We analyze the formality benefits through productivity-enhancing public goods. We document that: benefits from formality matter for firms’ optimal decisions; there is a disconnect between the objectives of maximizing formality versus welfare; this disconnect is mitigated under higher formality...

In a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, this note shows that beyond a certain low level, financial development is associated with higher relative consumption–income volatility in the presence of a working capital constraint. Informality on the other hand...

Using a novel dataset on 2012 tax inspections by the Hellenic Ministry of Finance in tourist and high economic activity areas in 13 regions in Greece we find significant evidence that the intensification of tax audits can induce tax compliance.

We consider a dual labor market with a frictional formal sector and a competitive informal sector. We show that the size of the informal sector is generally too large compared to the optimal allocation of the workers. It follows that our results give a rationale to informality-reducing policies.

A home production model that explicitly accounts for taxes and public expenditures on day-care and elder-care, substitutes for work households perform at home, is used to evaluate the welfare implications of alternative public expenditure policies. Both subsidy and workfare policies are welfare...

We use a unique data set of trust game replications to validate the commonly used “trust” question from the World Values Survey. We find that trust as measured by the World Values Survey is positively correlated with experimentally measured trust.

Many artists are prone to high unemployment and low incomes suggesting low job satisfaction. Our analysis including 49 countries paints a different picture. On average artists enjoy higher job satisfaction than other employees, mainly due to more autonomy.

We study the welfare implications of public information precision in a beauty contest framework allowing for optimal stabilization policies and information obfuscation. When policy makers’ ability to obfuscate information is constrained, increasing public information precision can be welfare...

This note shows that when the designer of a contest wishes the winner have high ability, she is better off giving a head start to one of the contestants even if they are ex-ante identical. If the contestants are ex-ante asymmetric, the designer should give a head start to the one who is more...

We study a model of strategic persuasion based on the theory of cheap talk, in which a better-informed agent manipulates two decision-makers’ joint decision on alternative proposals. With the heterogeneity of two decision-makers’ value of the outside option, only the decision-maker with the...