This paper investigates the feasibility of measuring the efficacy of programs designed to move welfare recipients into jobs using administrative records on individual program participation linked with state records on individual earnings. Like many states, Missouri collects quarterly earnings...

In earlier literature, the suggested Pareto improvements in pay-as-you- go (PAYG) systems have relied on the presence of externalities or the possibility of intragenerational redistribution. We show that neither assumption is necessary in an economy with intergenerational trade in a fixed factor...

The recent reform of the federal welfare system is meant to encourage recipients to leave welfare and enter the workforce. If the reform is successful there are likely to be effects felt throughout the low-- skilled end of the labor market. As former welfare recipients enter the labor market,...

The aim of this paper is to test if electoral systems and human development are linked. Using high quality data and very simple panel data econometric techniques, we show that electoral systems play a critical role in explaining the difference in the levels of human development between...

Public opinion surveys conducted since 1977 in Japan are usually interpreted as showing decreasing support among the Japanese population for Official Development Assistance (ODA), and possibly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cabinet Office of Japan have justified recent cuts in ODA...

If, in international agreements, governments “link'' trade to environmental policy (or other issues with non-pecuniary externalities), will this promote more cooperation in both policies or will cooperation in one policy be strengthened at the expense of the other? We analyze this question in...

Does there exist a connection between the political power and the tax administration? In this paper, we offer empirical evidence from Spain that there exists. First, the Spanish regional tax administration is not immune to the budgetary situation of the regional government, and tends to exert a...

Corruption scandals seem to abound in countries that have recently undergone reform. Despite the proliferation of stories in the news media, no one has examined whether reform—be it democratization or economic liberalization or both—actually causes an increase in corruption. Theory provides...

The article proposes an enabling mechanism for the creation, adjustment and dissolution of governmental units, giving autonomy to each resident as in a direct democracy. Rather than focusing on a narrow model with restrictive and specialized assumptions, and subsequent solutions, as has been...

The paper presents an index of globalization covering its three main dimensions: economic integration, social integration, and political integration. Using panel data for 123 countries in 1970-2000 the effects of the overall index of globalization as well as sub-indexes constructed to measure...