Microeconomic theory predicts that under certain regularity conditions higher idiosyncratic risk increases the propensity to insure against independent marketable risks. We apply these predictions to the specific case of labor income risk and car insurance using data from the UK. The main...

This paper surveys major empirical regularities concerning changes in earnings inequality in Europe and the U.S. over the past 25 years. Next, it indicates which of these regularities can be explained within the competitive demand-supply framework of analysis and what is left unexplained....

This paper considers education investment and public education subsidies in closed and open economies with an extortionary government. The extortionary government in a closed economy has incentives to subsidize education in order to overcome a hold-up problem of time consistent taxation, similar...

This paper contributes to the debate on the effects of trade versus technological change on wage differentials. We propose an explanation of the stylized facts which is based on interactions between openness and technological change because of labor market institutions and government...

This paper compares education investment in closed and open economies without government and with a benevolent government. The fact that the time consistency problem in taxation can make labor mobility beneficial even if governments are fully benevolent - which is known from other contexts - is...