The social performance of fiscal redistributive mechanisms in Canada continues to receive a growing interest from politicians and research scientists. The aim of this paper is to assess the evolution of social classes in Canada and to check whether the market and governmental redistribution...

This paper studies the microeconomics of child vulnerability to kidnapping in an environment where child protection is produced through a private effort, a public investment and a foreign aid. We first show that in absence of public investment and foreign aid, private investment in child...

This paper uses the French family quotient ("quotient familal") reform of 1995 to analyse the impact of the individual income tax on marriage behavior and labor supply decisions. An important feature of this reform was the cancellation of fiscal subsidies aimed at cohabitant couples with...

This paper shows that a temporary incentive to join the labor market or to work more can also produce substantial life-cycle labor supply effects. On September 1997, a new childcare policy was initiated by the provincial government of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada....

This paper relates unique data on criminal records of local politicians in India to corruption, crime and poverty. Using a regression discontinuity design, whereby individuals living in districts where a criminal politician barely won are compared to individuals living in districts where a...

Effects of a low-fee universal childcare policy, initiated in Québec, the second most populous province in Canada, on the cognitive development of preschool children are estimated with a sample of 4- and 5-year-olds (N=8,875; N=17,154). In 1997, licensed and regulated providers of childcare...

Education is often promoted as the solution to poverty in the developing world. Yet, fiscal discipline has led to reductions in public spending on education. We examine the poverty impacts of a cut in public subsidies to higher education, accompanied by corresponding tax cuts, in a general...

To increase mother’s participation in the labour market and enhance child development, the Canadian province of Québec developed from 1997 a large scale low-fee childcare network. Previous studies have shown that the policy has significantly increased the labour force participation and annual...

On September 1st, 1997, a new childcare policy was initiated by the provincial government of Quebec, the second most populous province in Canada. Childcare services licensed by the Ministry of the Family (not-for-profit centres, family-based childcare, and for-profit centres under the agreement)...

More than ten years ago the province of Québec implemented a universal early childhood education and care policy. This paper examines if the two objectives pursued, to increase mothers’ participation in the labour market (balance the needs of workplace and home) and to enhance child...