Market Structure and Economic Policy

Abstract

The subject of reforms and economic policy has been the last years the center of the scientificresearch useful for policy makers and governments all over the world. However, it became toppriority after the recent economic crisis of 2008, especially for Europe. We know that in severalOECD countries, and mainly continental Europe, market imperfections influence significantly theeffects and the transmission mechanism of the attempted economic policy measures. Within theabove framework, often theoretical studies do not emphasize the distributional issues derived fromvarious policy measures. In fact, the general equilibrium effects of changes in economic policyhave mostly been directed towards the social welfare in models with a representative agent.Possible extensions of the above literature has been the main motivation of this thesis.