Using panel regression for the period 1970-2000 the paper analyzes whether globalization has influenced the OECD countries’ social and overall spending as well as their tax rates on labor, consumption and capital. Accounting for potential endogeneity of the regressors, the results show that...

The main rationale for fiscal policy rules is the concern for long term sustainability of public finances, that in a monetary union may affect the other members. Among many other criticisms, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) has been seen as contradictory or incomplete because it focuses on...

In this paper we use a simple model to analyze the forces which determine the size of the public sector and the quality of workers employed in that sector. Workers are heterogeneous, and the public sector chooses an employment strategy which maximizes a social welfare function $U(s,Y)$ which...

The paper derives a normative model for partial fiscal equalisation based on a number of axioms and makes special allowance for the existence of a specific fiscal need in the jurisdictions. A simple version of this idealised equalisation scheme relates net contri-butions to the equalisation...

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...

This paper studies the impact of external factors on daily exchange rates and short-term interest rates in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland during the period August 1997 – May 2001. I find that neither exchange rates nor interest rates are influenced by short-term German interest rates....

This paper investigates underlying causes of the debt crisis that only surfaced with Mexico’s unilateral moratorium on her foreign obligations in 1982. The paper investigates the evolutionary trend of LDC debt and the consequences for lenders, borrowers and the international financial system....

This paper considers the methodology of measuring replacement rates, comparing simulation based approaches, which simulate replacement rates for a representative sample of the population, with other approaches that simulate replacement rates for "typical" families or are entirely based on...

This paper deals with a case study on the social security system in a transition economy in Ukraine. The severe socioeconomic crisis in Ukraine, including a huge decline of production, hyperinflation, and the informalization of the economy, caused both a substantial reduction of social security...

The accelerated development in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and Grid computing has positioned them as promising next generation computing platforms. They enable the creation of Virtual Enterprises (VE) for sharing resources distributed across the world. However, resource management, application...