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作者：Slemrod, J; Greimel, T
作者单位：University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
摘要：This paper investigates the relationship of the daily spread between taxable and municipal securities to a daily indicator of the likelihood of a tax reform that would eliminate the preference now accorded to municipal securities, the 'flat tax.' The probability of tax reform is proxied by the market price of the shares of Steve Forbes, a champion of the flat tax, in the Iowa Electronic Market. We find evidence that the indicator of tax reform's prospects was correlated with a decline in the s...
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作者：Hassler, J; Mora, JVR
作者单位：Stockholm University; Pompeu Fabra University
摘要：Unemployment benefits are higher and turnover between unemployment and employment is lower in Europe than in the U.S. We model the political determination of the unemployment insurance to explain these differences. We show that saving and borrowing is a good substitute for unemployment insurance when turnover is high. With high turnover, the median voter thus prefers low unemployment insurance. With low turnover, generous unemployment insurance becomes more valuable. If the median voter cannot...
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作者：Boadway, R; Marceau, N; Sato, M
作者单位：Queens University - Canada; University of Quebec; University of Quebec Montreal; Hitotsubashi University
摘要：Transfers to the needy are administered by social workers whose job it is to tag welfare applicants to determine eligibility for disability benefits. The accuracy of tagging depends on the effort of the social workers, which is private information. To prevent shirking and induce optimal effort, costly monitoring is required. Using the framework of optimal non-linear taxation, we characterize the form of the optimal tax-transfer system when the government operates a costly welfare system financ...
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作者：Snyder, SK
作者单位：Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
摘要：This paper is a theoretical examination of the testable restrictions of Pareto optimality in an economy with public goods. In contrast to other methods for deriving tests for the optimality of public good provision, ad hoc assumptions about individual public good demand are not required. The testable restrictions derived in this paper are defined over a finite series of aggregate-level data, production data, and individual after-tax income. Despite the relatively sparse data requirements and t...
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作者：Blomquist, S; Christiansen, V
作者单位：Uppsala University; University of Oslo
摘要：This paper integrates two different approaches to the analysis of public provision of private goods (education, health care, day care, etc.). While normative public economics has established an efficiency case for such provision, the commonly held political economy view has been that it is an economically inefficient phenomenon generated by the political process. We establish a political economy framework which in general yields an efficient choice of distributional policy. It follows that the...
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作者：Evans, WN; Ringel, JS
作者单位：University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; National Bureau of Economic Research; Louisiana State University System; Louisiana State University
摘要：This study examines whether higher state cigarette taxes can be used to improve birth outcomes. Data on the outcomes of interest are taken from the 1989-1992 Natality Detail files, generating a sample of roughly 10.5 million births. The results suggest that smoking participation among pregnant women declines and average birth weights rise when excise taxes are increased. These results can be used to form an instrumental variables estimate of the impact of smoking on birth weight. This estimate...
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作者：Parker, SC
作者单位：Durham University
摘要：This paper models optimal linear taxation when occupational choice and labour supply are endogenous. Workers choose between paid employment, self-employment, and unemployment. Self-employment incomes are risky and employees may be involuntarily laid off. Calibrating the model to the UK economy, the optimal tax solution involves relatively high taxation with substantial redistribution, and a higher nominal (but not effective) marginal tax rate imposed on the self-employed than on employees. The...
