Politicians may use disguised' redistributive policies in order to circumvent opposition to explicit tax-transfer schemes. First, we present a theoretical model that formalizes this hypothesis; then we provide evidence that in US cities, politicians use public employment as such a redistributive...

We examine racial discrimination in the New Deal by examining access to work relief. The Federal Government prohibited racial discrimination in work relief programs. However, eligibility was determined by local and state administrators. We estimate Black-white gaps in work relief access...

This paper begins by identifying nominal price stickiness as the logical basis for the Keynesian or activist point of view concerning demand management policy. It then characterizes two alternative approaches to policy analysis that have been adopted by adherents of the Keynesian position, the...

Most governments are mandated to maintain their economies at full employment. We propose that the best marker of full employment is the efficient unemployment rate, u*. We define u* as the unemployment rate that minimizes the nonproductive use of labor--both jobseeking and recruiting. The...

Rothstein has produced two comments, Rothstein (2003) and Rothstein (2004), on Hoxby "Does Competition Among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers," American Economic Review, 2000. In this paper, I discuss every claim of any importance in the comments. I show that every claim is wrong. I...

In an influential paper, Hoxby (2000) studies the relationship between the degree of so-called "Tiebout choice" among local school districts within a metropolitan area and average test scores. She argues that choice is endogenous to school quality, and instruments with the number of larger and...

Estimates of democracy's effect on the public sector are obtained from comparisons of 142 countries over the years 1960-90. Based on three tenets of voting theory -- that voting mutes policy preference intensity, political power is equally distributed in democracies, and the form of voting...

Most government expenditure is on goods that yield primarily private benefits, such as education, pensions, and healthcare. We argue that markets are most advantageous in areas where high-powered incentives are desirable, but in areas where high-powered incentives stimulate unproductive...

We examine the changing relationship between unionization and wage inequality in Canada and the United States. Our study is motivated by profound recent changes in the composition of the unionized workforce. Historically, union jobs were concentrated among low-skilled men in private sector...

Public sector absenteeism undermines service delivery in many developing countries. We report results from an at-scale randomized control evaluation in Punjab, Pakistan of a reform designed to address this problem. The reform affects healthcare for 100 million citizens across 297 political...