Government-run entities are often more labor-intensive than private companies, even with identical production technologies. This need not imply slack in the public sector, but may reflect a wage tax advantage, stemming from the fact that government entities (partly) pay their taxes to...

Religious participation is much more widespread in the United Statesthan in Europe, while Europeans tend to view sects more suspiciouslythan Americans We propose an explanation for these patterns withoutassuming differences in preferences or market fundamentals We study areligious market where...

We study the military draft as a form of intergenerational redistribution, taking into account endogenous human capital formation. Introducing the military draft initially benefits the older generation while it harms the young and all future generations. As it distorts human capital formation...

Using data from 1960 to 2000 for OECD countries, we analyze the effect of compulsory military service on the demand for higher education, measured by the fraction of the working-age population enrolled in tertiary education. Based on a theoretical model, we hypothesize that a military draft has...

Economic theory predicts that military conscription is associated with static inefficiencies as well as with dynamic distortions of the accumulation of human and physical capital. Relative to an economy with an all-volunteer force, output levels and growth rates should be lower in countries that...

We propose a dynamic general-equilibrium model with human capital accumulation to evaluate the economic consequences of compulsory services (such as military draft or social work). Our analysis identifies a so far ignored dynamic cost arising from distortions in time allocation over the life...