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作者：Wendner, Ronald; Goulder, Lawrence H.
作者单位：University of Graz; Stanford University
摘要：Most studies of the optimal provision of public goods or the excess burden from taxation assume that individual utility is independent of other individuals' consumption. This paper investigates public good provision and excess burden in a model that allows for interdependence in consumption in the form of status (relative consumption) effects. In the presence of such effects, consumption and labor taxes no longer are pure distortionary taxes but have a corrective tax element that addresses an ...
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作者：Galasso, Vincenzo
作者单位：Bocconi University; Bocconi University; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要：Conventional economic wisdom suggests that because of the aging process, social security systems will have to be retrenched. In particular, retirement age will have to be largely increased. Yet, is this policy measure feasible in OECD countries? Since the answer belongs mainly to the realm of politics, I evaluate the political feasibility of postponing retirement under aging in France, Italy, the UK, and the US. Simulations for the year 2050 steady state demographic, economic and political sce...
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作者：Micheletto, Luca
作者单位：University of Milan; Bocconi University
摘要：The literature on externalities and optimal redistributive taxation in the presence of asymmetric information has so far been confined to the case where externalities are of the atmospheric type. One of the main results from this literature has been that the so called additivity property discovered by Sandmo [Sandmo, A. 1975. Optimal taxation in the presence of externalities. Swedish journal of Economics 77, 86-98] holds true also in this more general context. This paper extends previous analy...
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作者：Keen, Michael
作者单位：International Monetary Fund
摘要：This paper explores the implications of a distinctive feature of the value added tax (VAT) that is stressed by practitioners but has been largely overlooked by theorists: that it functions, in part, as a tax on the purchases of informal operators from formal sector businesses and, not least on their imports. It also stresses the potential importance of the withholding taxes that are levied by many developing countries - which have also been ignored. It is shown, in a simple model of informalit...
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作者：Malin, Benjamin A.
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA
摘要：Previous research suggests that, in partial equilibrium, individuals whose decision-making exhibits a present-bias - such as hyperbolic discounters who tend to over-consume - will be in favor of having a floor imposed on their savings. In this paper, I show it is quite difficult for the introduction of a savings floor to be Pareto improving in general equilibrium. Indeed, a necessary condition for the floor to be Pareto improving is that it is high enough to be binding for all individuals. Eve...
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作者：Lavy, Victor
作者单位：Hebrew University of Jerusalem; University of London; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Schools and teachers are often said to be a source of stereotypes that harm girls. This paper tests for the existence of gender stereotyping and discrimination by public high-school teachers in Israel. It uses a natural experiment based on blind and non-blind scores that students receive on matriculation exams in their senior year. Using data on test results in several subjects in the humanities and sciences, I found, contrary to expectations, that male students face discrimination in each sub...
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作者：Kyyra, Tomi; Ollikainen, Virve
作者单位：VATT Institute for Economic Research
摘要：In Finland the older unemployed can collect unemployment insurance benefits until retirement, while the entitlement period for younger groups is two years. In 1997 the eligibility age of persons benefiting from extended benefits was raised from 53 to 55. This paper takes advantage of this quasi-experimental setting to identify the effect of extended benefits on transitions out of unemployment among the older unemployed. We apply a competing risks version of a split population duration model to...
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作者：Mishra, Prachi; Subramanian, Arvind; Topalova, Petia
作者单位：International Monetary Fund; Peterson Institute for International Economics; International Monetary Fund
摘要：We examine the effect of tariff policies on evasion of customs duties, in the context of the trade reform in India of the 1990s. By exploiting the variation in tariff rates across time and products, we identify a robust positive elasticity of evasion with respect to tariffs. A second contribution of the paper is to provide some evidence on the impact of enforcement. While we cannot identify the direct impact of enforcement on evasion, we can establish the extent to which enforcement-related fa...
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作者：Berman, Eli; Laitin, David D.
作者单位：University of California System; University of California San Diego; National Bureau of Economic Research; Stanford University
摘要：Can rational models, once theological explanations are discredited, explain why certain radical religious rebels are so successful in perpetrating suicide attacks? The fundamental barrier to success turns out not to be recruiting suicide attackers; there is a rational basis for volunteering. Rather, the barrier is the danger of other operatives defecting. A club model, portraying voluntary religious organizations as efficient providers of local public goods, explains how they weed out potentia...
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作者：Henry, Emeric
作者单位：University of London; London Business School
摘要：We study a collective decision making environment where an agenda setter makes strategic proposals to privately informed voters who vote strategically. We show that, consistent with empirical evidence, it can be optimal for the agenda setter to propose supermajorities. Due to an informational role that we unveil, optimal supermajorities can be less costly than minimum winning coalitions, even though more voters are awarded a positive share. We also examine consequences in terms of quality of d...
