-
作者：Ludema, Rodney D.; Ofsgard, Anders
作者单位：Georgetown University; Georgetown University
摘要：When a government creates an agency to gather information relevant to policymaking, it faces two critical organizational questions: whether the agency should be given authority to decide on policy or merely supply advice, and what should the policy goals of the agency be. Existing literature on the first question is unable to address the second, because the question of authority becomes moot if the government can simply replicate its preferences within the agency. In contrast, this paper exami...
-
作者：Belan, Pascal; Gauthier, Stephane; Laroque, Guy
作者单位：University of London; University College London; Nantes Universite
摘要：Indirect taxes contribute to a sizeable part of government revenues around the world. Typically there are few different tax rates, and the goods are partitioned into classes associated with each rate. The present paper studies how to group the goods in these few classes. We take as given the number of tax rates and study the optimal aggregation (or classification) of commodities of the fiscal authority in a second best setup. The results are illustrated on data from the United Kingdom. (c) 200...
-
作者：Mattozzi, Andrea; Merlo, Antonio
作者单位：California Institute of Technology; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); University of Pennsylvania; University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
摘要：Two main career paths are prevalent among politicians in modem democracies: there are career politicians (i.e., politicians who work in the political sector until retirement), and political careers (i.e., there are politicians who leave politics before retirement and work in the private sector). In this paper, we propose a dynamic equilibrium model of the careers of politicians in an environment with a private sector and a political sector, where individuals are heterogeneous with respect to t...
-
作者：Brooks, Leah
作者单位：McGill University
摘要：When the median voter's preference sets the level of local public goods, some voters are left unsatisfied. Is there an institution by which subsets of voters can resolve the collective action problem and increase the local provision of public goods? If so, what are the consequences? In response to problems such as crime and vandalism, neighborhood property owners have established Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) to provide local public goods. When a BID is approved by a majority of proper...
-
作者：Kind, Hans Jarle; Koethenbuerger, Marko; Schjelderup, Guttorm
作者单位：Norwegian School of Economics (NHH); University of Munich
摘要：This paper examines the efficient provision of goods in two-sided markets and characterizes optimal specific and ad-valorem taxes. We show that (i) a monopoly may have too high output compared to the social optimum; (ii) output may be reduced by posing negative value-added taxes (subsidy) or positive specific taxes.(c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
-
作者：Oswald, A. J.; Powdthavee, N.
作者单位：University of Warwick; University of London
摘要：This paper is an empirical study of partial hedonic adaptation. It provides longitudinal evidence that people who become disabled go on to exhibit considerable recovery in mental well-being. In fixed-effects equations we estimate the degree of hedonic adaptation at depending on the severity of the disability approximately 30% to 50%. Our calculations should be viewed as illustrative; more research, on other data sets, is needed. Nevertheless, we discuss potential implications of our results fo...
-
作者：Battaglini, Marco; Coate, Stephen
作者单位：Cornell University; Princeton University
摘要：This paper studies Pareto efficient income taxation in an economy with finitely-lived individuals whose income generating abilities evolve according to a two-state Markov process. The study yields three main results. First, when individuals are risk neutral, in any period the only individuals whose earnings are distorted are those who currently are and have always been low ability. In addition, the degree to which these perpetual low ability types have their earnings distorted decreases over t...
-
作者：Bracht, Juergen; Figuieres, Charles; Ratto, Marisa
作者单位：INRAE; Institut Agro; Montpellier SupAgro; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Universite de Montpellier; University of Aberdeen
摘要：We compare the performance of two incentive mechanisms in public goods experiments. One mechanism, the Falkinger mechanism, rewards and penalizes agents for deviations from the average contributions to the public good (Falkinger mechanism). The other, the compensation mechanism, allows agents to subsidize the other agents' contributions (compensation mechanism). It is found that both mechanisms lead to an increase in the level of contributions to the public goods. However, the Falkinger mechan...
-
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...
-
作者：Alpizar, Francisco; Carlsson, Fredrik; Johansson-Stenman, Olof
作者单位：University of Gothenburg; CATIE - Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion y Ensenanza
摘要：We investigate the role of anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity for voluntary contributions, based on a natural field experiment conducted at a national park in Costa Rica. Contributions made in public in front of the solicitor are 25% higher than contributions made in private. Giving subjects a small gift before requesting a contribution increases the likelihood of a positive contribution. At the same time, the conditional contribution decreases. The total effect of giving a gift is positiv...
