On average, child health outcomes are better in urban than in rural areas of developing countries. Understanding the nature and the causes of this rural-urban disparity is essential in contemplating the health consequences of the rapid urbanization taking place throughout the developing world...

I consider the case for the minimum wage alongside (optimal) income taxes when workers differ in both wages and working hours, such that a given level of income corresponds to multiple wage rates. The minimum wage is directly targeted at the lowest-wage workers, while income taxes are at most...

China's Industrial Transfer Policy (ITP) is a novel place-based development policy of unprecedented scale. The policy targets a set of inland cities aiming to i) grow them in size and ii) restructure them into manufacturing hubs. These cities would eventually relieve pressure in China's coastal...

In a Mirrleesian environment, a monopsonist sets hourly wages and individuals choose how many hours to work. Labor market outcomes do not only depend on the level and slope of the income tax function, but also on its curvature. A more concave tax schedule raises the elasticity of labor supply,...

We analyze the redistributional (dis)advantages of a minimum wage over income taxation in competitive labor markets, without imposing assumptions on the (in)efficiency of labor rationing. Compared to a distributionally equivalent tax change, a minimum-wage increase raises involuntary...

In many Western countries, a sizeable group of people live on welfare benefits for a long time. Many of them suffer from mental health issues. This paper studies the labor market and mental health effects of an activation program targeting these long-term inactive people. We exploit the...

I offer a way out of the Taubman-Goldberger controversy on the public policy (ir)relevance of heritability studies by arguing for a quasi-experimentally controlled comparison of the estimates that these studies provide. If the environments individuals are exposed to are under such control,...

We estimate responsibility-sensitive welfare weights for health that facilitate inequalityand inequity-sensitive policy evaluation. In a UK general population sample, 569 online experiment participants distribute constrained resources to determine the health of hypothetical individuals...

It is well known that the take-up rate of the Dutch housing benefit and othermeans tested benefits is substantially below 100%. In order to measure non-take up oneusually has to simulate entitlement to the benefits. In this paper we take a closer look atthe quality of the simulation. We find...

The Commonwealth of Virginia abolished parole and reformed sentencing for all felony of-fenders committed on or after January 1, 1995. We examine the impact of this legislationon reported crime rates using different time series approaches. In particular, structuraltime series models are...