We revisit the classical result that financing a pure public good through taxation of private consumption is inefficient. To this standard setup we add a consumption contest in which consumers can win a prize. We show that an appropriately chosen contest - which we call a 'tax lottery' - can...

This paper analyses the interdependence of policy uncertainty from 1985 to 2017 across six different categories of US economic policy: Monetary, fiscal, healthcare, national security, regulatory, and trade policy. To this end, we apply the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012, 2014) connectedness index...

Politicians seeking reelection need voters to know what they have done for them. Thus, incentives may arise to spend more money where media coverage is higher. We present a simple model to explain the allocation of public spending across jurisdictions contingent on media activity. An incumbent...

In early 2004, the Presidential study group, - a bipartisan commission of statesmen, diplomats, legislators, scholars, and experts - was conveyed to examine the state of the Middle East and the effectiveness of U.S. policy in advancing U.S. interests in that region. According to the report it...

Recent research has shown that the standard labor matching model hasdifficulties in reproducing the co-movement patterns observed in US data. Thisis due to the fact that the standard model lacks sufficient propagation of shocks.This paper shows that refining the informational structure of the...

This paper develops a large-scale, dynamic life-cycle model to simulate Russia's demographic and fiscal transition under favorable and unfavorable fossil-fuel price regimes. The model includes Russia, the U.S., China, India, the EU, and Japan+ (Japan plus Korea). The model predicts dramatic...

We propose a model of charity competition in which informed giving alone can explain quality heterogeneity across similar charities. It is this heterogeneity that also creates the demand for information. In equilibrium, too few donors pay to be informed; but interestingly, informed giving may...

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the significance of the activity run by philanthropic organizations in Poland for the benefit of society and the economy in the light of the social welfare of governmental organizations. Verification of hypotheses was conducted using different...

The financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession created unprecedented federal budget deficits in recent years. In fact, these events, combined with subsequent slow growth and two continuing unfunded wars, have resulted in a national debt that is out of control by all meaningful measures....