibria.

We study optimal time-consistent fiscal policy in a neoclassical economy with endogenous government spending, physical capital and public debt. We show that a dynamic complementarity between the households' consumption-savings decision and the government's policy decision gives rise to a multiplicity of expectations-driven Markov-perfect equilibria. The long-run levels of taxes, government spending and debt are not uniquely pinned down by economic fundamentals, but are determined by expectations over current and future policies. Accordingly, economies with identical fundamentals may significantly differ in their levels of public indebtedness ; This author is grateful for financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under grant 2011/00049/001

I develop a dynamic model of social conflict whereby manifest grievances of the poor generate the incentive of taking over political power violently. Rebellion can be an equilibrium outcome depending on the level of preexisting inequality between the poor and the ruling elite, the relative military capabilities of the two groups and the destructiveness of conflict. Once a technology of repression is introduced, widespread fear reduces the parameter space for which rebellion is an equilibrium outcome. However, I show that repression-driven peace comes at a cost as it produces a welfare loss to society. © 2011 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

In strategic-form games Selten's (1975) perfect equilibria are admissible. This is not true for extensive-form perfection. Quasi-perfect equilibria solves this problem using Selten's (1975) trembles to introduce a refinement of Nash equilibrium wherein each player puts infinitesimal weight on other players's strategies, but not her own. One might be sure of oneself, while (infinitesimally) unsure of others. However, also quasi-perfection itself is not without problems, precisely because it ignores future infinitesimal uncertainties in one's own play. We introduce a refinement; perfect quasi-perfect equilibrium, to capture the best of both concepts. Our idea is to force each player to consider infinitesimal deviations in her own future play, but to make them so unlikely that they are infinitely less likely than the combined likelihood of deviations by all other players. Our refinement uses only strategies that are neither weakly dominated in the strategic form nor in the agent normal form.

This paper is concerned with the question of the existence of stationary Markov-perfect equilibrium in an overlapping generations growth model in the tradition of Diamond [19651, where in each period a government is in power, being interested in maximizing a social welfare function which consists of a weighted sum of utilities of those generations only who are alive in this period. This setting causes conflicts of interest between two succeeding governments and implies time-inconsistency of optimal plans made by myopic planners. If these planners are non-myopic, however, they will take into account the reaction of their successors. We will therefore ex-amine what game-theoretic concept can be applied, whether game equilibria exist. and what their properties are. ; N/A