The observed “soft†coordination at European and national level has hindered progress in terms of raising social welfare and reducing the risk of poverty in EU. This is a source of concern given that the fruits of economic efficiency should be shared by the individuals and Member...

The observed “soft” coordination at European and national level has hindered progress in terms of raising social welfare and reducing the risk of poverty in EU. This is a source of concern given that the fruits of economic efficiency should be shared by the individuals and Member States of...

Besley (1988) is one of the few exceptional articles containing non-welfarist optimal tax devices. Feehan (1990) reports an error in his first-best rules. The present note argues that Besley's second-best rules optimize the welfare of phantom agents rather than the corrected welfare of real...

Besley (1988) is one of the few exceptional articles containing non-welfarist optimal tax devices. Feehan (1990) reports an error in his first-best rules. The present note argues that Besley's second-best rules optimize the welfare of phantom agents rather than the corrected welfare of real...

This paper measures the impact of production of traded agricultural products on households'''' welfare and poverty in rural Vietnam. It is found that the production of rice has very small and not statistically significant impact on household income and expenditure. However, the production of...

This paper provides a simple general equilibrium model with productive public spending and distorting taxes. The optimal conditions for the provision of public inputs are obtained under different tax systems. Also we discuss which factors affect the marginal cost of public funds.

A new method of empirically computing the macroeconomic returns to public investment is proposed. Pereira's (2000) technique is modified, and a measure which accounts for both public and private investment costs is suggested. An empirical application to US data shows that differences between...

Merging procurement auction data with an employment dataset for highway construction firms in Texas, we provide evidence on the link between government construction spending and firm-level job creation in the highway construction industry during 1999-2006. Our results suggest that firms expand...

This article develops a theoretic analysis of the delicate relationship between wealth, economic confidence and preferences for redistribution. In our model, citizens are concerned with the risk of unemployment, but are also concerned about current income. A first result shows that this...

While a number of papers have addressed the costs and benefits of conscription, only one paper - Warner and Negrussa (2005) - considers the social welfare costs that result from efforts to illegally evade the draft. In this note, we address legal draft evasion - in particular, the use by of...