There has been surprisingly little empirical work explaining why countries choose different bundles of taxes. Early research by Musgrave and Hinrichs focused on the amorphous distinction between direct and indirect taxes. More recent research has examined the use of trade taxes and inflation,...

This paper is the first to systematically document the relationship between individual teacher performance incentives and student achievement using United States data. We combine data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey on schools, students, and their families with our own survey...

Understanding the nature of political competition is a central issue in political economy. This paper offers an explanation for observed variation in the competitiveness of U.S. Senate elections since direct elections to the Senate became fully effective in 1922. We deliberately abstract away...

Legalizing abortion can either increase or decrease investments in childrens human capital. This article finds that abortion increases the number of out-of-wedlock births. Using data that more directly links the criminal with age when the crime was committed, not age when arrested, and fixing...

It is frequently assumed that safe storage gun laws reduce accidental gun deaths and total suicides, while the possible impact on crime rates are ignored. However, given existing work on the adverse impact of other safety laws, such as safety caps for storing medicine, even the very plausible...

"In the Grutter case, Justice O'Connor suggested that universities could justifiably try to enroll a "critical mass" of minority students. Enroll fewer than that "critical mass," reason some observers, and minority students will feel too marginalized to perform at their highest levels. In this...