Estimating the responsiveness of charitable donations to changes in tax incentives is more than estimating a single number. Giving to charity is unlike normal consumption – it involves supporting the delivery of privately-provided public goods. Age and income may influence how tax incentives...

Using a large administrative dataset from Canada we estimate that the tax price elasticity of charitable donations is -1.9. When we allow for heterogeneity of this parameter across the income distribution, we observe a large elasticity at the bottom of the distribution between -3 and -4, and an...

Unemployment insurance (UI) distorts firms' layoff decisions by reducing the cost of laying off workers. To dampen this increase, it has been suggested that UI should be financed with an experience-rated tax. Despite the fact that increasing the level of experience rating can reduce...

Unemployment insurance (UI) distorts firms' layoff decisions by reducing the cost of laying off workers. To dampen this increase, it has been suggested that UI should be financed with an experience-rated tax. Despite the fact that increasing the level of experience rating can reduce...

The role of township-owned enterprises in the rapid growth of the Chinese economy during reform is widely acknowledged. Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, these firms began to be privatized. Perhaps the most striking feature of this process is that it has not occurred uniformly across...

This paper looks at the incentives to free-ride on the information signaling of others and shows how this can lead to delay in productive activity and to a cascade of activity once information is signaled. In the presence of increasing returns to scale to a profitable project, an initial pioneer...

This paper looks at the incentives to free-ride on the information signaling of others and shows how this can lead to delay in productive activity and to a cascade of activity once information is signaled. In the presence of increasing returns to scale to a profitable project, an initial pioneer...

In this paper, we construct a simple model that illustrates a perverse effect associated with plea bargaining in which an increase in sanctions can lead to reduced deterrence. This finding is derived from the interaction of binding budgetary constraints and plea bargaining. In an environment...