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作者：Warren, AC Jr
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：This paper discusses the response of the US federal income tax to financial innovation. Income taxation in the US and elsewhere has traditionally relied on distinctions, such as the difference between fixed and contingent returns, that can be undermined by new financial products. The principal tax law responses to innovative products have been: (1) transactional analysis, which aggregates or disaggregates new transactions to conform them to existing legal categories, (2) taxation of changes in...
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作者：West, SE
作者单位：Macalester College
摘要：Previous work shows that policies that subsidize new vehicles and tax size, miles, or gasoline efficiently reduce pollution. Less is known about their distributional effects. This paper examines distributional effects by estimating the joint demand for vehicles and miles, using the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Greater price responsiveness among low-income households enhances progressivity of gas or miles taxes across lower incomes, and mitigates regressivity, across upper incomes. Taxes on eng...
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作者：Donaldson, D; Pendakur, K
作者单位：University of British Columbia; Simon Fraser University
摘要：This paper presents and investigates a new class of equivalent-expenditure functions that is a generalization of the one that corresponds to exact (independent-of-base) equivalence scales. It provides less restrictive household demands, especially for children's goods, and has associated equivalence scales that may depend on expenditure. We show that, under certain conditions, equivalent-expenditure functions and the associated expenditure-dependent equivalence scales can be uniquely estimated...
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作者：Fugazza, M; Jacques, JF
作者单位：Universite PSL; Universite Paris-Dauphine; Institut Polytechnique de Paris; Ecole des Ponts ParisTech
摘要：The paper aims at qualifying the links between labor market institutions, taxation, tax monitoring, and underground economic activity. The proposed model is a continuous time matching model with one commodity roduced either overground or underground. Underground economic activity arises because of partial compliance with regulations and tax contributions imposed by the government. Vacancies and workers search are directed at a specific labor market. Workers are heterogenous in the subjective c...
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作者：Bernheim, BD; Lemke, RJ; Scholz, JK
作者单位：National Bureau of Economic Research; Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
摘要：Proposals to alter the estate tax are contentious and have been considered largely in an empirical vacuum. This paper examines time series and cross-sectional variation to identify the effects of estate and gift taxation on the timing of private transfers. The analysis is based on data from the 1989, 1992, 1995, 1998, and 2001 surveys of Consumer Finances. Legislative activity during this period reduced the tax disadvantage of bequests relative to gifts. Moreover, the magnitude of this reducti...
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作者：Propper, C; Burgess, S; Green, K
作者单位：University of Bristol
摘要：Payer-driven competition has been widely advocated as a means of increasing efficiency in health care markets. The 1990s reforms to the UK health service followed this path. We examine whether competition led to better outcomes for patients, as measured by death rates after treatment following heart attacks. Using data that until 1999 were not publicly available in any form on hospital level death rates, we find that the relationship between competition and quality of care appears to be negati...
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作者：Caselli, F; Morelli, M
作者单位：Harvard University; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research; University System of Ohio; Ohio State University
摘要：We present a simple theory of the quality (competence and honesty) of elected officials. Our theory offers three main insights. Low-quality citizens have a 'comparative advantage' in pursuing elective office, because their market wages are lower than those of high-quality citizens (competence), and/or because they reap higher returns from holding office (honesty). Hence, voters may find themselves supply constrained of high-quality candidates. Second, bad politicians generate negative external...
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作者：Gruber, J
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：The economic argument for subsidizing charitable giving relies on the positive externalities of charitable activities, particularly from the religious institutions that are the largest recipients of giving. But the net external effects of subsidies to religious giving will also depend on a potentially important indirect effect as well: impacts on religious participation. Religious participation can be either a complement to, or a substitute with, the level of charitable giving. Understanding t...
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作者：McMillan, R
作者单位：University of Toronto
摘要：When competition increases, it is often presumed that public schools will be forced to become more efficient. This paper challenges that presumption, showing that in well-defined circumstances, rent-seeking public schools find it optimal to reduce productivity when a voucher is introduced. This occurs for incentive reasons alone. More generally, the productivity effects of vouchers are shown to be non-uniform, varying systematically according to the distribution of households and the form the ...
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作者：Borjas, GJ
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：This paper examines if welfare programs reduce the probability that vulnerable households experience food deprivation because of financial constraints. Although the 1996 welfare reform legislation specifically limited the eligibility of immigrant households to receive assistance, many states chose to protect their immigrant populations by offering state-funded aid to these groups. I exploit these changes in eligibility rules to examine the link between food insecurity and public assistance. Th...
