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作者:Miner, Luke
摘要:Can the introduction of the Internet undermine incumbent power in a semi-authoritarian regime? I examine this question using evidence from Malaysia, where the incumbent coalition lost its 40-year monopoly on power in 2008. I develop a novel methodology for measuring Internet penetration, matching IP addresses with physical locations, and apply it to the 2004 to 2008 period in Malaysia. Using distance to the backbone to instrument for endogenous Internet penetration, I find that Internet exposu...
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作者:Borge, Lars-Erik; Parmer, Pernille; Torvik, Ragnar
作者单位:Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU)
摘要:Utilizing an output based efficiency measure we investigate whether higher public revenues harm efficiency in the production of local public goods. Much variation in revenues among Norwegian local governments can be explained by revenues collected from hydropower production. This revenue variation, combined with good data availability, can be used to address a main concern in the resource curse literature; that public sector revenue, and in particular the revenue from natural resources, is end...
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作者:Kosonen, Tuomas
作者单位:VATT Institute for Economic Research
摘要:Consumption tax rates targeted at specific sectors are often reformed without any empirical knowledge about the efficiency of these policies. This paper sheds light on tax incidence as well as the efficiency issue, the potential for welfare improving reform, by studying the impact of value added taxes (VAT) on prices and quantities of labor intensive services. I utilize a VAT reform targeted at a specific service sector, which creates a natural experiment set up. The VAT for hairdressing servi...
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作者:Stiglitz, Joseph E.
作者单位:Columbia University
摘要:What kinds of social and economic systems are most conducive to innovation? We formulate a simple model in which countries can close the gap with the technological leader, but where the cost of doing so may be so high that the country chooses to remain laggards. Observed disparities in productivity may be the result of a recognition that the cost of closing the gap exceeds benefit and there may therefore exist an international equilibrium in which there are leaders and followers. Even if it is...
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作者:Bayer, Ralph-C.; Oberhofer, Harald; Winner, Hannes
作者单位:University of Adelaide; Vienna University of Economics & Business; Salzburg University
摘要:This paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence to explain the occurrence of tax amnesties. We treat amnesties as endogenous, resulting from a strategic game between many taxpayers discounting future payments from punishment and a government that balances costs and benefits of amnesty programs. From the model we derive hypotheses about the factors that should influence the occurrence of tax amnesties. To test these predictions empirically, we rely on amnesty information from US ...
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作者:Munyo, Ignacio; Rossi, Martin A.
作者单位:Universidad de Montevideo
摘要:We report that on any given day the number of inmates released from incarceration significantly affects the number of offenses committed this day, and we name this as first-day recidivism. Our estimates of this novel approach to study early recidivism are robust to a variety of alternative model specifications. We then show that first-day recidivism can be eliminated by an increase in the gratuity provided to prisoners at the time of their release. A simple cost-benefit analysis shows that inc...
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作者:Bastani, Spencer; Blumkin, Tomer; Micheletto, Luca
作者单位:Uppsala University; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of Milan; Bocconi University
摘要:In this paper we highlight a novel role played by the non-linear income tax in the presence of adverse selection in the labor market due to asymmetric information between workers and firms. Relying on the Rothschild and Stiglitz equilibrium concept, we show that an appropriate choice of the tax schedule enables the government to affect the wage distribution by controlling the transmission of information in the labor market. This represents an additional channel through which the government can...
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作者:Fleurbaey, Marc; Zuber, Stephane
作者单位:Princeton University; Princeton University; Paris School of Economics; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
摘要:The common practice consists in using a unique value of the discount rate for all public investments. Endorsing a social welfare approach to discounting, we show how different public investments should be discounted depending on: the risk on the returns on investment, the systematic risk on aggregate consumption, the distribution of gains and losses, and inequality. We also study the limit value of the discount rate for very long term investments. We highlight the type of information that is n...
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作者:Gonzalez, Felipe; Miguel, Edward
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:In a study of the effect of civil war exposure on local collective action outcomes in Sierra Leone, Bellows and Miguel (2009) employ a coefficient stability approach to assess the importance of omitted variable bias building on Altonji et al. (2005a). Here we clarify the econometric assumptions underlying Bellows and Miguel (2009), and extend their analysis using data on dependent variable reliability ratios and the method developed in Oster (2015). (C) 2015 Elsevier BM. All rights reserved.
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作者:Kolm, Ann-Sofie; Tonin, Mirco
作者单位:Stockholm University; University of Southampton; Central European University; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
摘要:Welfare benefits in the Nordic countries are often tied to employment. We argue that this is one of the factors behind the success of the Nordic model, where a comprehensive welfare state is associated with high employment. In a general equilibrium setting, the underlining mechanism works through wage moderation and job creation. The benefits make it more important to hold a job, thus lower wages will be accepted, and more jobs created. Moreover, we show that the incentive to acquire higher ed...