We consider taxation by a utilitarian government in the presence of heterogeneous locations within a country. We show that a utilitarian government never equalizes after-tax incomes, even when it can impose group-specific lump-sum taxes. If migration is impossible, a utilitarian government may...

We study the returns to political office using data from Finnish parliamentary elections in 1970-2007 and municipal elections in 1996-2008. The discontinuity of electoral outcomes in individual candidate votes allows us to estimate the causal effect of being elected on subsequent income. Getting...

This paper identifies several distortions which create barriers to entrepreneurship. First, in addition to the innate entry cost, there are entry costs caused by regulation. Second, union wage policies raise the opportunity cost of entrepreneurship. Third, inefficiencies in the transmission of...

This paper develops a theory of consumer boycotts. To affect a firm’s ethical behavior, moral consumers refuse to buy from an unethical firm. Consumers who do not care about ethical behavior may join the boycott to (falsely) signal that they do care, increasing the disciplinary power of...

We consider the effects of income redistribution when people can migrate from one country to another, and when land within each country is heterogeneous. Taxes related to income can then affect property values, and can induce migration, which further affects property values. We show that under...