The welfare state is generally viewed as either providing redistribution from rich to poor or as providing publicly-financed insurance. Both views are incomplete. Welfare policies provide both insurance and redistribution in varying amounts, depending on the design of the policy. We explore the...

Why do individuals choose different types of post-secondary education, and what are the labor market consequences of those choices? We show that answering these questions is difficult because individuals choose between several unordered alternatives. Even with a valid instrument for every type...

In the period from 1970 to 2002, Norwegian women moved out of the home and into the paid labour market. The paper investigates the e®ect of this social change on women's economic position and on individual income in-equality. It argues that the distribution of individual incomes is of equal...

This paper explores the existence of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) in 19 OECD countries, over the period 1973–1999, using data for hourly nominal wages at industry level. Based on a novel nonparametric statistical method, which allows for country and year specific variation in both the...

This paper proposes a dynamic politico-economic theory of debt, government finance and expenditure. Agents have preferences over a private and government-provided public good, financed through labour taxation. Subsequent generations of voters choose taxation, government expenditure and debt...