This paper constructs a theoretical model, in which transportation costs between two locations depend on cumulative infrastructure investment and governments allocate infrastructure spending over continuous space, thereby affecting the geographical pattern of transportation costs. Modelling international trade, we assume that governments set their infrastructure investment schedules in a non-co...

Debt management policy for governments of developing countries must balance conflicting objectives. The structure of explicit and implicit government debt influences the amount of lending private creditors are willing to extend, contractual debt service costs, the probability of default and the costs of default. Because default is not relevant for governments of industrial countries, their debt...

This annual article presents information on health care costs by business, households, and government. Households funded 35 percent of expenditures in 1990, government 33 percent, and business, 29 percent. During the last decade, health care costs continued to grow at annual rates of 8 to 16 percent. Burden measures show that rapidly rising costs faced by each sponsor sector are exceeding incre...

Agglomeration tendencies of industrial firms significantly affect the nature of tax competition. This paper analyzes tax competition between two countries over an infinite time horizon in an economy with trade costs and internationally mobile industrial firms. Most of the previous studies on tax competition in the ‘new economic geography’ framework employ static models. In this study, two gover...

We discuss the relative merits of public and private ownership. Our starting point is the analysis of Hart, Schleifer and Vishney (HSV), who apply an incomplete contract framework to study the difference between private and public ownership. Our analysis departs from HSV’s model in two aspects. First, we allow for cost-sharing contracts between the government and the firm. Second, we assume tha...

In this article, the authors recast health care costs into payer categories of business, households, and Federal and State-and-local governments which are more useful for policy analysis. The burden that these costs place upon the financial resources of each payer are examined for 1989 and for trends over time. For businesses, their share of health care costs continues to creep upward compared ...

This paper analyzes the incentives for governments to impose export subsidies when firms invest in a cost saving technology before market competition. Governments first impose an export subsidy or a tax. After observing export policy, firms invest in cost reducing R&D and subsequently compete in the market. Governments subsidize exports under Cournot competition. Under Bertrand competition, exp...

Although electronic commerce (e-commerce) can be a source of competitive advantage, will e-commerce businesses in countries like China flourish when governments still take a “wait-and-see attitude” as to prompting, protecting, and regulating e-commerce? The paper employs transaction cost economics in analyzing the role of government in regulating electronic contracting. Due to the transaction c...