We study optimal income taxes and transfers in an economy with heterogeneous agents and aggregate shocks. An optimal equilibrium determines agents’ net asset positions, but not their absolute levels. The distribution of debt holdings across agents influences optimal allocations and taxes, but the level of government debt does not. Higher correlations of debt holdings and labor incomes imply mor...

The work of Gwartney, Holcombe and Lawson (GHL, 1998) is cited in New Zealand debate to demonstrate that a larger government share of GDP is detrimental for economic growth. Their work is reassessed here. We find a number of omissions in their analysis lead to a considerable over-statement of the effect of government size on growth. More important for growth, according to other recent work, are...

Governments all over the world would like to improve the well being of its citizen. One aspects of well being can be seen through the quality of life (QoL) a person enjoys. Measuring and determining what is QoL is not an easy task. In this paper, using per-capita income as the yardstick for QOL, and the role of government through the way it spend its public money would be able to tell how ASEAN...

BACKGROUND Introduction of new vaccines in low- and lower middle-income countries has accelerated since Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance was established in 2000. This study sought to (i) estimate the costs of introducing pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, rotavirus vaccine and a second dose of measles vaccine in Zambia; and (ii) assess affordability of the new vaccines in relation to Gavi's co-financing...

The goal of this paper is to study optimal government policy when there is no way of committing to future policy and this restriction is binding. The paper has a methodological part and an applied part. The applied part analyzes the optimal choice of government expenditures when the financing of these expenditures involves distortionary taxation and has dynamic consequences—we are studying a si...

India's health financing system is a cause of and an exacerbating factor in the challenges of health inequity, inadequate availability and reach, unequal access, and poor-quality and costly health-care services. Low per person spending on health and insufficient public expenditure result in one of the highest proportions of private out-of-pocket expenses in the world. Citizens receive low value...

This article analyses the relationship between government spending and the distribution of private income between capital and labour. While most previous research assumes that government spending redistributes in favour of the less wealthy, I distinguish between types of expenditures that enhance the bargaining position of labour - that is, unemployment benefits, public sector employment and in...

The purpose of this article is to investigate the effect government consumption and investment expenditures on private sector in Turkish economy. In study, Cointegration Vector Autoregressive Model based 1980-2018 data has been used. results cointegration vector obtained from Johansen Test show that during period under review, are complementary incentive competitive with expenditures. Based res...

Using a panel dataset from 1980 to 2000 this paper analyzes the determinants of income inequality in Latin American countries with special attention paid to education, health, and social security expenditures. I build on previous research by solving for the endogeneity of the social spending variables in the income inequality equation. This study undertakes 2SLS and GMM methods in order to cont...