We try to explain the differences between the performance (in both reading and math) of 8430 15-year-old daughters and 8526 15-year-old sons in 17 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development destination countries across Europe and Oceania with the PISA 2009 data from 45 origin...

What shapes the optimal degree of progressivity of the tax and transfer system? On the one hand, a progressive tax system can counteract inequality in initial conditions and substitute for imperfect private insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk. At the same time, progressivity reduces...

What shapes the optimal degree of progressivity of the tax and transfer system? On the one hand, a progressive tax system can counteract inequality in initial conditions and substitute for imperfect private insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk. At the same time, progressivity reduces...

This paper studies a growth model with public and private education alternatives. The impact of education vouchers for economic growth and the evolution of income inequality are considered. Results indicate that introducing education vouchers can increase economic growth. Households switching...

This paper uses a growth model with public and private education alternatives to investigate the implications of education voucher for economic growth and the evolution of income inequality. The results indicate that introducing education vouchers can increase economic growth. families that...

This paper presents a non-parametric microsimulation methodology for assessing the determinants of changes in income inequality and poverty. One great advantage of this method over alternatives is that it is not very demanding in terms of modelling labour supply and household behaviour while...

This paper studies the impact of income inequality on fiscal conservatism when an increase in inequality affects the bottom portion of income distribution. It is argued that, contrary to what is generally assumed in the economic literature, inequality will then be associated with less, rather...

We study the evolution of an educational system founded on a hierarchical differentiation between vocational and general education, with vocational playing an inferior role in the society. The dynamics are best summarized by the ratio of the fraction of the population in vocational to that in...

We study the evolution of an educational system which is founded on a hierarchical differentiation between technical and general education, with a superior social status attached to general. The resulting dynamic political equilibrium is best summarized by the ratio of vocational to general...