There is now a large and complex literature on optimal income taxation, within the context of second-best welfare economics. This paper considers the potential role of this analysis in the practical design of direct tax and transfer structures. It is stressed that few results are robust, even in...

This paper examines the pattern of income changes over the life cycle for both males and females, using information from a special data set compiled by the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department.

Parental job loss from layoffs and business failures that occur when youth complete high school completion are found to be negatively correlated with enrolment at university and community college. Estimates from a year-to-year education transition model using longitudinal data on youth and their...

Risk aversion and limited liability can result in a rational to gambling. An addictive episode may be triggered by a loss and it may be terminated by a win. The gambler rationality chases a target level of wealth, while being drawn ever more strongly into a gambler's ruin.

This paper explores the idea of the labour market as a social institution by examining the relationship between culture and labour market behaviour. The term culture, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, 'is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any...

Overeducation is a form of labour underutilisation which occurs when the formal education level of a worker exceeds that which is required for the job. In Australia close to 30 per cent of workers are overeducated and are underutilising their skills. Using data from the Negotiating the Life...

Overeducation is a form of labour underutilisation which occurs when the formal education level of a worker exceeds that which is required for the job. It is a form of underemployment that imposes significant costs on individuals and economies. Using data from the Negotiating the Life Course...

We develop a model that combines both the transaction efficiency and primary resource explanations for specialization and development. Our model builds on the Yang (1990) framework but introduces a primary resource factor into this model. We show that neither a labour surplus nor the development...