This paper develops and calibrates a simple general equilibrium model with two types of labor and capital for the French economy. The simulation results indicate that targeted reductions in employer social security taxes have six times as large an effect on employment as untargeted reductions...

In designing policy measures, including possible social safety nets, targeted to the poor, it is important to fully understand the efficiency implications of these measures. There is abundant macroeconomic literature on their negative effects on the poor’s work effort. The literature, however,...

Labor regulations are important determinants of resource allocation, productivity, and labor market outcomes. They can protect workers’ rights, enhance job security, and improve working conditions. However, overly restrictive regulations can also increase business costs, becoming barriers to...

This paper uses a simple model to analyze the forces that determine the size of the public sector and the quality of workers employed in that sector. Workers are heterogeneous, and the public sector chooses an employment strategy that maximizes a social welfare function U(s, Y) that depends on...

We provide a framework for analyzing the choice between optimal and robust monetary policy rules in the presence of paradigm uncertainty. We first discuss the conditions on uncertainty that render a robust rule preferable to an optimal rule. Second, we show how the degree of risk aversion of the...

With much healthcare publicly funded, Hong Kong''s rapidly aging population will significant raise fiscal pressure over coming decades. We ask what the implications are of meeting these costs by public funding, or private funding voluntarily or through mandates. Our simulations suggest that...

Large inflows from the European Union to the New Member States are likely to significantlyimpact macroeconomic outcomes. In this paper, we use the IMF''s Global Integrated Monetaryand Fiscal model (GIMF) to analyze the impact of the transfers and show the conditionsunder which they would help...