A worker can contribute pre-tax dollars to a private pension plan. Under a progressive tax, this feature reduces income taxes. Ippolito (1986} argues that an individual in 1979 can reduce lifetime taxes by 20%. We re-examine his analysis using the complete time-series of US income tax history...

This paper provides a broad empirical examination of the major currencies' roles in international capital markets, with a special emphasis on the first year of the Euro. A contribution is made as to how to measure these roles, both for international financing as well as for international...

Using a data-set that provides unprecedented details on individual investors’ stockholdings, we analyse whether investors take into account corporate governance when they select stocks. After controlling for the supply effect via free float and other firm characteristics, we find that all...

In recent years, venture capital has increasingly become a factor in the financing of new firms. We examine how the value of mature firms determines the incentives of entrepreneurs to start up new firms and of venture capitalists to finance and advise them. We examine how capital gains taxes as...

This paper analyses the changes to the tax and social security systems that have occurred since Czechoslovakia's `velvet revolution' in 1989. It shows how the tax system is moving to meet the requirements of a market economy. It suggests that a particularly high priority has to be given to...

We study the recent evolution of top incomes in Switzerland, analyzing both social security data on labor incomes and tax data on total income. The results show that in the last 20 years, the share of top incomes has risen, and the top 0.01 percent’s share even doubled, putting Switzerland...

What would be the aggregate effects of adopting a more generous and universal childcare subsidy program in the U.S.? We answer this question in a life-cycle equilibrium model with heterogeneous married and single households with three key features: (i) joint labor-supply of married households...

We use micro data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to document how Federal Income tax liabilities vary with income, marital status and the number of dependents. We report facts on the distributions of average taxes, properties of the joint distributions of taxes paid and income, and...

Policies to promote marriage are controversial, and it is unclear whether they are successful. To analyze such policies, it is essential to distinguish between a marriage that is created by a marriage-promoting policy (marginal marriage) and a marriage that would have been formed even in the...