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An optimal linear world income tax that maximizes a border-neutral social welfare function provides a drastic reduction in world consumption inequality, dropping the Gini coefficient from 0.69 to 0.25. In contrast an optimal decentralized (i.e., within countries) redistribution has miniscule...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012469524
This paper studies the effect of foreign aid on economic stabilization. Following Alesina and Drazen (1991), we model the delay in stabilizing as the result of a distributional struggle: reforms are postponed because they are costly and each distributional faction hopes to reduce its share of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012474234
Because of their more limited inequality and more comprehensive social welfare systems, many perceive average welfare to be higher in Scandinavian societies than in the United States. Why then does the United States not adopt Scandinavian-style institutions? More generally, in an interdependent...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012460215
How do foreign interests influence the policy determination process? What are the welfare implications of such foreign influence? In this paper we develop a model of foreign influence and apply it to the study of optimal tariffs. We develop a two-country voting model of electoral competition,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012464516
We develop a property-rights model of the firm in which production entails a continuum of uniquely sequenced stages. In each stage, a final-good producer contracts with a distinct supplier for the procurement of a customized stage-specific component. Our model yields a sharp characterization for...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012460498
This paper explores the roles of different levels of government in assisting the poor. Using a model with utility interdependence, the paper presents some theoretical results on how levels of poor relief vary with the extent of mobility of the poor under both centralized and decentralized...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012477364
In the new millennium, the Western aid effort towards Africa has surged due to writings by well-known economists, a celebrity mass advocacy campaign, and decisions by Western leaders to make Africa a major foreign policy priority. This survey contrasts the predominant "transformational" approach...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012464285
This essay surveys the evidence on the linkages between globalization and poverty. I focus on two measures of globalization: trade and international capital flows. Past researchers have argued that global economic integration should help the poor since poor countries have a comparative advantage...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012466318
this line of research to Asia. Japan imposed its system of well-defined property rights in land on some of its Asian … colonies, including Korea, Taiwan and Palau. In 1939 Japan began to survey and register private land in its island colonies, an … land registration obsolete. Third, considering all of Japan's colonies, we use the presence or absence of a land survey as …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012462106
The Marshall Plan (1948-1952) was the largest aid transfer in history. This paper estimates its effects on Italy's postwar economic development. It exploits differences between Italian provinces in the value of reconstruction grants they received. Provinces that could modernize more their...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012794565