Social Spending Generosity and Income Inequality: A Dynamic Panel Approach This paper explores if more generous social spending polices in fact lead to less income inequality, or if redistributive outcomes are offset by behavioral disincentive effects. To account for the inherent endogeneity of social policies with regard to inequality levels, I apply the System GMM estimator and use the presum...

This paper analyzes the impact of carbon taxes on the Japanese economy using an applied/computable general equilibrium model. This analysis sheds light on both the efficiency and the equity issues of these policies. The study shows that some alleviation measures, e.g. tax differentiation, might be required to ease the damages caused to energy intensive industries. Moreover, considering the regr...

This paper analyzes the role of yardstick competition for improving political decisions. We examine how performance comparisons across jurisdictions affect the agency problem resulting from uncertainty about politicians (adverse selection) and their policies (moral hazard). We study two forms of inefficiency: the provision of wasteful project and the failure to provide useful project .We find a...

This paper focuses on two core tax design issues that arise in addressing current fiscal challenges. It first explores the idea, prominent in troubled Eurozone countries, of a “fiscal devaluation”: shifting from social contributions to the VAT as a way to mimic a nominal devaluation. Empirical evidence is presented which suggests that in Eurozone countries this may indeed improve the trade bala...

Documentation IZAΨMOD: The IZA Policy SImulation MODel This paper describes IZAΨMOD, the policy microsimulation model of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). The model uses household microdata from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study and firm data from the German linked employer-employee dataset LIAB. IZAΨMOD consists of three components: First, a static module simulates the effects of ...

This paper characterizes a stationary Markov-perfect political equilibrium where agents vote over income taxation that distorts educational investment. Agents become rich or poor through educational investment, and the poor have a second chance at success. The results show the following concerning the cost of a second chance. First, when the cost is low, the economy is characterized by high lev...

We study the benefits of private entrepreneurs entering into politics in China. Using original hand-collected data on political participation of entrepreneurs that control listed firms, we document evidence of rent seeking through their political networks and several potential channels through which rent seeking is realized. It is shown that political participation results in increased stock pe...

Abstract We measure U.S. listed companies’ skilled labor risk—that is, the potential failure in attracting and retaining labor, by intensity of discussions on this issue 10-K filings. show that effectively captures firm risk due to mobility labor. find an increase from 25th 75th percentile would wage 22% (or $15,593) also lead higher equity-based incentive pay. The interacts with other corporat...

JEL Classification Code(s): J 31, J 71) "Perceptions of Discrimination, Effort to Obtain Psychological Balance, and Relative Wages: Can We Infer a Happiness Gradient?" There is a substantial literature that finds a linkage between happiness and relative economic well being as measured by earnings or wages. There is also a well documented racial gap in wages. One explanation for this is disparat...

The hoped-for silver lining of euro-area austerity programs was to raise external competitiveness and improve current accounts. Using product- industry-level data for 12 countries over the period 1999–2018, we show that reductions in government spending reduce prices wages but only products with low import content industries export shares. This leads asymmetric expenditure switching, net export...