This paper considers the potential impact of welfare benefits on the partnership status of women in the UK. Using recent policy reforms to identify the response rate I find that a GBP100/week welfare benefit "partnership penalty" reduces the probability of a woman having a partner by seven...

Most governments will have to raise additional resources to deal with the aftermath of the corona crisis. This paper argues that excise duties on drinking, smoking, gambling, sugar-sweetened beverages, plastics, fossil fuels, motoring, telecoms and platforms are the preferred instruments. In...

We review the theoretical justification of consumption taxes in advanced economies, providing a systematic overview of the vast public finance literature exploring how goods and services should be taxed. Our discussion focuses on both the determinants of the optimal level of consumption taxation...

We analyze equally competitive spouses competing for promotion in their respective workplaces and show that an asymmetric equilibrium featuring household specialization can arise. Examples where the asymmetric equilibrium is welfare-superior to the symmetric equilibrium are highlighted. By...

We consider an economy in which some taxpayers behave in a Kantian way in their donation behavior while others are Nash players. A Kantian taxpayer holds the norm that any suggested deviation from a proposed equilibrium profile would be adopted by him only if when all members of their community...