This paper applies three different methods widely used in the literature to track changes in shadow economic activity in Georgia following a drastic tax reform in 2005. The first method is a currency demand approach based on macro level data. The second and third methods rely on micro data from...

This paper estimates the welfare and distributional impact of two types of welfare reform in the 15 (pre-enlargement) member countries of the European Union. The reforms are revenue neutral and financed by an overall and uniform increase in marginal tax rates on earnings. The first reform...

How will international integration affect welfare policies? This paper considers the possibilities of financing public sector activities (public consumption and social security expenses) by general (wage) taxation in an economy which becomes more integrated in international product markets. Even...

Several contributions have recently assessed the size of fiscal multipliers both in RBC models and New Keynesian models. None of the studies considers a model with frictional labour markets which is a crucial element, particularly at times in which much of the fiscal stimulus has been directed...

How will international integration affect welfare policies? This paper considers the possibilities of financing public sector activities (public consumption and social security expenses) by general (wage) taxation in an economy which becomes more integrated in international product markets. Even...

Several contributions have recently assessed the size of fiscal multipliers both in RBC models and New Keynesian models. None of the studies considers a model with frictional labour markets which is a crucial element, particularly at times in which much of the fiscal stimulus has been directed...

We study optimal income taxation in a framework where one's willingness to report his income truthfully is positively correlated with his type. We show that allowing low-productivity types to cheat leads to Pareto-superior outcomes as compared to deterring them, even if audits can be performed...

While there is an extensive literature on tax evasion a further aspect of cheating on the state, namely benefit fraud, has gained relatively modest attention in the economic literature. This paper seeks to fill this gap. We explore differences between benefit fraud and tax evasion due to...

Several theoretical contributions, starting with McElroy and Horney (1981) and Manser and Brown (1980), have suggested to model household behavior as a Nash-bargaining game. Since then, very few attempts have been made to operationalize cooperative models of household labor supply for policy...