Employing the canonical political agency model, this Paper studies the incentives of the government to provide high-quality services by reducing corruption. Acting as a principal in a moral hazard framework, the public disciplines the incumbent by replacing him if the generated output is...

In this paper we demonstrate that in addition to its acknowledged screening role, workfare—namely, introducing work (or training) requirements for welfare eligibility in means-tested programs—also serves to mitigate income misreporting by welfare claimants. It achieves this goal by...

In this paper, we discuss a novel aspect of affirmative action policy. We examine its redistributive role, asking whether in an egalitarian society, supplementing the tax-transfer system with an affirmative action policy would enhance social welfare. We demonstrate that affirmative action could...

In this paper, we explore how the government can play a role in affecting the compensation policies of private firms in a manner that complements its income tax policies. We illustrate how this role of the government can be served by minimum wage legislation. Copyright Springer Science +...

The Paper examines the time sequencing of UI benefits in a general equilibrium framework, with random matching and endogenously determined wages. A key feature of the model is that policymakers exploit random matching to produce some assortative matching through UI policy. The Paper considers a...