There are two important problems in welfare benefit programs: the prevalence of welfare fraud, in which ineligible people receive welfare benefits, and incomplete take-up, whereby eligible poor people are reluctant to claim welfare benefits. This study investigates both of these opposing...

We study state dependence in welfare receipt and investigate whether welfare transitions changed after a welfare reform. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we apply dynamic multinomial logit estimators and find that state dependence in welfare receipt is not a central feature of...

Using a laboratory experiment, we present first evidence that stigmatization through public exposure causally reduces the take-up of an individually beneficial transfer. Our design exogenously varies the informativeness of the take-up decision by varying whether transfer eligibility is based on...

We study the design of parental leave systems through the lens of an estimated model of parents’ joint willingness to pay for parental leave. We estimate the model using Danish register data on almost 200,000 births combined with sharp variation in economic incentives created by the parental...

There is a strong intergenerational correlation in welfare participation, but this does not imply that parental welfare receipt induces child receipt. While there are a few quasi-experimental studies that provide estimates of the causal effect of parental welfare participation for children from...

We study the intergenerational transmission of welfare benefit receipt in Germany. We first describe the correlation between welfare receipt experienced in the parental household and subsequent own welfare receipt of young adults. In a second step, we investigate whether the observed...

This paper examines strategic incentives to subsidize green energy in a group of countries that operates an international carbon emissions trading scheme. Welfare-maximizing national governments have the option to discriminate against energy from fossil fuels by subsidizing green energy,...

An important puzzle in corporate taxation is that effective tax rates have fallen significantly while tax revenue has simultaneously risen in most countries. Moreover, the gross profitability of firms seems to be lower in high-tax countries, even though standard models of international...

This paper presents concepts from economic analysis that shed light on the formation and breakup of sovereign states. First, we discuss the key trade-off between economies of scale in the provision of public goods and political costs from heterogeneity of preferences. Second, we present four...