This paper explores the relationship between a large government cash transfer programme, changes in inequality, and political participation in Mexico. The results show that increases in the coverage of the programme during the 2008 financial crisis resulted in greater individual participation in...

Using a factor decomposition of the Gini coefficient we measure the contribution to inequality of direct monetary transfers to and from the Brazilian State. Among the transfers from the State are wages of public workers, pensions and social assistance; the transfers to the State are direct taxes....

A common assumption in the optimal taxation literature is that the social planner maximizes a welfarist social welfare function with weights decreasing with income. However, high transfer withdrawal rates in many countries imply very low weights for the working poor in practice. We reconcile...

A common assumption in the optimal taxation literature is that the social planner maximizes a welfarist social welfare function with weights decreasing with income. However, high transfer withdrawal rates in many countries imply very low weights for the working poor in practice. We reconcile...

In this paper, we study how the tax-and-transfer system reduces the inequality of lifetime income by redistributing lifetime earnings between individuals with different skill endowments and by providing individuals with insurance against lifetime earnings risk. Based on a dynamic life-cycle...

A common assumption in the optimal taxation literature is that the social planner maximizes a welfarist social welfare function with weights decreasing with income. However, high transfer withdrawal rates in many countries imply very low weights for the working poor in practice. We reconcile...

In this paper, we study how the tax-and-transfer system reduces the inequality of lifetime income by redistributing lifetime earnings between individuals with different skill endowments and by providing individuals with insurance against lifetime earnings risk. Based on a dynamic life-cycle...

The rational expectations assumption, e.g. in life-cycle models and portfolio-choice models, prescribes agents to have model-consistent beliefs and to avoid systematic prediction errors. In reality, justi cation and identification of expectations are nontrivial. One way to solve this problem is...

Survey evidence shows that the magnitude of the tax liability plays a role in value judgements about which groups deserve tax breaks. We demonstrate that the German tax-transfer system conflicts with a welfarist inequality averse social planner. It is consistent with a planner who is averse to...

Wage growth occurs almost exclusively in full-time work, whereas it is close to zero in part-time work. German women, when asked to predict their own potential wage outcomes, show severely biased expectations with strong over-optimism about the returns to part-time experience. We estimate a...