Economic theory suggests that incentives matter for people's decisions. This paper investigates whether this also holds for less self-evident areas of life such as the timing of births. We make use of a nautral experiment when the German government changed its parental benefit system January 1,...

In this paper, we study the short-run effect of salary receipt on mortality among Swedish public sector employees. By using data on variation in pay-days across work-places, we completely control for mortality patterns related to, for example, public holidays and other special days or events...

This paper provides evidence on the long run relationship between European settlers presence and education levels in Algeria. To correct for endogenous sorting of settlers (and natives) into regions I rely on the fact that proximity to the Mediteranean coast determined the timing of conquest and...

Despite being a very hot subject in the public debate, the causes behind the increase in social assistance (SA) in the 1990s are relatively unknown. In this paper, I try to investigate if the increase is in part a result of an increase in the propensity to receive SA. Despite what is usually...

The probability of income loss depends on talent and effort. Effort has positive externalities and therefore individuals are awarded status in proportion to their perceived diligence. The social norm requires more effort from individuals perceived as more talented. But talent is private...

The incidence and efficiency losses of taxes have usually been analyzed in isolation from public expenditures. This negligence of the expenditure side may imply a serious misperception of the effects of marginal tax rates. The reason is that part of the marginal tax may in fact be a payment for...

The incidence and efficiency losses of taxes have usually been analyzed in isolation from public expenditures. This negligence of the expenditure side may imply a serious misperception of the effects of marginal tax rates. The reason is that part of the marginal tax may in fact be a payment for...

The paper discusses which redistributional policies are efficient when the identity of the high and low skill persons is private information. Our major purpose is to identify the more efficient policy when, presumably for administrative reasons, the policy option is confined to the choice...