| In the first paper, through a thought experiment in which members of different generations trade with each other in a virtual market, we examine the effects of alternative assignments of global environmental rights on prices, interest rates, and the global distribution of income. The model is "semi-calibrated" to current and projected levels of the output of produced goods and to present and future quantities of global environmental goods. Income classes in each country are disaggregated to the quintile level. Multiple equilibria are possible for some rights assignments, with implications for intergenerational equity. The model projects bounds on the degree of future economic inequality depending on how the environmental rights are assigned. A policy that assigns the environmental rights in such a way as to leave the present-day distribution of income unchanged while moving in the direction of equal per capita endowments of environmental rights can result in future inequality comparable to today's average within-country inequality.; The second paper examines a model of the price setting decision for a monopolistic seller who is selling multiple units of a homogeneous good in a first come first served, instantaneous sale queuing environment. We find that the seller will choose a pricing scheme that will effectively eliminate the queue. The reason for this is that time spent in the queue represents a cost to buyers that the seller does not collect.; Fairness as well as efficiency is an important aspect of compensation if land is condemned for public use. In the third paper we find that for a limited set of public projects, those for which the entire benefit is captured in land values, compensation at the market value of non-taken land is shown to induce efficient choices by both the bureau that makes the taking choice and the landowners whose property is affected by those choices. The compensation rule is self-financing if the bureau's expenditures are financed entirely by an ad valorem property tax. The generality of the conclusion is limited by the motives of the government and the order in which the decisions are made. |
