This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on capital and labor incomes in a life-cyclemodel of human capital investment, financial savings, and labor supply with heteroge-nous individuals. A dual income tax with a positive marginal tax rate on not onlylabor income but also capital income is...

In the Netherlands, the USA and Australia public funding has promoted parental choice by introducing a voucher for child care, where parents are free to choose the provider. The policy experiments in these three countries and the outcomes provide useful information about the consequences of...

See also the publication in the <I>European Economic Review</I>, 2002, 301-327.<P> The paper considers a two-country model of overlapping generations heterogenouseconomies with intergenerational transfers carried out in the form of bequest and investmentin human capital. We examine in competitive...</p></i>

The paper studies the determinants of income distribution and growth in an overlapping generations economy withheterogenous households. Our framework has the following main features:heterogeneity of consumers with respect to wealth and parental human capital;intergenerational transfers,...

We develop models of optimal linear and non-linear income taxation with endogenous human capital formation to explore optimal education subsidies. Optimal subsidies on education ensure efficiency in human capital accumulation and thus play an important role in alleviating the tax distortions on...

In this paper we employ techniques developed in spatial econometrics to analyse spatial patterns of technology diffusion, to detect clusters and to estimate theoretical models that incorporate space explicitly. These techniques correct for misspecifications resulting from the omission of spatial...

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...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <A href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10645-005-2933-4">'De Economist'</A>, 2005, 153(2), 139-165.<P> How much does a nation spend on resources to 'grease the wheels of trade'? To examine this question the Dutch economy is used as an exemplary case as the Netherlands are known as a nation of traders. This...</p></a>