This Paper analyses the general equilibrium implications of reforming pay-as-you-go pension systems in an economy with heterogeneous agents, human capital investment and capital-skill complementarity. It shows that increasing funding in the long-run delivers higher physical and human capital and...

This paper studies the effects of labour income taxation on growth in an OLG model where both formal schooling and child care enter the human capital production function as complements. We compare them with the effects obtained in a model where only formal schooling matters for skill formation....

This paper shows that electoral incentives deter politicians from supporting trade liberalization. We focus on all major trade bills introduced since the early 1970s in the U.S. Congress, in which House and Senate members serve respectively two- and six-year terms and one third of senators face...

Fast Track Authority (FTA) is the institutional procedure in the Unites States whereby Congress grants to the President the power to negotiate international trade agreements. Under FTA, Congress can only approve or reject negotiated trade deals, with no possibility of amending them. In this...

This paper analyzes welfare-state determinants of individual attitudes towards immigrants - within and across countries - and their interaction with labor-market drivers of preferences. We consider two different mechanisms through which a redistributive welfare system might adjust as a result of...

This paper develops a theory of the endogenous formation of a common market in a three-country, two-factor political economy model. In the status quo, Home and Foreign implement non-discriminatory policies towards international factor flows, as to maximize the domestic median voter's welfare....

In democratic societies individual attitudes of voters represent the foundations of policy making. We start by analyzing patterns in public opinion on migration and find that, across countries of different income levels, only a small minority of voters favour more open migration policies. Next...

This paper analyzes how the sequential formation of free trade areas affects the volume of trade between member countries. In a three--country, three--good model, if two countries have a free trade area, and both sign a similar agreement with the third, trade between the two decreases, and...

Immigration is one of the most hotly debated policy issues in the United States today. Despite marked divergence of opinions within political parties, several important immigration reforms were introduced in the post 1965 era. The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze the drivers of...

Empirical evidence suggests that sectoral export growth decreases exporters' survival probability, whereas non--exporters are unaffected. Models with firm heterogeneity in total factor productivity predict the opposite. To solve this puzzle, we develop a two--factor framework where firms differ...