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作者：Azzimonti, Marina; Battaglini, Marco; Coate, Stephen
作者单位：State University of New York (SUNY) System; Stony Brook University; Cornell University
摘要：This paper analyzes the impact of a balanced budget rule that requires that legislators do not run deficits in the political economy model of Battaglini and Coate (2008). The main finding is that the rule leads to a gradual reduction in the level of public debt. Legislators reduce debt in periods when the demand for public goods is relatively low. They do so because the rule, by restricting future fiscal policies, raises the expected costs of carrying debt. Whether the rule increases citizen w...
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作者：Mejia, Daniel; Restrepo, Pascual
作者单位：Universidad de los Andes (Colombia); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
摘要：We study how property crime distorts consumption decisions. Using an incomplete information model, we argue that consuming conspicuous goods reveals information to criminals seeking bountiful victims and increases the likelihood of being victimized. Thus, property crime reduces the consumption of visible goods, even when these cannot be directly stolen but simply carry information about a potential victim's wealth. We exploit the large decline in property crime in the U.S. during the 90s to te...
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作者：Vlaicu, Razvan; Whalley, Alexander
作者单位：Inter-American Development Bank; University of Calgary; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This paper studies a setting where a relatively uninformed voter holds a policymaker accountable through an informed intermediary. In equilibrium the voter uses the intermediary to insulate the policymaker from pandering incentives when the voter's policy expertise is low or the policymaker's congruence is high. The voter can thus enjoy the benefits of bureaucratic expertise without forfeiting electoral responsiveness. We examine the model's predictions using U.S. city-level data, and find tha...
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作者：Carpenter, Jeffrey; Matthews, Peter Hans; Tabb, Benjamin
作者单位：Middlebury College; IZA Institute Labor Economics
摘要：Not enough is known about the responsiveness of individuals, in particular those who work under different incentives, to changes in marginal tax rates. We ask whether changes in tax rates are less distortionary for workers engaged in a contest. To examine this potential rationale for a more progressive tax code, we first model the effort decisions of workers faced with progressive taxation under tournaments and piece rates. Because of the difficulty identifying any distortion that may be induc...
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作者：Duggan, Mark; Starc, Amanda; Vabson, Boris
作者单位：Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Governments contract with private,firms to provide a wide range of services. While a large body of previous work has estimated the effects of that contracting, surprisingly little has investigated how those effects vary with the generosity of the contract. In this paper we examine this issue in the Medicare Advantage (MA) program, through which the federal government contracts with private insurers to coordinate and finance health care for 17 million Medicare recipients. To do this, we exploit...
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作者：Britton, Jack; Propper, Carol
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Imperial College London; University of Bristol; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要：The impact of teacher pay on school productivity is a central concern for governments worldwide, yet evidence is mixed. In this paper we exploit a feature of teacher labour markets to determine the impact of teacher wages. Teacher wages are commonly set in a manner that results in flat wages across heterogeneous labour markets. This creates an exogenous gap between the outside labour market and inside (regulated) wage for teachers. We use the centralised wage regulation of teachers in England ...
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作者：Krasteva, Silvana; Yildirim, Huseyin
作者单位：Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station; Duke University
摘要：Drawing upon the all-pay auction literature, we propose a model of charity competition in which informed giving alone can account for the significant quality heterogeneity across similar charities. Our analysis identifies a negative effect of competition and a positive effect of informed giving on the equilibrium quality of charity. In particular, we show that as the number of charities grows, so does the percentage of charity scams, approaching one in the limit. In light of this and other res...
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作者：Li, Zhi; Anderson, Christopher M.; Swallow, Stephen K.
作者单位：Xiamen University; Xiamen University; University of Washington; University of Washington Seattle; University of Connecticut; University of Connecticut
摘要：We introduce two novel mechanisms for provision point public goods, motivated by the design of uniform price auctions: The uniform price auction mechanism (UPA) collects an endogenously determined uniform price from everyone offering at least that price, while the uniform price cap mechanism (UPC) collects the uniform price from everyone offering at least that price, plus the full offer of everyone offering less. UPC has the same undominated perfect equilibria as standard provision point (PPM)...
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作者：Heinemann, Friedrich; Janeba, Eckhard; Schroeder, Christoph; Streif, Frank
作者单位：Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg; University of Mannheim; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Leibniz Association; Zentrum fur Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
摘要：Fiscal rules have become popular to limit deficits and high debt burdens in many countries. A growing literature examines their impact based on aggregate fiscal performance. So far, no evidence exists on how fiscal rules influence deficit expectations of fiscal policy makers. In the context of the German debt brake, we study this expectation dimension. In a first step, we introduce a dynamic model in an environment characterized by lagged implementation of a new rule, which in turn characteriz...
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作者：Momota, Akira
作者单位：Ritsumeikan University
摘要：This paper investigates the impact of low fertility on long-term capital accumulation and economic welfare. We find that the impact differs depending on whether the low fertility arises from a decrease in the fertility of mothers (the intensive margin of fertility) or the motherhood rate (the extensive margin of fertility). We show that an increase in the fertility of mothers decreases the capital stock and economic welfare. Conversely, we identify a U-shaped relationship between the extensive...
