Students in some countries do far better on international achievement tests than students in other countries. Is this all due to differences in what students bring with them to school - socio-economic background, cultural factors, and the like? Or do school systems make a difference? This essay...

The paper uses a veil of ignorance approach and income distribution data of developed countries to arrive at inequality corrected income rankings. While a risk neutral individual (based on year 2000 data) would have preferred to be born into the US rather than any European country in our sample...

We utilise repeated cross sections of micro data from several countries, available from the Luxembourg Income Study, LIS, to estimate labour supply elasticities, both at the intensive and extensive margin. The benefit of the data is that it spans over four decades and includes a large number of...

This paper investigates the development of local public finance in Germany, Switzerland, Poland and the United Kingdom. In this context important characteristics of municipal expenditures and revenues are examined in these countries. Differences in government structure (i.e. unitary or federal)...