We examine a system of Unemployment Insurance Saving Accounts (UISAs) as an alternative to the traditional unemployment insurance system. Individuals are required to save up to 4 percent of wages in special accounts and to draw unemployment compensation from these accounts instead of taking...

This paper begins by discussing the nature of and rationale for social insurance programs. I then consider three political principles and four economic principles that could guide the design and reform of social insurance programs. These ideas are then applied to unemployment insurance, Social...

The Medicare program of health care for the aged now costs more than $5,000 per enrollee, a national cost of more than $200 billion a year. The official projections that these costs will rise rapidly from 2.5% of GDP now to 5.5% of GDP in 2030 and 7% of GDP in 2070 assume that structural changes...

This paper describes the risks implied by a mixed system of Social Security pension benefits with different combinations of pay-as-you-go taxes and personal retirement account (PRA) saving. The analysis shows how these risks can be reduced by using alternative private market guarantee...

We present a conceptual framework to better understand the interaction between settlement and the emergence of de facto property rights on frontiers prior to governments establishing and enforcing de jure property rights. In this framework, potential rents associated with more exclusivity drives...

We extend the literature on interest group behavior and policy outcomes by examining how groups with limited resources (votes and campaign contributions) effectively influence government by manipulating media information to voters. Voters in turn lobby politicians to implement the group's...