This paper reviews the U.S. welfare reform efforts over the 1990s and the effects of these reforms to date. Seven lessons of potential interest to European observers are discussed, with particular attention to the conclusions of more recent research. Such research indicates, for example, that...

This paper analyses the persistence and mean reversion properties of sovereign debt and its components by applying fractional integration methods to long runs of annual data starting in 1831 for the UK and the US, in 1862 for Italy and in 1881 for France and Germany, and ending in all cases in...

Using pairs of similar US and European firms listed on the S&P500 or StoxxEurope600, we examine effective tax differentials between US multinational corporations (MNCs) and their European peers. We show that statutory tax rates and profit shifting opportunities are important determinants of...

The paper uses a veil of ignorance approach and income distribution data of developed countries to arrive at inequality corrected income rankings. While a risk neutral individual (based on year 2000 data) would have preferred to be born into the US rather than any European country in our sample...

Based on a cross-national comparison, there is virtually no empirical relationship between the actual size of income inequality within a country and how critically people view these income differences. This finding is revealed by subjective inequality data on 23 European countries and the US....

We provide a treatment of a number of questions pertaining to pending patents – a subject that has so-far mainly been discussed en-passant in the existing literature. We present the underlying institutional and legal framework that governs pending patents and some basic facts related to them....