This paper investigates the implications of an endogenous social work norm for the optimal welfare state program. Assuming that individual productivity is observable, the analysis finds that restrictions on program participation, implying a larger benefit to a smaller group of recipients, may be...

Thirty years ago, the Swedish tax system underwent a major reform. Since then there have been many changes to the tax system, and the general level of tax revenues has declined by over five percentage points of GDP. The decline in total revenues does not necessarily translate into an evenly...

To put an economy on an equitable growth path, economic development must be based on social efficiency, equity, and job creation. It has been shown that unemployment has far-reaching effects, all leading to an inequitable distribution of well-being. But many economists assume that unemployment...

The literature on public employment policies such as the job guarantee (JG) and the employer of last resort (ELR) often emphasizes their macroeconomic stabilization effects. But carefully designed and implemented policies like these can also have profound social transformative effects. In...

Fiscal policy is useful as a government instrument for supporting the economy, contributing to an increase in employment, and reducing inequality through more egalitarian income distribution. Over the past 30 years, developing countries have failed to increase their real wages due to the lack of...

We evaluate the environmental and economic effects of Beijing’s driving restrictions. Based on daily data from multiple monitoring stations, air pollution falls 19% during every-other-day and 8% during one-day-per-week restrictions. Based on hourly viewership data, the number of...

We propose a dynamic version of the standard two-party electoral competition model adapted to nonlinear income taxation. The theory has a number of desirable features. First, equilibria always exist, even though the set of admissible tax policies is multidimensional. Second, the Nash set can be...

There is a body of literature that favors universal and unconditional public assurance policies over those that are targeted and means-tested. Two such proposalsthe basic income proposal and job guaranteesare discussed here. The paper evaluates the impact of each program on macroeconomic...

We assess the 2001 income tax reform to determine its welfare impact across families with different characteristics. A household labor supply model is estimated to account for variable behavioral responses by family type. We find that while higher-education families received a larger share of...

The latest empirical results of the size of the shadow economy in 18 OECD countries are presented, using the currency demand approach to calculate the shadow economy over time. The results indicate a strong increase in the size of the shadow economy, over the period 1960 to 1998 and for 15 of...