In 2016, the South African government introduced a comprehensive reform to simplify and harmonize the pension system in order to incentivize pension savings and increase the fairness of the retirement system. Using administrative tax micro-data, we assess the impact of the 2016 reform and find...

Entitlement programs have become an increasing component of total government spending in the US over the last six decades. To some observers, this growth of the welfare state is excessive and unwarranted. To others, it is a welcome counter-acting force to the rapid increase in income inequality....

A Danish tax reform, decided in May 2009 and taking effect from the beginning of 2010, lowered the marginal tax rate on top bracket taxable income from 63% to 56%. Because contributions to pension accounts are tax deductible, the reform provided an incentive to increase pension contributions...

This paper examines the effects of management practices on effective tax rates (ETR) in a sample of medium and large manufacturing firms in Ecuador. We use a novel data set on management practice scores matched with administrative tax data from the Superintendence of Companies and the Internal...

No good comparable data on sizes of cultural sectors of the countries of Europe exist. Still, local and national governments of Europe spend substantial resources on culture and cultural sectors contribute significantly to employment and national income. After briefly describing special features...

There are many instances in nature of animals having a form of property rights, a respect for mine and thine. This paper addresses the question of how a norm of respecting property rights can emerge within a group of individuals without access to third party enforcement. Building upon work in...

This papers develops a theory of intergenerational exchange for generations that are either selfish or have non-dynastic altruism. The main building blocks of the theory are forward and backward intergenerational goods (FIGs and BIGs) and the relationship between them. A FIG is a transfer from...

This paper creates a game theoretic model to determine how pendulum arbitration or baseball arbitration impacts the incentives of litigants. Pendulum arbitration is when both parties submit competing proposals and the arbitrator chooses only one of the bids, in its entirety, to be binding on...

This essay reviews new histories of the role of game theory and rational decision-making in shaping the social sciences, economics among them, in the post war period. The recent books "The World the Game Theorists Made" by Paul Erickson and "How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind" by Paul Erickson,...