The European Union is the world's largest trader, a fact that on the face of it ought to convert into considerable clout in international commercial negotiations. Yet, since the World Trade Organization's (WTO's) creation in 1995, it is difficult to point to a string of successes for the...

The routine way of anticipating the effects of the corporate (profit) tax on investments and location choice is to calculate the effective marginal and average tax rates. This paper introduces a model of monopolistic competition to show how investment on the extensive and intensive margins...

We study the role of reciprocity in a labor market field experiment. In a recent paper, Gneezy and List (2006) investigate the impact of gift exchange in this context and find that it has only a transient effect on long run outcomes. Extending their work to examine both positive and negative...

This paper provides a concise overview of the state of the art on monetary policy and central banking from a public choice perspective. It starts with a brief look at the roots of today's view of monetary policy conduct and the design of pertinent institutions in early work on political business...

We investigate the effects of the most important East German active labour market programmes on the labour market outcomes of their participants. The analysis is based on a large and informative individual database coming from administrative data sources. Using matching methods, we find that...

There is an ongoing discussion in Germany about the implementation of tax credits in order to reintegrate low-skilled workers into the labor market. This paper aims at analyzing the policy instrument of tax credits in a theoretical model that systematically compares the costs and benefits in the...

Since taking office the Administration of George W. Bush has pursued a trade policy known as Competitive Liberalization. This policy envisages a series of mutually-reinforcing steps to open markets abroad to U.S. companies, to strengthen market-oriented laws and regulations overseas, and to...

This note argues that nonparametric regression not only relaxes functional form assumptions vis-a-vis parametric regression, but that it also permits endogenous control variables. To control for selection bias or to make an exclusion restriction in instrumental variables regression valid,...

We estimate short, medium, and long-run individual labor market effects of training programs for unemployed by following program participation on a monthly basis over a ten-year period. Since analyzing the effectiveness of training over such a long period is impossible with experimental data, we...

This paper looks at how income tax rates, consumption and public spending respond as venues for tax evasion open or close. The analysis draws on a 16-generation OLG model in which tax rates are determined in a repeated game between voters and a rent-seeking Leviathan government. Key insights...