We provide an explanation for why estate taxation is surprisingly little used over the world, given the skewness of the estate distribution. Taxing estates implies meddling with intra-family decisions, which may be frown upon by many. At the same time, the concentration of estates means that a...

Consider an economy populated by males and females, both rich and poor. The society has to choose one of the following marriage institutions: polygyny, strict monogamy, and serial monogamy (divorce and remarriage). After having identified the conditions under which each of these equilibria...

Several developed countries are witnessing a trend towards an increasing gap in the earnings between skilled and unskilled workers. Though it is widely recognised that human capital formation programs through education and training should be strengthened in the presence of increasing wage...

We study the political economy of social insurance in a world where individuals differ in both income and risk. Social insurance is financed through distortionary taxation and redistributes across income and risk. Individuals vote on social insurance which they can complement with insurance...

This paper presents a political economy approach to payroll tax competition between countries adopting different systems of social insurance. It considers two such systems: the Bismarckian one where benefits are partially linked to payroll taxes and the Beveridgean one where benefits are fiat. A...