We illustrate a novel informational feature of education, which the government may utilize. Discretionary decisions of individuals to acquire education may serve as an additional signal (to earned labor income) on the underlying unobserved innate earning ability, thereby mitigating the...

Redundancy payments for collective dismissals are incorporated into a Shapiro-Stiglitz model of efficiency wages. It is shown that a fixed payment will lower wages, leave employment and welfare unaffected if there are no wage-dependent taxes, no additional firing costs and if unemployment...

We analyse the implications of habit formation relating to wages in a multi-period efficiency-wage model. If employees have such preferences, their existence provides firms with incentives to raise wages and reduce employment over time. Greater intensity does not necessarily have the same...

A strictly risk-averse individual with an exogenous gross income in period one can acquire human capital in the same period and evade taxes. Period-two income rises with educational investments in period one and can also be hidden from tax authorities. It is shown that a greater tax...

Empirical evidence suggests that charitable contributions to public goods may be driven not only by the familiar warm-glow of giving motive but also as a means for businesses to signal high product quality. Building on this finding, we present an analytical framework that characterizes the...

Empirical evidence suggests that charitable contributions to public goods by businesses may be driven not only by the familiar warm-glow of giving motive but also as a means for businesses to signal high product quality. Building on this finding, we present an analytical framework that...

We present a new theory of wage adjustment, based on worker loss aversion. In line with prospect theory, the workers' perceived utility losses from wage decreases are weighted more heavily than the perceived utility gains from wage increases of equal magnitude. Wage changes are evaluated...

Relative consumption effects or status concerns that feature jealousy (in the sense of Dupor and Liu, AER 2003) boost consumption expenditure. If consumption is financed by labour income, such status considerations increase labour supply and, hence, the tax base. A higher taxable income, in...

Traditionally, it has been argued that profit sharing can increase employment and welfare because it lowers marginal labour costs without reducing total cost or labour income. In this paper, we show that profit sharing can also represent a Pareto-improvement if labour supply is excessive due to...