This paper argues that the degree of monetary flexibility a government enjoys does not only depend on the implemented monetary institutions such as exchange rate arrangements and central bank independence but also on the economic and financial relationships with key currency areas. I develop a...

Contrary to the belief of many, tax competition did not undermine the foundations of the welfare state and did not even abolish the taxation of capital. Instead, tax competition caused governments to shift the tax burden from capital to labor, thereby increasing income inequality in liberal...

This paper attempts at giving theoretical and empirical answers to the remaining puzzles in the literature on tax competition: the persistently high tax rates on mobile capital and the large variation in domestic tax systems. I argue that governments face a political trilemma, in which they...

This paper analyzes how opportunistic governments choose between alternative fiscal policies in order to increases their chances of re-election. To increase the provision of public goods shortly before elections – and thus, to generate a fiscal political business cycles – governments may...

Objectives. We examined the effects of market income inequality (income inequality before taxes and transfers) and income redistribution via taxes and transfers on inequality in longevity. Methods. Life tables were used to compute Gini coefficients of longevity inequality for all individuals and...