This paper evaluates the heterogeneous effect of health insurance on out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure (OOPHE), using merged data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey and Ghana Health Service reports. It applies conditional-mixed process and censored quantile instrumental variable...

Using a laboratory experiment, we present first evidence that social image concerns causally reduce the take-up of an individually beneficial transfer. Our design manipulates the informativeness of the take-up decision by varying whether transfer eligibility is based on ability or luck, and how...

In several OECD countries, public pay-as-you-go financed pension systems have undergone major reforms in which future retirement benefit promises have been scaled down. A consequence of these reforms is that especially in countries with a tight tax-benefit linkage, the retirement benefit claims...

In this paper, we study how the tax-and-transfer system reduces the inequality of lifetime income by redistributing lifetime earnings between individuals with different skill endowments and by providing individuals with insurance against lifetime earnings risk. Based on a dynamic life-cycle...

In developing societies, social norms typically ascribe differential weights to paternal, maternal and communal (or state) contributions to children’s expenses. Individuals internalize these valuations. I examine a Cournot model of voluntary contribution to children’s goods in a twoadult...

Since the 1994 devaluation, growth has been quite strong in Mali (about 5% p.a. on average), but much weaker in terms of GDP per person (about 2.6% p.a.) due to a very high index of fecundity. Growth is still very unstable, due to a large share of agriculture in GDP and very sensitive to...