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作者：McAfee, R. Preston; Mialon, Hugo M.; Mialon, Sue H.
作者单位：Emory University; California Institute of Technology
摘要：We compare private and public enforcement of the antitrust laws in a simple strategic model of antitrust violation and lawsuit. The model highlights the tradeoff that private firms are initially more likely than the government to be informed about antitrust violations, but are also more likely to use the antitrust laws strategically, to the disadvantage of consumers. Assuming coupled private damages, if the court is sufficiently accurate, adding private enforcement to public enforcement always...
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作者：Casella, Alessandra; Gelman, Andrew
作者单位：Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Columbia University; Columbia University
摘要：Referenda are becoming a common tool for public decision-making, and as reliance on direct democracy increases, so does the importance of giving representation to strongly held minority preferences. This paper discusses a very simple scheme that treats everybody symmetrically but gives weight to intense preferences: voters faced with a number of binary proposals are given one regular vote for each proposal plus a single additional bonus vote to cast as desired. Decisions are then taken accordi...
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作者：Galiani, Sebastian; Gertler, Paul; Schargrodsky, Ernesto
作者单位：Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Washington University (WUSTL); University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：The decentralization of public services is a major feature of institutional innovation. The main argument in support of decentralization is that it brings decisions closer to the people, thereby alleviating information asymmetries and improving accountability. However, decentralization can also degrade service provision in poor communities that lack the ability to voice and defend their preferences. In this paper, we analyze the average and distributional effects of school decentralization on ...
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作者：Gonzalez, Francisco M.; Neary, Hugh M.
作者单位：University of Calgary; University of British Columbia
摘要：Social conflict and slow growth are features of many developing economies. This paper considers the role institutions of property rights and conflict management can play in both achieving prosperity and mitigating conflict in these economies. We study how introducing conflict over economic distribution into an otherwise standard model of growth can shape optimal (second-best) taxation policy when diversionary activities cannot be taxed. In this context, we find that the maximization of economi...
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作者：Engelhardt, Bryan; Rocheteau, Guillaume; Rupert, Peter
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; College of the Holy Cross; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Cleveland; University of California System; University of California Irvine
摘要：This paper extends the Pissarides [Pissarides, Christopher A. Equilibrium Unemployment Theory. Cambridge: MIT (2000)] model of the labor market to include crime and punishment A la Becker [Becker, Gary S. Crime and punishment: an economic approach. journal of Political Economy 76 (1968): 169-217]. All workers, irrespective of their labor force status, can commit crimes and the employment contract is determined optimally. The model is used to study, analytically and quantitatively, the effects ...
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作者：Gathmann, Christina
作者单位：Stanford University
摘要：The paper analyzes the effects of tighter border control on the illegal crossing market between Mexico and the United States. Combining panel data on illegal migrants with enforcement statistics, the effects of enforcement are found to be moderate: prices of border smugglers ('coyotes') increased by only 17%, while the demand for smugglers has remained unchanged. Enforcement has however shifted illegal migrants to remote crossing places. Border crossing is now more time-intensive with higher p...
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作者：Cahuc, Pierre; Zylberberg, AndrE
作者单位：Institut Polytechnique de Paris; ENSAE Paris; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
摘要：This paper analyzes optimum income taxation in a model with endogenous job destruction that gives rise to unemployment. It is shown that optimal tax schemes comprise both payroll and layoff taxes when the state provides public unemployment insurance and aims at redistributing income. The optimal layoff tax is equal to the social cost of job destruction, which amounts to the sum of unemployment benefits (that the state pays to unemployed workers) and payroll taxes (that the state does not get w...
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作者：Schmidt, Stephen J.; McCarty, Therese A.
作者单位：Union College
摘要：We use a twenty-one year panel of data to examine the role of past income and aid, and expectations of future income, in regressions explaining state and local education spending. We show that simple estimates of the elasticity of spending with respect to financial resources are not robust to specification changes because the variables are non-stationary over time, causing inconsistent estimation of model parameters. Estimation in first differences (or equivalently, in growth rates) solves the...
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作者：Goodman, Joshua
作者单位：Columbia University
摘要：Most states now fund merit-based financial aid programs, the effects of which depend on how strongly students react to changes in college costs. I estimate such reactions using quasi-experimental aspects of a recent Massachusetts merit scholarship program intended to attract talented students to the state's public colleges. Despite its small monetary value, the Adams Scholarship induced 6% of winners to choose four-year public colleges instead of four-year private colleges, suggesting an elast...
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作者：Armenter, Roc
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - New York
摘要：Optimal capital taxes may be positive in the steady state in Ramsey models with an incomplete set of factor taxes. I show this possibility crucially depends on how fiscal policy is constrained at date t=0. If the government is barred from manipulating the value of initial assets, the Chamley-Judd result reappears: the optimal capital tax is always zero in the steady state. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
