This work intends to specify a formula for the optimal taxation in Probabilistic Voting Models with Single Mindedness Theory. The goal is to find an equivalent expression to the Ramsey’s rule for a political economy environment where Governments are assumed to be Leviathans rather than...

Charitable tax deductions are one of the largest tax expenditures at the state and federal levels, and they are also crucial for the sustainability of the charitable nonprofit sector. Understanding some of the factors that drive changes in charitable tax deductions over time is needed to inform...

In this paper I analyse a probabilistic voting model where self-interested governments set their taxation policies in order to maximise the probabil- ity of winning elections. Society is divided into groups which have di¤erent preferences for the consumption of goods. Results show how...

This paper proposes a simple multiplicative decomposition that can help in comparing the levels of mortgage interest tax deductions observed in different states or areas, and some of the reasons leading to different levels of deductions. The key parameters in the decomposition are a state’s...

The availability of better data on time use in developing countries makes it important to provide tools for analyzing such data. While the idea of “time poverty” is not new, and while many papers have provided measures of time use and hinted at the concept of time poverty, we have not seen...

Despite long working hours, for many household members, and especially women, underemployment is nevertheless affecting a large share of the population in many developing countries. Using data on time use, wages, and consumption levels from a recent household survey for Guinea, this paper...

This very brief paper aims to provide some little microeconomic hints in order to explain the early retirement of workers. In particular, the hipothesis of quasi-concavity of the utility function, differences in wage rates and in pension benefits are all factors which may contribute to force a...

This paper deals with the impact of electoral competition on politicians' outside earnings. We propose a simple theoretical model with politicians facing a tradeoff between allocating their time to political effort or to an alternative use generating outside earnings. The model has a testable...

In this paper I will introduce a new political economy model, where there exists a competition amongst two political candidates, which aim to set a policy which enables them to win elections, max- imising the probability of winning. I will show that, if taxes neces- sary to repay the debt are...

Evidence for Malawi and other developing countries suggests the existence of labor shortages at the peak of the cropping season, with negative impacts on the ability of households to make the most of their endowments such as land. At the same time, for most of the year, there is substantial...