There is clear evidence that fairness plays a role in redistribution. Individuals want tocompensate others for their misfortune, while they allow them to enjoy the fruits of their effort.Such fairness considerations have been introduced in political economy and optimal incometax models with a...

This paper proposes a new unified theory of sociobehavioral forces. The goal of the new theory isto integrate theories describing five sociobehavioral processes - comparison (including justiceand self-esteem), status, power, identity, and happiness - bringing under a single theoreticalumbrella...

This paper develops a framework for studying individuals ideas about what constitutes justcompensation for chief executive officers (CEOs) and reports estimates of just CEO pay andthe principles guiding ideas of justice. The sample consists of students pursuing a Master ofBusiness Administration...

This paper studies the mental distress caused by bereavement. The largest emotional lossesare from the death of a spouse; the second-worst in severity are the losses from the death ofa child; the third-worst is the death of a parent...

The optimal design of low income support is examined using a structural labour supplymodel. The approach incorporates unobserved heterogeneity, fixed costs of work, childcarecosts and the detailed non-convexities of the tax and transfer system. The analysis considerspurely Pareto improving...

This paper examines how a change in the generosity of one social assistance programgenerates spillovers onto other social assistance programs. We exploit an age discontinuityin the stringency of the 1993 Dutch disability reforms to estimate the causal effect of exit fromdisability insurance (DI)...

The literature assessing the efficacy of the Food Stamp Program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has long puzzled over positive associations between food stamp receipt and various undesirable health outcomes such as food insecurity. Assessing the impact of food...

This paper explores how cross-sectional data can be exploited jointly with longitudinal data,in order to increase estimation efficiency while properly tackling the potential bias due tounobserved individual characteristics. We propose an innovative procedure and we show itsimplementation by...

Many aspects of the economic transition which started in 1989 in Poland are by nowcomplete. However, the route Polish governments have so far taken concerning the systemof support for low-income families still implies very different poverty alleviation schemescompared to those found in many...

Throughout the developing world, there is a desperate quest for a way out ofthe financial predicament confronting the rural poor. In most countries of thedeveloping regions, especially South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the ruralpopulation forms the larger proportion of the entire population and...