We formalize and estimate the dynamic marginal efficiency cost of redistribution (MECR) in the spirit of Okun’s “leaky bucket” to compare the MECR of an income-contingent childcare subsidy program and of the income-contingent tax and transfer schedule. We set up a dynamic structural model...

Equality of opportunity is a principle of justice that is built on two fundamental ideas. On the one hand, outcome differences across individuals are unacceptable if they are rooted in factors that are beyond individual control. Examples of such circumstance characteristics are the biological...

While much of the literature that investigates the part-time (PT) / full-time (FT) hourly wage differential and its causes focuses on average effects, very few studies analyze the heterogeneous effects of PT work across different subgroups, despite the policy relevance of understanding channels...

The increased demand for a more equal parental sharing of the responsibilities for children has led many countries to reconstruct their parental leave systems so to provide stronger incentives for fathers to participate in childcare. Father's quotas are becoming widely spread across Europe. This...

This paper examines the effect of differences in ability on the timing and number ofchildren. Higher skilled women have less disutility of labor and have relatively lessutility of raising children. Motherhood has a negative effect on the accumulation ofhuman capital by learning-by-doing and...

The paper develops a theoretical framework, and a diagrammatic apparatus, for explaining the supply of child labour. It examines the effect of credit, insurance, and poverty (defined as more than just low income). It also explains bonded child labour, a modern form of slavery closely associated...

Historically, in virtually all developed economies there seems to be clear evidence of an inverse relationship between female labor supply and fertility. However, particularly in the last decade or so, the relationship across countries has been positive: for example countries like Germany, Italy...

This paper investigates how families make decisions about the education of juveniles. The decision problem is analyzed in three variations: a 'decentralized' scheme, in which the parents control the purse-strings, but the children dispose of their time as they see fit; a 'hierarchical' scheme,...

The paper characterizes the optimal tax policy and the optimal quality of day care services in a OLG model with warm-glow altruism where parental choices over child care arrangements affect the probability that the child becomes a high-skilled adult in a type-specific way. With respect to...

Sleep is a source of energy. This energy is available in limited quantity and individuals must decide when it should be renewed and when it should be consumed. The economics of sleeping and the economics of resource extraction are one and the same. More specifically, utility maximization with...