Transferring public benefits to people in no need of them appears to be a waste of public money. Thus, there seems to be support for a move away from universal child benefits and towards means testing. This study presents a critique of this overly-simplistic view and proposes a very simple...

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 implies that the US is effectively moving towards a general child benefit. However, the amount paid out is dependent on income, similar to schemes in several other countries. In the present paper, we argue that instead of suppressing the labour supply of...

In this paper Peter Dawkins argues for the "wage-tax trade-off" proposed by the "Five Economists" as part of their policy package for reducing unemployment. As he explains, the trade-off involves using an earned income tax credit (EITC) scheme "as a way of increasing the incomes of low-wage...

Transferring public benefits to people in no need of them appears to be a waste of public money. Thus, there seems to be support for a move away from universal child benefits and towards means testing. This study presents a critique of this overly-simplistic view and proposes a very simple...

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 implies that the US is effectively moving towards a general child benefit. However, the amount paid out is dependent on income, similar to schemes in several other countries. In the present paper, we argue that instead of suppressing the labour supply of...