A flat tax rate on income has gained popularity in European countries. This paper assesses the attractiveness of such a flat tax in achieving redistributive objectives with the least cost to labour market performance. We do so by using a detailed applied general equilibrium model for the...

This discussion paper has led to a publication in the <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272710000721">'Journal of Public Economics'</A>. The quality of public management is a recurrent concern in many countries. Calls to attract the economy's best and brightest managers to the public sector abound. This paper studies self-selection into...</a>

Many street-level bureaucrats (such as caseworkers) have the dual task of helping some clients, while sanctioning others. We develop a model of such a street-level bureaucracy and study the implications of its personnel policy on the self-selection and allocation decisions of agents who differ...

This paper explores the meaning and implications of the desire by workers for impact. We find that this impact motive can make a firm in a competitive labor market face an upward-sloping supply curve of labor, lead workers with the same characteristics but at different firms to earn different...

Civil servants have a reputation for being lazy. However, people's personal experiences with civil servants frequently run counter to this stereotype. We develop a model of an economy in which workers differ in laziness and in public service motivation, and characterise optimal incentive...

Gender differences in preferences regarding social relationships and competitive environments are well documented in psychology and economics. Research also shows that social relationships and competition among co-workers are affected by the incentive schemes workers are exposed to. We combine...

This paper examines the consequences of creating a fully competitive market in a sector previously dominated by a cost-minimizing public firm. Workers in the economy are heterogeneous in their intrinsic motivation to work in the sector. In line with empirical findings, our model implies that...

The U.S. unemployment rate has remained stubbornly high since the 2007-2009 recessionleading many to conclude that structural, rather than cyclical, factors are to blame. Relying on astandard job search and matching framework and empirical evidence from a wide array of labormarket indicators, we...

We introduce and apply a method for estimating workers' marginal willingness to pay for job attributes employing data on job search activity. Worker's willingness to pay for the remaining duration of the employment contract is derived. We provide evidence that workers attach substantial value to...

This discussion paper led to a chapter in: (A.B. Atkinson, F.J. Bourguigson (Eds.)), 2014, 'Handbook of Income Distribution', volume 2B, North Holland, Elsevier, chapter 18, 143 pages.<P> We examine the relationship between income and health with the purpose of establishing the extent to which the...</p>