This paper offers an explanation for the widespread phenomenon of uniform public schooling, which is viewed here as a way for the government to precommit itself to restraints on future income redistribution. Such precommitment is likely to enhance accumulation of human capital, to bolster...

We use PSID data to 2008 to consider changes in the intergenerational elasticity (IGE) of income in fifteen successive ten-year cohort-groups of sons aged 36-45 between 1997 and 2011. Regressing sons' estimated lifetime income on fathers' income within each group, we obtain fifteen IGE...

To what extent do imposed institutions shape preferences? We consider this issue by comparing the market-versus-state attitudes of respondents from a capitalist country, Finland, and an ex-communist group of Baltic countries, and by arguing that the period of communist rule can be viewed as an...